We analyze the non-pecuniary aspects of some crop biotechnologies taken from three farm-level surveys. We focus particularly on the phenomen on of part-whole bias, which is the empirical finding that the sum of the stated part-worths (the value of each nonpecuniary characteristic) is greater...

The debate about the "quasi" moratorium on the release of GMOs in the European Union is on going. One of the major arguments that were put forward to delay the release of new traits was the one for more information. In this contribution we compare the situation for Bt-maize from the 1995 and...

Rising agricultural productivity in developing countries is crucial to ease the tension of increased population and haunting concern on food security. Nevertheless the soaring price of fertilizer and sluggish dissemination of improved seed varieties prohibit the poor to tap benefits from...

During the last fifteen years, the impressive increase in the area planted with soybeans in Argentina, since the commercial release of glyphosate-tolerant varieties in 1996, has sparked a heated debate about its implications. There is wide concern about the detrimental effects of this process,...

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...