Agricultural biotechnology policies and research investments in Mexico

Abstract

This paper examines the agricultural biotechnology research situation in Mexico. In addition to providing insights into the institutional and policy evolution, it analyses a quantitative survey of biotechnology investments in the 14 most important national public and private research organisations from 1985 to 1997. During this time period, Mexico experienced a noteworthy biotechnology development and the R&D expenditures were expanded significantly. But as the number of researchers grew much faster, the expenditures per researcher shrank. Also the commercial effectiveness of domestic agricultural biotechnology research remains quite limited thus far. The main reason is probably that there are not enough incentives to orient academic research towards producing practical results and - related to this - the lack of cooperation between upstream and downstream research. A national biotechnology policy with clearly defined priorities is needed in Mexico to amend this situation.