Title: Transgenic crops, EU precaution, and developing countries

Authors: Kym Anderson, Lee Ann Jackson

Addresses: CEPR, University of Adelaide, and Development Research Group, World Bank, Mailstop MC3-303, 1818 H Street NW, Washington DC 20433, USA. ' Agriculture and Commodities Division, World Trade Organization, Rue de Lausanne, 154, CH-1211 Geneva 21, Switzerland

Abstract: Agricultural biotechnologies have the potential to offer higher incomes for farmers in developing countries and lower-priced and better-quality food, feed and fibre. That potential is being heavily compromised, however, because of strict regulatory systems in the European Union and elsewhere governing transgenically modified (GM) crops. This paper examines why the EU has taken the extreme opposite policy position on GM food to equally affluent North America, what has been the impact on developing country welfare of the limited adoption of GM crop varieties so far, and what impact GM adoption by developing countries themselves could have on their economic welfare.

Keywords: genetically modified crops; GM crops; developing countries; genetic modification; GMOs; agricultural biotechnology; trade policy; standards regulation; transgenic crops; European Union; economic welfare.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTG.2006.009127

International Journal of Technology and Globalisation, 2006 Vol.2 No.1/2, pp.65 - 80

Published online: 03 Mar 2006 *

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