Deans of Agriculture say productivity in agriculture has halved in recent years, and will only grow if there's much more commitment from governments.
Iain Young, president of the Council of Deans of Agriculture, says it wants the next government to increase research funding, and also help establish extension roles at the universities, to work with researchers.
"For a good idea to be developed in the lab, it takes roughly 20 years for it to be adopted on farm.
"And I think we have a duty to see if we can get that down to ten years, down to five.
"How do you do that? You bring in adoption scientists, together with strategic, and the basic scientists."
The Council of Deans of Agriculture is also calling for a Decadal Plan for Agricultural Sciences, to research drought resilience, water use, biosecurity and crop protection.
Professor Young is at University of New England, which has seen enrolments to agricultural science lift, bucking the trend of recent years.
He says there needs to be higher government co-contributions to industry levies. Instead of equal, one to one, there should be 1.5 to one, government to industry). That would give universities money they need to provide extension expertise, as is done in the United States, with the "land grant university system".
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