According to a white paper published by the Institute of Food Technologists entitled “Food Research: Call to Action on Funding and Priorities,” public spending on foundational research for both agriculture and food in the U.S. has been slowly trending downward since 2006 or so, while private R&D spending has seen a small increase.
Agrifood (agriculture and food) is the third-largest contributor to the U.S. GDP. In 2018, U.S. agrifood contributed $5.08 trillion (28.4%) to the GDP while accounting for 22.8 million jobs. However, the total U.S. investment in agrifood R&D—both private and especially public (federal) has been relatively low.