Two critical issues in the broader agro-food industry were financing, and research and development. The principal supporting institutions were the Land Bank and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC). Land Bank, the principal developing finance institution in agriculture, had been dogged by major governance problems, while the ARC's role has diminished to the extent that the private sector, and in particular, multinationals such as Monsanto, PHI, and Syngenta, have now surpassed the ARC as the principal providers of new research technology to industry.