AgBioForum, vol. 18, no. 2 (2015)
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Item The potential economic impacts of herbicide-tolerant maize in developing countries : a case study(University of Missouri, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, 2015) Kalaitzandonakes, Nicholas G., 1960-; Kruse, John Robert; Gouse, MarnusIn this study, we evaluate the potential economic impact of herbicide-tolerant (HT) maize in Kenya. HT maize is essentially a new weed-control approach. The potential agronomic changes from the use of HT maize are multidimensional and subtle and must be understood within the context of Kenya's maize farming systems and the inherent crop-weed competition. We therefore begin by analyzing the current status of weed-control systems in the Kenya maize sector and review what is known about their relative effectiveness, constraints, and impact on yields and farm profitability. Next, we discuss how HT maize can change the weed-control systems of maize production, in general, as well as their economics. We also examine the accumulated experience from the adoption of HT maize in countries with many subsistence farmers and draw useful parallels for Kenya. Against this background, we then discuss how weed control, yields, and farm economics in Kenyan maize production can change from the introduction of HT maize and estimate the potential aggregate economic impacts of the technology for a 10-year period.Item Technology diffusion and adoption in cotton cultivation : emerging scenario in Gujarat(University of Missouri, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, 2015) Lalitha, N.; Viswanathan, P.K.Technology adoption in agriculture depends on the access to information by farmers. This article focuses on the diffusion of seed and pesticide technology among the Bt cotton growers in Gujarat, India.Item Socio-economic Impacts of Bt Cotton Adoption in India : evidence from panel data(University of Missouri, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, 2015) Sadashivappa, PrakashSeveral empirical studies have evaluated the farm-level and aggregate impacts of transgenic crops in developed and developing countries, however there is extensive opposition in the wider public. In particular, concerns have been raised about the performance of transgenic crops in developing counties in terms of their environmental, health, and social effects. This study addresses some of these research gaps by analyzing the effects of insect-resistant transgenic cotton in India, building on several years of data. The results indicate that Bt technology is very successful in India.Item Empirical analysis on the impact of private-sector R&D on cotton productivity in India(University of Missouri, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, 2015) Nagarajan, Latha; Pray, Carl E.; Naseem, AnwarPrivate seed firms in India have made significant investments in cotton breeding and biotechnology since the 1980s. These investments have paid off with a series of proprietary hybrids that were developed using the inbred lines based on public-sector research and breeding methods. The adoption of proprietary hybrids has rapidly increased since 1998, and by 2009-10, 95% of cotton acreage was under proprietary Bt hybrids. As a consequence of their adoption, average cotton yields have increased from 100 kg/ha in the 1950s to nearly 552 kg/ha for the 2013-14 planting season. While many micro-level studies have shown yield increases and pesticide reduction due to Bt hybrids, only a few have sought to estimate the differential impacts of proprietary hybrids from that of the Bt trait. This article seeks to estimate these differential impacts.Item The competing policy paradigms of agricultural biotechnology : implications and opportunities for emerging and developing economies(University of Missouri, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, 2015) Graff, Gregory D.; Hochman, Gal; Suntharlingam, Chubashini; Zilberman, DavidAgricultural science and technology policies -- including public funding of crop genetics research, intellectual property protections, and biosafety approvals of regulated crops -- can be understood to work together within a 'policy paradigm' to influence the innovation and adoption of crop varieties involving agricultural biotechnologies. The political-economy or public-choice approach views a given policy paradigm as a behaviorally rational response by policymakers to the range of pressures and inducements -- such as political connections, lobbying, political donations, endorsements, elections, and popular movements -- arising from the various segments of society and their respective interest groups. This article seeks to use the political-economy approach to explain why it is, almost twenty-five years after the disruptive technology of genetic engineering was first commercially deployed in crop agriculture, that most countries have a policy paradigm for transgenic crop varieties that resembles the traditional policy paradigm for the chemical pesticide industry rather than the traditional policy paradigm for the seed industry.