Surveys on consumer acceptance of GM foods revealed differences in knowledge, risk perception and acceptance of GM foods in Japan, Norway, Spain, Taiwan and the United States. There were opponents and proponents of GM foods. However, even in the United States, one of the most supportive...

Increase in agricultural productivity is induced by public investment in research. Several studies have analyzed the impact of research investment at the national level but such analyses at the state or regional level are a few. The present study is an attempt to analyze the pattern and quantify...

The only commercial genetically modified (GM) subsistence food crop is white maize in South Africa, which was released in 2001/2. This paper reports on the performance of insect resistant (Bt) white maize grown by smallholders in Hlabisa, KwaZulu Natal, where the other development is minimum...

China has made a major investment in biotechnology research. Genetically modified (GM) cotton is widely adopted and the list of GM technologies in trials is impressive. At the same time there is an active debate on when China should commercialize its GM food crops. The overall goal of this paper...

The risks associated with new maize technology and the impact of mandatory cotton production on traditional farmers in Zaire's Kasai Oriental Region were evaluated with stochastic dominance analysis. Net returns for four levels of maize technology were evaluated in canbination with three staple...

Colonial agricultural research was directed mainly to. export crops rather than the major foodgrains.2 The lack of research on foodgrains is given as one of the reasons for the food shortages in the period after World War II. "Colonialism stunted indigenous agriculture by directing agricultural...

The impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on the poor in developing countries is still the subject of controversy. While previous studies have examined direct productivity effects of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton and other GM crops, little is known about wider socioeconomic outcomes. We...

This paper presents an ex ante analysis of the private and social profitability of the introduction of Bt cotton for a major cotton producing area of northern Mozambique. Cotton is especially relevant to rural poverty reduction because smallholders often have few alternative cash earning...

With the possible exception of nuclear technology, few scientific breakthroughs have generated the level of emotive debate that has surrounded the roll-out of agricultural biotechnology. Initial discussion about the environmental impacts of agricultural genetic modification, are now frequently...