This week’s news that Warwick HRI is to close its doors by 2012 is sad, but it hardly comes as a great surprise given the current crisis afflicting the R&D sector in the UK.

Warwick HRI has been at the forefront of research developments in this country’s horticultural sector for many years. But the facility is now set to bite the dust, following in the unhappy footsteps of so many of its fellow institutes, which have already found themselves thrown on the R&D scrapheap amid a distinct lack of vital funding.

We can at least hope that some of Warwick HRI’s valuable work will continue, as it is to be merged into a new School of Life Sciences on the main campus at Warwick University.

But at a time when the government is banging the food security drum louder than ever, the lack of financial support for such a facility speaks volumes about the general malaise that still seems to cloud the fresh produce sector when it comes to R&D. There are, of course, many firms investing significantly into this area, but they are generally the exception rather than the rule.

It is perfectly understandable that the commercial benefits of a reliable, well-funded R&D sector do tend to get lost among the hard realities of day-to-day trading - but the time has definitely come to sit up and take notice, before we are forced to watch yet more research facilities close their doors forever.