Authors:
Gert-Jan Stads, Sandra Perez, Cristina Iglesias, and Nienke Beintema
Year:
2016
Publisher
International Food Policy Research Institute and National Institute for Agricultural Research
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Agricultural R&D investments rose by 9 percent during 2010–2013. Nevertheless, Ecuador has one of the lowest R&D intensity ratios in South America, spending just 0.18 percent of its agricultural GDP on agricultural R&D.
Despite the considerable size of the country’s livestock, fisheries, and forestry sectors, these domains are largely overlooked by the country’s R&D agencies. Crop research dominates Ecuador’s agricultural research agenda, accounting for 85 percent of researchers’ time.
Compared with most countries in South America, Ecuadorian agricultural R&D agencies employ relatively few PhD-qualified or female researchers.