Latha Nagarajan

The Impact of Bt Cotton and the Potential Impact of Biotechnology on Other Crops in China and India

Since the 1980s agricultural biotech investments by the public sector have increased substantially in both China and India. In the last two decades there has also been a dramatic increase in private section investment in agricultural biotechnology particularly in India. The promise of major benefits of Bt cotton identified in early socioeconomic studies of Bt cotton has proven to be true. Bt cotton has spread to at least 66% and 85% of total cotton areas of China and India, respectively – wherever bollworm is a major problem. Bt cotton continues to control bollworm in both countries, and farmers continue as major beneficiaries rather than biotech or seed companies. The major impacts have been yield increases in India and reduced pesticides consumption in China. In China, evidence also suggests that Bt cotton has suppressed the bollworm population so that non-Bt cotton growers and producers of other crops that are susceptible to bollworm are also benefitting. The chapter also provides evidence that in the near future Bt rice and Bt eggplant could have major positive impacts by reducing pesticide use and farmers’ exposure to chemical pesticides and increasing yields. Both crops were approved for commercial production by government biosafety regulators, but are not yet available for commercial cultivation.

An Obstacle to Africa's Green Revolution: Too Few New Varieties

Under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) the African Union proposes 6 percent annual growth in agricultural production, of which more than half is to come from productivity growth. However, the recent rate at which new varieties (including hybrids) are being introduced – less than one per country per crop per year for food field crops in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa – is too low to achieve such growth. Low rates of variety introduction can be traced to government controls involving variety performance tests and fees followed by government committees deciding if varieties will be useful for farmers and therefore permitted for seed sales. Because governments do not consider all the factors that farmers might appreciate in a variety, these procedures deny farmers access to useful varieties. The time, cost, and uncertainty involved in these procedures discourage private companies from introducing new varieties, especially for crops and countries with small markets. In countries without such controls – including South Africa and many low to high income countries outside Africa – farmers have access to much larger flows of new varieties. African governments could open the door to much larger flows of new varieties by making variety registration optional or automatic and very low cost or free.

TRIPS compliance of national patent regimes and domestic innovative activity: the Indian experience: Evidence and Experience from Developing Countries

This topical volume deals with the processes through which TRIPS compliance was achieved in four developing country jurisdictions: Brazil, China, India and Thailand. More importantly, it analyses the macro and micro implications of TRIPS compliance for innovative activity in industry in general, but focuses specifically on the agrochemical, automotive and pharmaceutical sectors.