How Investing in Agricultural Innovation Can Help us Achieve the SDGs

By: Intan Hamdan-Livramento

Investing in agricultural innovation is one key to achieving the SDGs. Find out why policymakers should continue to invest in agricultural R&D and create incentives and mechanisms for private sector participation.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

complexity-and-sdgs — Image: lamyai/iStock/Getty Images Plus

The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lists seventeen action plans to address areas of strategic importance for humanity and the planet.

15 of the 17 SDGs can be met by investing in agriculture

Improving the agricultural sector can help us meet fifteen of these seventeen goals. These goals include promoting economic growth and raising standards of living, which in turn affect our ability to access health, education, and achieve equality. It also contributes to environmental sustainability.

Intellectual property data associated with the agricultural sector shows an increasing number of agricultural technologies worldwide. It indicates the potential transformative impact these technologies can have on what and how we farm, what we eat, and how we ensure the sustainability of the sector.

IP-protected agricultural innovation is booming

Total number of applications filed under patent and utility model, plant patent, and plant varieties equivalent protection systems, 2000-2021

Source: World IP Report (2024), Chapter 3.

But it only illustrates a subset of the agricultural innovation worldwide.

For the agriculture sector to meet the global needs of a growing world population, policymakers need to continue to invest in agricultural R&D. They will also need to put in place policies that would help the private sector to disseminate and commercialize agricultural innovation.

Here’s why:

Investing in agriculture is beneficial

Governments that invest heavily in agriculture see stronger economic growth, declining poverty rates, and better nutritional status.

Since three-quarters of the global poor live in rural areas and depend on agriculture as their main source of income, growth in the agriculture sector would alleviate poverty and raise income levels. One study estimates that a one percent increase in agricultural income level would increase a country’s overall income by three to four times more than a similar increase in the non-agricultural sector.

Returns to agricultural innovation is lucrative

Investing in agricultural innovation is profitable.

Economists examining the impact of public spending on agricultural research and development (R&D) estimate an internal rate of return of between six to nearly 80 percent.

Simply put, a dollar invested in AgTech generates six additional dollars, conservatively, and 80 dollars, based on generous estimation, per year.

This range is large because of the wide variety of R&D projects in agriculture, but also because estimating it is challenging.

Some of these difficulties are due to the delay between when the research is concluded, the deployment of the innovation, and when the innovation bears fruit (pun intended).

There is also the challenge of capturing consumer gains from the affordability of agricultural commodities. These are notoriously difficult to estimate, especially if they reside on the other side of the world.

Take the Green Revolution as an example. Conceived in the 1960s, the benefit of the Green Revolution is still being felt today. The Green Revolution marked the spread of agricultural technologies that increased the crop yields of rice and wheat worldwide. It made these grains affordable for many and helped stave off hunger in many parts of the world.

Improvements in agriculture can be sustainable

At the same time, agriculture is vital in ensuring developmental and environmental sustainability as it touches on many human- and environmental-related matters. The sector's reliance on natural resources of land, water, and the environmental ecosystem in its production value chain implies the importance of ensuring the sustainability of these scarce resources in perpetuity. Ironically, growth in the sector is one of the main contributors to environmental pollution and degradation. Agricultural activities account for 22 percent of the global greenhouse gas emission.

However, a new wave of digital technologies is making farming practices more sustainable. Many farmers across the world are increasingly adopting precision technologies to help them manage their resources better and in more sustainable manner.

What can policymakers do?

Since every economy has an agricultural sector, policymakers have an opportunity to reach their SDGs through investing in agricultural innovation.

First, policymakers can continue to invest in building the local innovative capabilities in the innovation ecosystem of their agriculture industry. This includes investing in the universities and research institutions, training the next generation of agricultural innovators and fostering collaboration across disciplines, research institutions and even with the private sector.

Second, policymakers should encourage the participation of the private sector. Creating the right incentives for the private sector can help ensure the vibrancy and sustainability of its agriculture industry.

Third, and more importantly, policymakers should create smart policies that build on their local capabilities.

To find out what policymakers else can do and gain deeper insights, sign up to participate in the launch event of the upcoming World Intellectual Property Report 2024: Making Innovation Policy Work for Development.