Jason M. Beddow

Agricultural Research, Productivity, and Food Prices in the Long Run

A reinvestment in agricultural R&D is critical to ensuring sufficient food for the world in the coming decades. In a recent update of earlier estimates (1), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations reported that more than one billion people now suffer malnutrition (2). Despite declines in food prices from their 2008 highs, local prices in many developing countries are still high by recent historical standards. Long-run trends in global food commodity prices are driven by differential rates of growth in the supply and demand for food crops, feed, and livestock products.

The potential distribution of invading Helicoverpa armigera in North America: Is it just a matter of time?

Helicoverpa armigera has recently invaded South and Central America, and appears to be spreading rapidly. We update a previously developed potential distribution model to highlight the global invasion threat, with emphasis on the risks to the United States. The continued range expansion of H. armigera in Central America is likely to change the invasion threat it poses to North America qualitatively, making natural dispersal from either the Caribbean islands or Mexico feasible. To characterise the threat posed by H. armigera, we collated the value of the major host crops in the United States growing within its modelled potential range, including that area where it could expand its range during favourable seasons. We found that the annual value of crops that would be exposed to H. armigera totalled approximately US

Agriculture. Right-sizing stem-rust research.

78 billion p.a., with US

Research investment implications of shifts in the global geography of wheat stripe rust

843 million p.a. worth growing in climates that are optimal for the pest. Elsewhere, H. armigera has developed broad-spectrum pesticide resistance; meaning that if it invades the United States, protecting these crops from significant production impacts could be challenging. It may be cost-effective to undertake pre-emptive biosecurity activities such as slowing the spread of H. armigera throughout the Americas, improving the system for detecting H. armigera, and methods for rapid identification, especially distinguishing between H. armigera, H. zea and potential H. armigera x H. zea hybrids. Developing biological control programs, especially using inundative techniques with entomopathogens and parasitoids could slow the spread of H. armigera, and reduce selective pressure for pesticide resistance. The rapid spread of H. armigera through South America into Central America suggests that its spread into North America is a matter of time. The likely natural dispersal routes preclude aggressive incursion responses, emphasizing the value of preparatory communication with agricultural producers in areas suitable for invasion by H. armigera.

Moving matters: The effect of location on crop production

Is increased support needed for wheat disease research to avert crop losses from current and future strains? Stem rust caused by Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici is a potentially devastating fungal disease that can kill wheat plants and small grain cereals but more typically reduces foliage, root growth, and grain yields [e.g., (1, 2)]. After years of success in keeping the disease at bay, new virulent races (collectively referred to as “Ug99”) have emerged, with the potential to infect much of the worlds wheat (3). Despite, or because of, the success of past research, these programs saw an eventual rundown in support (4). We estimate global wheat losses over the past 50 years absent investments in research to limit impacts of stem rust and discuss how this can inform decisions about “right-sizing” research investments.

Long-run and Global R&D Funding Trajectories: The U.S. Farm Bill in a Changing Context

Breeding new crop varieties with resistance to the biotic stresses that undermine crop yields is tantamount to increasing the amount and quality of biological capital in agriculture. However, the success of genes that confer resistance to pests induces a co-evolutionary response that depreciates the biological capital embodied in the crop, as pests evolve the capacity to overcome the crops new defences. Thus, simply maintaining this biological capital, and the beneficial production and economic outcomes it bestows, requires continual reinvestment in new crop defences. Here we use observed and modelled data on stripe rust occurrence to gauge changes in the geographic spread of the disease over recent decades. We document a significant increase in the spread of stripe rust since 1960, with 88% of the worlds wheat production now susceptible to infection. Using a probabilistic Monte Carlo simulation model we estimate that 5.47 million tonnes of wheat are lost to the pathogen each year, equivalent to a loss of US

Erratum: The Potential Distribution of Invading Helicoverpa armigera in North America: Is It Just a Matter of Time? (PLoS ONE (2015) 10:7 (e0133224) DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0133224)

979 million per year. Comparing the cost of developing stripe-rust-resistant varieties of wheat with the cost of stripe-rust-induced yield losses, we estimate that a sustained annual research investment of at least US

Investments in and the Economic Returns to Agricultural and Food R&D Worldwide

32 million into stripe rust resistance is economically justified.

Re-estimating South African agricultural output value, quantity and price aggregates, 1910-2010

U.S corn output increased from 1.8 billion bushels in 1879 to 12.7 billion bushels in 2007. Concurrently, the footprint of production changed substantially. Failure to take proper account of movements means that productivity assessments likely misattribute sources of growth and climate change studies likely overestimate impacts. Our new spatial output indexes show that 16 to 21 percent of the increase in U.S. corn output over the 128 years beginning in 1879 was attributable to spatial movement in production. This long-run perspective provides historical precedent for how much agriculture might adjust to future changes in climate and technology.

Food Security: Yield Gap

Domestically funded (and performed) research and development (R&D) has historically been a major source of productivity gains in U.S. agriculture, and a principal source of R&D spillovers to the rest of the world. In the waning decades of the 20th century, U.S. policymakers opted to ratchet down the rate of growth in public support for food and agricultural R&D. As the 21st century unfolds, slowing growth has given way to real cutbacks, reversing the accumulation of U.S.-sourced public R&D capital over most of the previous century and more. The 2014 Farm Bill did little to reverse these long-run research funding trajectories—politicians failed to heed the economic evidence about the still substantial social payoffs of that research and the consequent slowdown in U.S. agricultural productivity growth associated with the spending slowdown. Meanwhile, R&D spending by other countries has been moving in different directions. We present new evidence that todays middle-income countries—notably China, Brazil, and India— are not only growing in relative importance as producers of agricultural innovations through investments in public R&D, they are also gaining considerable ground in terms of their share of privately performed research of relevance for agriculture. The already substantive changes in global public and private R&D investment trajectories are accelerating. If history is any guide to the future, these changing R&D trajectories could have profound consequences for the competitiveness of U.S. agriculture in the decades ahead.