Study On Key Areas Agricultural R﹠D Grant In China

Agricultural R&D funding is the key to driving innovations in agricultural technologies and promoting the progress of agricultural technologies, and also an important measurement of a country’s or a region’s level of agricultural technologies. China’s agricultural R&D funding is seriously inadequate whether in terms of the total amount or of the relative amount in different areas. This has become a key factor hindering agricultural development in China. As the main body of China’s agricultural technological funding, the government plays an important role in leading the development of agricultural technologies. Identifying Chinese government’s key areas and aspects for agricultural R&D funding is relevant to creating a scientifically sound mechanism for agricultural R&D funding, increasing the efficiency of agricultural R&D funding, and improving the level of agricultural technologies.Guided by China’s strategy for the development of agricultural technologies in the new era, based on related theories on the development of agricultural technologies and allocation of research resources, and using methods such as literature research, historical analysis, comparative analysis, econometric model analysis, empirical research, and questionnaires, this article probes into the status quo and problems of agricultural R&D funding in China, and conducts economic rationality analysis on level classification for agricultural R&D funding by forming risk and benefit models based on the basic functions and principles in this field; designs an indicator system to identify and select the key areas for agricultural R&D funding and to analyze and determine the investment priorities under the main research direction in these areas; defines the main countermeasures of agricultural R&D funding for these key areas based on a survey of the research organizations of the Ministry of Agriculture, through building the path analysis model. The innovative research of this article is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:First, the agricultural scientific research level and evolution process are revealed, based on which the risk and benefit models for spending on agricultural science and technology are established, to conduct economic analysis to define the levels of such spending (i.e., basic research, generic technology research for development, and generic technology research for application) made by the Chinese government according to its functions in the allocation of agricultural scientific and technological resources, and to come up with the indicator system and methods for identifying technologies associated with the three levels, providing the basis for selecting the key areas for agricultural R&D funding.Second, the priorities of agricultural R&D funding under the main research direction in the key areas are determined using four-quadrant analysis. After the key areas for agricultural R&D funding are determined, the main research direction in these areas is divided into four quadrants, including the area requiring full support the government, the area requiring prior support from the government, the area requiring joint support from the government and enterprises, and the area requiring policy guidance from the government. This article analyzes the characteristics and factors of the area in each quadrant, establishes the indicator system for determining the investment priorities, and sorts these priorities based on the indicator system.Third, the main countermeasures for China’s government funding for the key areas are identified using the total factor analysis model. This article conducts full analysis on the direct relationship between various funding factors and research results and on the indirect relationship between funding factors with respect to public agricultural research units by building the path analysis model, suggests that increasing government investment in basic conditions for agricultural science research is the key to further integrating different disciplines, optimizing research resource allocation, identifying the concentrated research directions, and advancing important researches, and uses the research organizations of the Ministry of Agriculture as examples to conduct empirical analysis.The conclusions of this article are of great theoretical and practical significance to adjusting China’s general thoughts for agricultural R&D funding in the future, identifying the key agricultural technologies for government funding, demonstrating the government’s role in triggering agricultural R&D funding, and reducing the extruding effect of government in agricultural R&D funding...