Can GM-Technologies Help the Poor? The Impact of Bt Cotton in Makhathini Flats, KwaZulu-Natal
نویسندگان
چکیده
— The results of a two-year survey of smallholders in Makhathini Flats, KwaZulu-Natal show that farmers who adopted Bt cotton in 1999–2000 benefited according to all the measures used. Higher yields and lower chemical costs outweighed higher seed costs, giving higher gross margins. These measures showed negative benefits in 1998–99, which conflicts with continued adoption, but stochastic efficiency frontier estimation, which takes account of the labor saved, showed that adopters averaged 88% efficiency, as compared with 66% for the nonadopters. In 1999–2000, when late rains lowered yields, the gap widened to 74% for adopters and 48% for nonadopters. 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
منابع مشابه
Biotechnology in Africa: the Adoption and Economic Impacts of Bt Cotton in the Makhathini Flats, Republic of South Africa
The research intends to shed some light on the polarised debate about the use of agricultural biotechnology in the developing world, especially in Africa. The research reported here charts the pattern of smallholder adoption and the agronomic/economic impact in the first two seasons of the release of a genetically-modified (GM) crop – Bt cotton – in the Republic of South Africa. The paper discu...
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