Can transgenic seeds repeat the success of the ‘Green Revolution’?

New technology and crop varieties reduced poverty in much of Asia and Latin America, and some parts of Africa, during the Green Revolution. However, from 1985 this progress slowed. Can new research into transgenic crops revive poverty reduction through agricultural technology?

Most poor farmers cannot readily obtain more land or water, as these resources are finite. Yet, the farm population and workforce are still growing. Research from the Poverty Research Unit at the University of Sussex, UK, examines how the Green Revolution reduced poverty via increased consumption; improved nutrition; increased cereal production; higher incomes through employment; reduced risks for farmers; and greater ecological sustainability. The researcher asks if transgenic crops (crops with genetic material transferred from another organism) can achieve similar benefits and fill in the ‘gaps’ from the Green Revolution.

Improved farm technology can help poor farmers by increasing land and water productivity, thus raising food availability. This was the main aim of Green Revolution researchers. Partly by luck, partly by being flexible, they also increased food entitlements (not just availability) for other groups of poor people - near-landless rural workers and urban labourers. To repeat this success, transgenic or other new farm technology must ‘walk two tightropes’. This means:

• raising labour productivity, so poor farmers get more reward for their effort, but raising land and water productivity faster, so employment rises without using more land and water
• cutting the price of staple foods through increased output (so non-farm poor people benefit), but raising total factor productivity (the conversion of farm inputs to outputs) faster, so poor farmers also benefit.

One gap in Green Revolution technology – and world poverty reduction - is the failure of high-yielding staple crops in areas with scarce or unreliable water, including most of Africa. A lack of water reduces the effectiveness of fertilisers. Transgenic crops could adapt African staples that perform well in water-scarce regions by using DNA from other crops to improve yields.

Transgenic crops already benefit poor people. Bt cotton, which is modified to increase resistance to bollworm, has reduced pesticide needs. This improves farmworkers’ health and cuts costs. But can transgenic crops build on the major successes of the Green Revolution?

Being concentrated in the public sector (both international and in developing countries), Green Revolution researchers could be flexibly pro-poor, because they did not depend on profits from royalties of large farmers. Most current transgenics research is from a few private firms, which normally survive through such profits and are therefore not necessarily pro-poor. However, modern seed research and innovation normally enhances the yield and robustness of crops. Therefore, unless transgenic seeds reduce labour use per hectare, they will normally benefit poor people in adopting areas.

The researcher identifies some concerns:

• Such benefits will be small unless researchers prioritise higher-yielding, more drought-tolerant, more nutritious food staples, suitable for small-farm systems.
• Private profits must come less from farmers’ royalties, and more from contracts, collaboration, or prizes, funded by states, international organisations, or charities and foundations.
• Poor people may still lose from specific transgenic innovations (for example, better herbicide-tolerance that displaces weeding labourers), or from innovations heavily concentrated on poor farmers’ competitors.

Source(s):
‘Plant breeding and poverty: Can transgenic seeds replicate the 'Green Revolution' as a source of gains for the poor?’ Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1, 31–62, by Michael Lipton, 2007

id21 Research Highlight: 30 April 2007

Further Information:
Michael Lipton
15 Eaton Place
Brighton, BN2 1EH
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1273 606755
Contact the contributor: mlipton@onetel.com

Poverty Research Unit, University of Sussex, UK

Other related links:
id21 insights 52 'Debating GM crops'

'Would a green revolution work in sub-Saharan Africa?'

'Debating biotechnology in southern Africa'

'Safe genetic transformation for nematode resistant crops'