Most governments have cut back heavily on their financial support for agricultural research. Yet they can still find significant funds for regional development initiatives that can be simply farming research projects in disguise.
The problem is that a focus at the level of a geographic region invariably favours its land-based farm enterprises such as those producing crops and milk, rather than the pig and poultry business that are relatively more intensive.
Unfairly, therefore, it seems that state funding is being skewed away from the meat sector.