Investments in agricultural research and development: recent transformations in Brazil <span class="so-article-trans-title" dir="auto"> Translated title: Investimentos em pesquisa e desenvolvimento agrícola: transformações recentes no Brasil </span>

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Abstract

Abstract The article explores changes in volume and composition of investments in agricultural research and development (agricultural R&D) that have taken place in recent decades. It reviews the international experience and presents stylized facts about the groups of developed and developing countries. From an unpublished database of primary data, the study evaluates the dynamics of private R&D investments allocated in Brazil by companies from the agricultural input sectors. The aim of this work is to describe the recent transformations of agricultural R&D efforts in the country and to contribute with decision making processes for agricultural technological progress. The conclusions highlight the high technological intensity, the growth of private investments and the small relative participation of national companies in the technological progress of agricultural input industries in the country.

Translated abstract

Resumo O artigo explora mudanças no volume e na composição dos investimentos em pesquisa e desenvolvimento agrícola (P&D) que ocorreram nas últimas décadas. Para isso, é feita uma revisão bibliográfica da experiência internacional e apresentam-se fatos estilizados dos grupos de países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento. A partir de uma base inédita de dados primários, o estudo avalia a dinâmica dos investimentos privados em P&D alocados no Brasil por empresas dos setores de insumos agrícolas. O objetivo do trabalho é descrever as transformações recentes no país e contribuir para a tomada de decisões para o progresso tecnológico da agricultura. As conclusões destacam a alta intensidade tecnológica, o crescimento dos investimentos privados e a pequena participação relativa de empresas nacionais no progresso tecnológico de insumos agrícolas.

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Exploring multifunctional agriculture. A review of conceptual approaches and prospects for an integrative transitional framework.

H Renting, W.A.H Rossing, J.C.J Groot … (2009)

In the last decade the multifunctional agriculture (MFA) concept has emerged as a key notion in scientific and policy debates on the future of agriculture and rural development. Broadly speaking, MFA refers to the fact that agricultural activity beyond its role of producing food and fibre may also have several other functions such as renewable natural resources management, landscape and biodiversity conservation and contribution to the socio-economic viability of rural areas. The use of the concept can be traced to a number of wider societal and political transformation processes, which have influenced scientific and policy approaches in different ways amongst countries and disciplines. This paper critically discusses various existing research approaches to MFA, both from natural and social sciences. To this aim different strands of literature are classified according to their focus on specific governance mechanisms and levels of analysis into four main categories of research approaches (market regulation, land-use approaches, actor-oriented and public regulation approaches). For each category an overview of the state-of-the-art of research is given and an assessment is made of its strengths and weaknesses. The review demonstrates that the multifunctionality concept has attracted a wealth of scientific contributions, which have considerably improved our understanding of key aspects of MFA. At the same time approaches in the four categories have remained fragmented and each has limitations to understand MFA in all its complexity due to inherent constraints of applied conceptualizations and associated disciplinary backgrounds. To go beyond these limitations, we contend, new meta-level frameworks of analysis are to be developed that enable a more integrated approach. The paper concludes by presenting the main lines of an integrative, transitional framework for the study of MFA, which analyses multifunctional agriculture against the background of wider societal change processes towards sustainability and identifies a number of key elements and research challenges for this.