Bales and balance: a review of the methods used to assess the economic impact of Bt cotton on farmers in developing economies
2006
M. Smale | P. Zambrano | M. Cartel
This paper assesses 47 peer-reviewed articles that have applied stated economic methods to measure the farm-level impacts of Bt cotton in developing agriculture from 1996. The authors focus on methods, although findings are also contrasted and compared in qualitative terms. <br /><br />The central research question assessed by the articles reviewed is: what are the current and potential advantages of transgenic cotton with respect to yield, pesticide use, input cost, revenue and/or profits at the farm-level, by farm type, and geographical region? <br /><br />The authors find that, while the evidence is promising, the balance sheet remains inconclusive in part because of some methodological limitations and in part because the institutional and political context, which is mutable and often ignored, shapes economic impacts, especially over the longer-term. <br /><br />The paper cites some of the most obvious limitations of the evidence assessed to be: the brevity of the time period considered the small number of different authors publishing case studies in peer-reviewed international journals methodological issues – multiple methods are needed to generate a fuller analysis of impact partial budgets are deceptively simple, with many limitations which have raised concern The authors conclude that one hypothesis emerges strongly from the cross-case comparison of studies: institutional and marketing arrangements for supplying the technology and marketing the product may be the single most important determinant of Bt impact at the farm-level, even when the trait is shown to be effective. <br /><br /><br />(adapted from author)
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