Genetically Modified Rice, Yields, and Pesticides: Assessing Farm-Level Productivity Effects in China

Jikun Huang, Ruifa Hu, Scott Rozelle and Carl Pray

Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2008, vol. 56, pages 241-263

Abstract: Although genetically modified (GM) crops are being grown on increasing large areas in both developed and developing countries, with few minor exceptions, there has been almost no country that has commercialized a GM major food crop. One reason may be that it is unclear how the commercialization of GM crops will help poor, small farmers. The objective of this article is to report on the results of an economic analysis that uses 3 years of data from a series of quasi-experimental areas (called preproduction trials) in China’s GM rice program that were carried out in the fields of small and relatively poor producers in two provinces in China. The article shows that the use of GM rice by farmers in preproduction trials allows farmers to reduce pesticide use and labor input. The effect on yields is less clear, and the findings suggest that there is very little if any yield effect. The article concludes by arguing that the commercialization of GM rice in China could have consequences that exceed the direct impacts on China’s farmers and could be a key step in breaking the world’s current plant biotechnology logjam.

Date: 2008

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/522898 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:ecdecc:v:56:y:2008:p:241-263

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/EDCC/order1.html

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Development and Cultural Change is edited by John Strauss

More articles in Economic Development and Cultural Change from University of Chicago Press
Address: The University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005 Chicago, IL 60637
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().