Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
“Biotechnology and Developing Countries”
José Falck ZepedaSenior Research Fellow
International Food Policy Research Institute - Program for Biosafety Systems (IFPRI - PBS)
Presentation made at Georgetown University, April 2015
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Content
1. Background and conceptual framework
2. Biotechnology as a tool
3. GM biotechnology as the regulated technology
4. Socioeconomic assessment experiences
5. Concluding comments
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
The challenge ahead To feed 9 billion people by 2050
Would require increase in production
Higher demands
will need to rely on
Productivity
increases
rather than
land expansion
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
“New” constraints
• Erosion, water and irrigation problems• Climate change => Global warming?• Soil fertility• Urbanization and land being retired from production• Consumer concerns about intensive agriculture: Organic, Fair
Trade • Competition from biofuels production• Social, philosophical, ethical and religious concerns over the
food production system • Concerns over globalization and corporate control of
agriculture• …
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
The Green Revolution
• Transformation of agriculture during 1940s-1970s that lead to significant increases in yields
• Firmly based on:– Agricultural production needs to keep
pace with population growth
– Agricultural sciences philosophy of maximizing production per unit of land
– Plant breeding developments of the late 19th early 20th centuries
• Initially focused on a few crops (Wheat, rice, maize) but has been expanded
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
The Green Revolution: Frame of Mind
• Haiti Can’t- be-saved
• Egypt Can’t-be-saved
• The Gambia Walking Wounded
• Tunisia Should Receive Food
• Libya Walking Wounded
• India Can’t-be-saved
• Pakistan Should Receive Food
- Paul and William Paddock, 1967 book
“Famine 1975!”
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Norman Bourlag: Father of the Green Revolution
• Developed the wheat program that later became CIMMYT in 1963
– Shuttle breeding– Incorporate short-stature genes into
wheat– Increased yield and rust resistance in
wheat
• Mexico:– 1948 self sufficient wheat producer– 1965 Net exporter
• Won Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 and World Food Prize
• Genesis of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research ( CGIAR)
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Green Revolution: Successes
• Significant increases in yields and production– From 1950 to 1992, the world’s grain output rose from 692 million tons
produced on 1.70 billion acres of cropland to 1.9 billion tons on 1.73 billion acres
– India: food production increased from 50 to 205 million tons during the last 5 decades
– But, barely happened in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Economic output per hectare increases significantly
• 30% increase in cereal and calorie availability per person
• Poverty reductions—some studies show this is attributed to GR raising farmers incomes
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Green Revolution: Social and Economic Criticisms
• Does not address underlying social, cultural, ethnical and institutional constraints that create vulnerability and thus affect livelihoods– Is hunger and food insecurity a question of production or unequal
distribution of resources?
• Increased mechanization affected rural labor employment• Debt effects and credit institutions necessary• Technology not scale neutral
– Uneven adoption as larger/wealthier farmers adopted first capturing larger share of benefits
• Landowner/Landholder displacement• Dependence on pesticides and fertilizers
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Green Revolution: Environmental/Ecological Criticisms
• Loss of agricultural biodiversity, not so clear effect on wild biodiversity– Focus on few crops => monocultures
• Increased used of pesticides and the pesticide treadmill
• Increased use of fertilizers• Irrigation
– Negative impacts of salinization, damage to soils, and lowering of water tables
– Need to build dams and irrigation systems
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Lessons Learned
• Increasing agricultural productivity is necessary but not sufficient to guarantee food security
• Scale neutral technologies
• Knowledge transfer to/from farmers
• Need to consider agriculture within the social, political, economic, national/international context
• We can’t continue proposing “technology-only solutions” to complex problems....nevertheless technological responses are indeed critical to the “solution”
• Learn from mistakes and inexperience to come up with better alternatives => Policy options, strategies and outcomes
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
What is biotechnology?
