Target 2.a: Invest in rural infrastructure and research
Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
This is an investment target aimed at public and development finance. USDA ERS shows US public agricultural R&D fell by about a third from its 2002 peak to 5.16 billion dollars in 2019. It finds each public dollar historically returned about 20 dollars, and notes private R&D may partly offset the public decline. Seed and input companies, Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta and BASF, are the main private research investors. Owners can therefore steer research toward crops and regions relevant to developing countries. The extension services, rural infrastructure and gene banks named in the target, however, are overwhelmingly publicly funded. Owners help at the margin.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Investment in U.S. Public Agricultural Research and Development Has Fallen by a Third Over Past Two Decades, Lags Major Trade Competitors, USDA Economic Research Service, 2022-06-06
- Two companies accounted for more than half of corn, soybean, and cotton seed sales in 2018-20, USDA Economic Research Service, 2023-10-02
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. The Access to Seeds Index, the most likely vehicle for investor pressure on seed companies to serve smallholder farmers in developing countries, is funded by the Dutch government, the Gates Foundation and AgriCord, and its own FAQ describes no investor engagement or signatory programme. No shareholder proposal, investor coalition engagement or proxy voting policy was located that addresses agricultural research investment, extension services, rural infrastructure or gene banks in developing countries.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.