As Vannevar Bush, who served as scientific advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt, famously said: “Basic scientific research is scientific capital.”
The fact is an investigation into a particular physical, chemical, or biological process might not pay off for a year, or a decade, or at all. And when it does, the rewards are often broadly shared, enjoyed by those who bore its costs but also by those who did not.
And that’s why the private sector generally under-invests in basic science, and why the public sector must invest in this kind of research — because while the risks may be large, so are the rewards for our economy and our society.

That approach got results in the USA in the middle of the last century, and it still is in Australia now; why wouldn’t it here?

L

Some years they do not make a profit and are reliant on loans from the bank for their income.

If they survive farming for a few decades they become rich, the same way a houseowner becomes rich paying off a mortgage as the value of the property rises (*10 for a farm).

The problem with becoming wealthy in this way is that they are struggling to pay the farm mortgage and reinvest to maintain the performance of the farm itself and thus cannot easily also finance such things as R and D.

It is innovation through R and D which will addvalue to our economy.

Theres another thing you guys should consider. Given that Farmers are (as a generalisation) wealthy, and farmers are the primary benefactor from the fast foward fund isnt this really just welfare for the rich that you are promoting?

The farm sectors ability to finance of R and D is based on having the collective surplus income to do so – but our farming model places upward pressure on land values (any farm income improvement is matched by a rising cost of land). The established farmer benefits from this only when they retire (thus their income is stored in land value and not utilised in R and D funding). The new farmer barely survives the first downturn in prices (and only then if the bank is prepared to finance them through it until the land values recover with the next price upturn). Because the circumstance of farmers is so different, it is hard for such as Fonterra to formulate a way to develop capital reserves for such as R and D. Farmers naturally want to retain control of their co-operative vehicle but they have to committ to finding a way to set aside income in the good years to develop capital reserves.

A Fast Forward partnership with government might just have been one way.

Now we will have to consider a CGT on farm properties – so those leaving the industry finance the raising of the governments share of the partnership along with those still farming (in tough times there are new ways).

If the private sector is puting up some of the money (15% tax credit – most of it) or half of it in public private partnerships then I would disagree (the rewards of an investment which generate future revenues to government operate over a longer time frame than for a company).

Quite apart from this – land and water (and Kyoto) research results in efficiencies to the benefit of the economy as much to the various industries.

As for the primary sector, it is a world leader, it’s not an uncompetitive sector being propped up. This is about adding value to product through technological innovation to grow the economy.

If we do not so the R and D those who do will just buy up raw material and add value to it to their own profit – leaving us as low cost low return providers of the raw material. This will mean our resource sector will not grow as a share of the world economy as the technology advances and we will become relatively impoverished (as is already happening).

We do not spend enough on R and D and this is vital to the economic growth which affords our spending.

Tom wrote of them as “benefits” to one or other party or interest, whereas broad care for the global environment has taken a battering of disregard through the era of deregulated financial economic emphasis.

Deliberately costed out, as it were, we might well ask of the supposed wisdom in financial wizardry… might well ask well howse about getting back to the benchmark ground of human sustainability.

I’d guess that in this sense the recession’s less is (planetarily) more. And may well continue for as long as it takes to get our priorities both right and correct.

Private industry exists to make money and make money fast.So, the crux of the matter is not how much public money goes into it. Nor how much private money goes into it. The real issue would seem to be how to effect good R&D that takes account of all potential negative consequences (environmental, social etc) instead of those factors being over ridden by motives of potential profit and associated costs externalised.

The fact that R&D is seen as a cost to be externalised in the same way as negative consequences of production is a secondary issue and one that can never be satisfactorily resolved as long as it takes place within a market environment that is inimical to any R&D that does not satisfy narrow market imperatives.

If we ask whether we want substantive R&D guided by a number of principles or want it to be guided merely by its potential to generate profit for private institutions, then if the latter is the case the debate will bounce endlessly to and fro because the question becomes necessarily limited to one of funding.

Since the seventies the world has become a lot smaller, it’s no longer necessary to do all such R&D in ones backyard shed so to speak. It was pure political expediency from the former Labour govt. Back your academics, & make it appear you are doing farmers a big favour.

Everyone recognises the importance of Ag research – the problem is that increasing spending there takes money away form other areas. Other industries are entitled to research money, and there’s very good reasons for us to diversify away from primary produce, and new mothers should have the opportunity to spend time in hospital with their babies – that’s an investment in the future as well.

But feel free to fall for the farmers Us vs Aucklanders framing. You might not have noticed but they’ve been trying that on for a while now.

I also think that’s a pretty good example of how the farmers themselves can solve this sort of problem and make themselves more competitive. If your dream model is a whole lot of independent farmers running the same latest tech which the Government supplies them then I can see why you would want to subsidise them though.

Also, I think it’s a pretty big claim to say that society benefits more from the imports than the people that directly profit off them. Certainly there’s a trickle-down, but I highly doubt that it would be bigger than the cost of the subsidy. Certainly nothing I’ve read here has make me think that.

http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/truecosteconomics

From my perspective, the Fed Farmers aside from techinical industrial publications/knowledge sharing, are good at whining and not much else. It would be unrealistic to expect them to ‘invest’ in RnD, and I don’t expect that suddenly they will see the light and set up an institute. The more ‘rational’ (and productive) behaviour is to whine their way to the government doing it all for them. It’s not called corporate welfare for nothing.

I was comfortable having the last Govt set up the Fast Forward Fund. Doing so would mitigate the invetiable whining when farmers suddenly realise they need to innovate or die in the face of competition from other quarters. In this sense, the Fund was an insurance, and I’m happy to pay that insurance.