Only 7% of agricultural innovation investment targets environmental outcomes, finds cosai study

Colombo, August 20, 2021

With the world’s population set to grow beyond 9 billion by 2050, and with climate change making it harder to grow food in many areas, the Global South must find ways to increase food production while limiting or reversing its environmental impact. Despite this, only an estimated 7% of current innovation spending in agriculture explicitly targets environmental outcomes, according to a new innovation investment study from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI).

The evidence follows CoSAI’s investment gap study, published August 13, which found that investing an additional USD 15.2 billion in sustainable agricultural innovation each year – a fraction of the estimated USD 700 billion that governments already spend annually to subsidize farming – could significantly lower…

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