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Plant breeding and poverty: Can transgenic seeds replicate the 'Green Revolution' as a source of gains for the poor?

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  • Michael Lipton

Abstract

Improved farm technology helps all main groups of the poor - small farmers, farmworkers, other low-wage labour - when it raises labour value-productivity, but raises land and/or water value-productivity faster; and cuts staples prices, but raises smallholders' total factor productivity faster. From 1965 the Green Revolution walked these two tightropes largely by luck. Though targeting bigger piles of rice and wheat, it cut poverty through consumption; nutrition; smallholder income; employment; risk reduction; and ecological sustainability. Yet large areas were left out, and from 1985 progress slowed. In the new environment for research and agriculture, how can transgenics revive and spread poverty reduction? What has been the evidence so far? What determines whether new varieties have traits conducive to poverty reduction: who owns the research, or what crop science is?

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Lipton, 2007. "Plant breeding and poverty: Can transgenic seeds replicate the 'Green Revolution' as a source of gains for the poor?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 31-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:43:y:2007:i:1:p:31-62
    DOI: 10.1080/00220380601055510
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    1. Lincoln Addison & Matthew Schnurr, 2016. "Growing burdens? Disease-resistant genetically modified bananas and the potential gendered implications for labor in Uganda," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 33(4), pages 967-978, December.
    2. Mercedes Campi & Alessandro Nuvolari, 2021. "Intellectual Property Rights and Agricultural Development: Evidence from a Worldwide Index of IPRs in Agriculture (1961-2018)," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(4), pages 650-668, April.
    3. Romy Santpoort, 2020. "The Drivers of Maize Area Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa. How Policies to Boost Maize Production Overlook the Interests of Smallholder Farmers," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-13, February.
    4. Jonathan Harwood, 2018. "Another Green Revolution? On the Perils of ‘Extracting Lessons’ from History," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 61(1), pages 43-53, December.
    5. Richard Bownas, 2016. "Lost in Transnationalism? GMOs in India and the Eclipse of Equitable Development Discourse," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 11(1), pages 67-87, April.
    6. Fischer, Klara, 2016. "Why new crop technology is not scale-neutral—A critique of the expectations for a crop-based African Green Revolution," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(6), pages 1185-1194.
    7. Serra, Teresa & Poli, Elena, 2015. "Shadow prices of social capital in rural India, a nonparametric approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(3), pages 892-903.
    8. Emelie Rohne Till, 2021. "A green revolution in sub‐Saharan Africa? The transformation of Ethiopia's agricultural sector," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(2), pages 277-315, March.

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