Budget will cut ag. research funds

Press, 31 May 1985, Page 13

Budget will cut ag. research funds

By

HUGH STRINGLEMAN

Government funding of agricultural research will be cut in the 1985 Budget, to be delivered by the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, on June 13.

Senior staff in the Departments of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and other research institutes concerned with the land-based industries have already had

their budget shocks and are working out ways of implementing the cuts in expenditure.

Recruitment has been suspended in the D.5.1.R., where $l5 million must be cut over the next three years from an annual budget of about $lOO million. Some of the D.S.I.R.’s 24 divisions have been told it is likely they will have to “shed” staff and mergers of divisions or divestment into the proposed Department of Environment or Heritage New Zealand are possibilities.

As 80 per cent of the department’s budget is spent on salaries, mostly of workers who have guaranteed tenure, the potential for cost-cutting is limited.

The D.S.I.R. and the Research Division of the M.A.F. have been ordered to seek much more private industry funding of agriculture research.

This directive is bound to be passed on to the big three agricultural research institutes which receive

more than $1 million a year each in grants from the D.S.I.R. — the Dairy Research Institute, Meat Research Institute and Wool Research Organisation. None of the departmental or divisional heads directly affected will comment on

the cuts to come in the Budget.

Dr John Hutton, director of the M.A.F. Research Division, said his budget had not been effectively increased for years and in fact had slightly decreased relative to inflation.

This had a substantial effect on the ability to change direction in agricultural research and the amount of discretionary expenditure was very limited. Dr Hutton estimated total Government input to agricultural research at $lOO million a year (about half the 2200 staff of the D.S.I.R. work in agricultural production or processing) and said a rough estimate of private

sector expenditure would be $3O to $4O million. The M.A.F. had been working under staff ceilings and sinking lids of some form since 1976, he said, and been asked repeatedly for greater accountability. He did not think this was necessarily a bad thing.

“Political decisions have to be made between expenditure priorities and I don’t suppose research and de-

velopment would be among the highest,” said Dr Hutton. The director-general of the D.5.1.R., Dr John Troughton, said he could not comment on current Budget moves. But he could say that there had been big changes in recent years in the way that agricultural research was funded and be would he happy to make that the subject of an article.