• Manipulation of living organisms for a useful purpose
• Definition that covers a broad range of techniques
– Traditional: Plant breeding, tissue culture, micro-propagation
– Modern: Marker assisted selection, Genetic Modifications and Genomics
• Only GM products are currently regulated for biosafety
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Implications for developing country agriculture
• Majority expansion is in four crops and two traits (insect protection and herbicide tolerance) produced by industrialized countries for its agriculture
• Diffusion to developing has been a (fortunate) development
• Challenge now is meeting explicit needs of
– Developing countries
– Smallholder / resource poor farmers
– Crop / traits
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
R&D and innovation for and by developing countries
• Crops and traits of interest/value have been produced
• Capacity to develop GM crops and other biotechnologies
– Advanced => China, Brazil, Mexico, India, Argentina
– Medium- Advanced => Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia
• Next Harvest documented 270 technologies in 16 developing countries
Why aren’t these technologies in the hands of famers?
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Why GM biotech?
• Embodied technologies
• Address specific productivity constraints not easily addressed by conventional means
• Can be deployed in low resource use production systems
• Flexible – fit with other production systems
– GM and Integrated Pest Management
– GM and organic production methods (!!!)
• Impacts can be non-pecuniary, indirect, and scale neutral
• Scalable
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Biosafety as a process…
Contained Use
Experiments
Confined
Field Trials
Deliberate
ReleasePost
ReleaseDeregulation
Regulatory decision points
Familiarity
Learning
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
R&D and product development life cycle
1 – 3 yrs. 1 – 3 yrs. 1 – 3 yrs.
Product Concept
Discovery Early Product Testing & Development
Integration & Product Selection
Product Ramp Up
Market Introduction
1 2 3 4 5 6
Confined Field Trials
Author: Ramaeker-Zahn
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Portfolio of biosafety assessments
• Environmental risk
• Food/feed safety
• Socioeconomic assessments
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Impacts on biodiversity
• Which biodiversity? Agricultural vs. Wild
• Agricultural biodiversity –intraspecific vs interspecific
• Tradeoffs between land use and the maintenance of the agricultural frontier and encroachment in protected and/or “wild” areas
• Biodiversity valuation issues and measuring taxonomic diversity and richness
• Ecosystem services
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
What is socio-economic impact assessment?
• Different levels – Household, Farm, Communities,
Industry, Consumer, Trade
• May be done before or after adoption of the technology (ex ante or ex post)
• Compare effects of intervention against a counterfactual– Economics => monetary costs and
benefits
– Sociology /Anthropology => impact on people
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
4. What do we know about the socio-economic impact of GE technologies?
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
How does a producer benefit? Insect resistance traits
The case of Bt cotton
Producer Profit
Producer Surplus
Cost to Benefit
Additional
Cost of
Using the
Technology
Tech fee:
US$80/ha
0
+
-
Decrease
pesticide
application
cost
-Insecticide
-Machinery &
Equipment
Yield /
Reduction
in damage
-Timing
applications
-Reduced
damage bolls
Price change
due to increase
in supply
Additional
cost of
controlling
secondary
pests
Amenable to
IPM and/or
controlled
easily
Labor
Labor
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
What do we know from the economic impact assessment literature to date?
• A review of 187 peer reviewed studies
• Examined studies with a focus on:
– Farmers, household and community
– Industry and markets
– Consumers
– TradeCitation: Smale, Melinda; Zambrano, Patricia; Gruère, Guillaume; Falck-Zepeda, José; Matuschke, Ira; Horna, Daniela; Nagarajan, Latha;
Yerramareddy, Indira; Jones, Hannah. 2009. Measuring the economic impacts of transgenic crops in developing agriculture during the first
decade: Approaches, findings, and future directions. (Food policy review 10) Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute
(IFPRI) 107 pages
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Food Policy Review 10 conclusions
• On average LMO crops have a higher economic performance — but averages do not reflect the variability by agro-climate, host cultivar, trait, farmer
• Too few traits, too few cases/authors—generalizations should not be drawn yet...need more time to describe adoption
These conclusions are no different than those for most technologies released to date…
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
A meta-analysis paper by Areal, Riesgo and Rodriguez-Cerezo (2012)
“GM crops perform better than their conventional counterparts in agronomic and economic (gross margin) terms”
“GM crops tend to perform better in developing countries than in developed countries, with Bt cotton being the most profitable crop grown”
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Before release case study of Fungal Resistant Bananas in Uganda
• One year delay, forego potential annual (social) benefits of +/- US$200 million
• Observed difference in perceptions between urban and rural consumers and producers
• Trust and technology diffusion
Photos credits: Kikulwe 2009 and Edmeades 2008
Kikulwe, E.M., E. Birol, J. Wesseler, J. Falck-Zepeda. A
latent class approach to investigating demand for genetically
modified banana in Uganda Agricultural Economics 2011.
