Potential Adoption of Genetically Modified Rapeseed in France, Effects on Revenues of Farmers and Upstream Companies: an ex ante evaluation

In this paper, we conduct an empirical investigation of potential adoption of herbicide-tolerant (HT) genetically modified (GM) rapeseed in France. Our aim is to study ex ante the potential impact of their adoption in France, in terms of adoption level, economic gains, and distribution of these gains between farmers and input suppliers. We use French survey data about current plant protection practices, in order to compute pesticide costs with conventional (i.e., non GM) crops for individual farms. Then, based on results of technical studies about GM variety trials in France, we compute a predicted pesticide cost with the GM variety. Next, we study adoption rates and gains or losses of farmers (adopters and non adopters) and upstream companies (sellers of conventional herbicides, of the total herbicide to which GM rapeseed is tolerant, of GM seed), depending on the GM seed license price, the margin rate on herbicide sales and the price of conventional herbicides.