Abstract: “Agriculture, rural areas and farmers” was a social issue that the Chinese government and scholars pay close attention to. The core competitiveness of agricultural companies play a very important role in China’s agricultural development. It was of great theoretical significance and application value to study the relationship between R&D investment and core competitiveness of agricultural companies. This study put forward three hypotheses from the relationship between R&D investment and core competitiveness, selected the data of 40 agricultural listed companies in a share from 2014 to 2018 as the sample for empirical analysis, and concluded that R&D investment of agricultural companies was significantly positively correlated with core competitiveness. Finally, the symbiosis theory was used to give solutions from the perspectives of agricultural companies, government, scientific research institution, securities companies and investors.

Key words: agricultural companies, R&D investment, core competitiveness, symbiosis theory