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
After release case study of Bt maize in the Philippines
• Growing Bt maize significantly increases profits and yields
• Significant insecticide use reductions
• Adopters tend to be– Cultivate larger areas
– Use hired labor
– More educated
– have more positive perceptions of current and future status
Change in economic surplus
(mill pesos)
Producer Surplus 7906
Seed Innovator 703
Total Surplus 8609
Producer Share (%) 92
Innovator Share (%) 8
Bt maize studies in Philippines led by Dr. Jose
Yorobe Jr. with 466 farmers in 16 villages Isabela
Province, Luzon, South Cotabato Province,
Mindanao
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
After release case study of Bt cotton in Colombia
Evidence of yield enhancement rather than pesticide reductions
Bt farmers benefited where the target pest is economically important
Sampling bias important: adopters were better–off farmers
Institutional context critical
Photos credit: © Zambrano 2009
Source: Zambrano, P., L. A. Fonseca, I. Cardona, and E. Magalhaes. 2009. The
socio-economic impact of transgenic cotton in Colombia. In Biotechnology and
agricultural development: Transgenic cotton, rural institutions and resource-poor
farmers, ed. R. Tripp. Routledge Explorations in Environmental Economics 19.
London: Routledge. Chapter 8. Pp. 168-199
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
After release case study of Bt cotton in the U.S.
-22 -12 -14
58 37 37
141
80 97
63
8593
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
1996
Industry
US Farmers
Consumers
Foreign Farmers
1997 1998
Industry
36%
Consumers
19%
US Farmers
45%
Total benefit estimates (Millions US $)
Falck-Zepeda, Traxler & Nelson 1999, 2000
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
After release case study of Bt maize in Honduras
Excellent target pest control
Bt yield advantage 893-1136 Kg ha-1 yield (24-33%)
Bt maize yields preferred even by risk averse producers
100% higher seed cost than conventional hybrid
Institutional issues important
Photos credit: © Sanders and Trabanino 2008
“Small “Resource-Poor” Countries Taking Advantage of the New Bioeconomy
and Innovation: The Case of Insect Protected/Herbicide Tolerant Maize in
Honduras.” Jose Falck Zepeda, Arie Sanders, Rogelio Trabanino, Oswaldo
Medina and Rolando Batallas-Huacon. Paper presented at the 13th ICABR
Conference “The Emerging Bio-Economy”, Ravello, Italy June 17-20, 2009.
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Example from seed adoption sector“Farmer preferences for Milpa diversity and genetically modified
maize in Mexico” (Birol, Villalobos and Smale 2007)
• “Milpa” is crop production system in Mexico and C. America– Private economic value: food security, diet quality and livelihoods
– Public economic value: conserving agrobiodiversity, especially that of maize landraces (potential to contribute unique traits for future plant breeding efforts
• Subject to multiple externalities which have a negative impact
• Farmer heterogeneity is an issue identified by the study– (i) Landrace Conservationists
– (ii) Milpa Diversity Managers
– iii) Marginalized Maize Producers
• Contrast results with the 2004 Commission for Environmental Cooperation report
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
Concluding comments
• Biotechnology and Genetically Modified Crops are still only technologies
• Similarities and differences with other technologies
• Actual and potential benefits from GM technology adoption…important tool to consider. Cannot disregard
• Developments in the public sector in developing countries
• Additional crops/traits of interest whose limitations can probably be only addressed through biotechnology means, will be available if we manage to resolve institutional and regulatory issues.
Program for Biosafety Systems – http://pbs.ifpri.info/
José Benjamin Falck-Zepeda, Ph.D.Senior Research Fellow
IFPRI 2033 K Street NW
Washington, DC 20006-1002USA
[email protected] bio/pubs:
http://www.ifpri.org/staffprofile/jose-falck-zepeda
Blog: http://socioeconomicbiosafety.wordpress.com/
Follow me on Twitter: @josefalck
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