Dr West said funding from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology this year did not cover the research period requested, but he was confident scientists and the sector would prove its worth.
"I personally don't think it will be hard to re-prove its relevance."
He was speaking at the opening this week of the Christie Building at the Invermay campus which will house the new Centre for Reproduction and Genomics, a collaboration between AgResearch and the University of Otago.
It brought together scientists with a background in human and animal reproduction, as there was a crossover between human and farmed livestock biology.
Dr West said there were still many problems facing livestock farmers, issues the introduction of composite sheep breeds had not addressed.
"This economy makes money when a cow has a calf, a hind has a fawn and a ewe has one or two lambs."
The talk now was of precision lambing, getting ewes to have lambs when farmers wanted them and consistently in the numbers required.
Dairy farmers were having a growing problem of cows not getting in calf and the fawning percentage of hinds was widely considered as being too low.
The new Invermay complex was indicative of the collaborative direction AgResearch and the science sector was taking.
While the centre would look at reproduction issues, Dr West said a joint venture with Auckland University would look at how to improve growth rates.
Former AgResearch director Robin Campbell, of Southland, recently led a focus group discussion to challenge scientists with questions they felt needed to be answered.
He said at the centre's opening such questions were asked such as why alpacas gave birth on fine days and sheep on wet, stormy nights? How could the gap be closed between ovulation rates in sheep and live births, and what opportunities did twin beef cows provide?
Deer Industry New Zealand president John Scurr said improving hind fertility would be a major boost for deer farmers.