Authors:
Nienke Beintema, Sembhoo Chandrabose, and Sandra Perez
Year:
2017
Publisher
International Food Policy Research Institute and Food and Agricultural Research and Extension Institute
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Constant spending levels
Agricultural research in Mauritius is mostly funded by the government, supplemented by limited donor and specific project funding, and revenues from the sale of goods and services. Government funding primarily covers salaries and day-to-day operations. Total agricultural research spending (adjusted for inflation) has fluctuated somewhat over time but remained fairly stagnant during 2000–2014. The country’s intensity ratio is high, reflecting the dominance of sugar research.
Capacity concerns
Research agencies need a critical mass of high-caliber professionals to effectively generate and disseminate research outputs. Mauritius, however, has one of the lowest shares of PhD-qualified agricultural researchers in Africa. UOM-FA does not offer any PhD degree training and there is no national policy in place for funding postgraduate training abroad. Staff rely on external competitive scholarship opportunities. Government funding for additional recruitments or to fill existing vacancies is also limited.
Contraction in sugar research
Until 2012, MSIRI was an independent nonprofit institute that conducted sugar research and was funded through a commodity tax on sugar production. With the phasing out of the EU sugar protocol and the end of fixed sugar prices, tax revenues dwindled and the institute faced serious financial constraints. As a result, MSIRI now operates under the aegis of the newly formed Mauritius Cane Industry Authority, and its research mandate became sugarcane rather than sugar. The sugar industry corporations have been diversifying their activities and are massively investing in real estate projects at the expense of sugarcane cultivation.
Reform of research coordination
FAREI, formed in 2014 through a merger of AREU and FARC, has taken over FARC’s role of coordinating national agricultural research. Nevertheless, ongoing funding shortages, a prevalent issue for FARC, have prevented FAREI from assuming this role. Additional uncertainty stems from the ongoing reform of the Agricultural Services of the Ministry of Agro Industry and Food Security. Moreover, with the government’s intention to derive 50 percent of the country’s food needs through biofarming by 2019, FAREI should also reassess its institutional and research priorities.