Who Adopts What Kind of Technologies? The Case of Bt Eggplant in India
نویسندگان
چکیده
Agriculture has been the engine of economic growth in developing countries, and will continue to be so in Africa and South Asia in the next decades. More than two thirds of the population live in rural areas and derive their livelihoods from agriculture. To meet the increasing food demands with declining per-capita arable land, increased agricultural productivity and product diversifications are required to ensure broad-based economic growth capable of improving the livelihoods of the poor. Research and development (R&D) in agricultural biotechnology—especially in genetically modified (GM) crops—is addressing the issue of declining or plateauing agricultural productivity. The effectiveness of this technology at different locations depends on prevailing socioeconomic, environmental, and political conditions, and thus it is difficult to generalize the costs and benefits of the adoption of GM crops. Furthermore, in countries where GM crops are accepted, adoption rates vary by crops. Microlevel studies focusing on the adoption of GM technologies targeted at developing countries are very limited. Bt hybrid eggplant, developed by Mahyco (a private seed company in India), is the first GM vegetable crop to be commercialized in India. In addition, the private company donated the Bt gene royalty-free to public institutes to develop Bt open-pollinated varieties (OPVs).1 Thus, the development of Bt eggplant in India is the first of its kind, where public and private institutes collaborate in the R&D of GM crops that are economically important for farmers in developing countries. In this context of two different forms of the technology— Bt hybrid and Bt OPV—it is important to analyze farmers’ adoption decisions, as that could provide insights on the implications for the success of the public-private partnership.
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