This study examines the extent to which Bt hybrids could reduce mycotoxins at the village level. Although some studies have examined the impact of Bt hybrids on fumonisins on experiment stations both outside and inside South Africa (for example, Munkvold, Hellmich, and Rice 1999; De la Campa et al....

The only commercial genetically modified (GM) subsistence food crop is white maize in South Africa, which was released in 2001/2. This paper reports on the performance of insect resistant (Bt) white maize grown by smallholders in Hlabisa, KwaZulu Natal, where the other development is minimum...

Public research in developing countries in Asia continues to grow, but in many countries the rate of change has slowed and it is lower than growth in agriculture. In Asia, private sector research grew twice as fast as public research (see Table 1). Using a new set of data on private research,...

Most of the poorest people live in rural areas worldwide, characterized by uncertain rainfall, low levels of input use, and low returns to land and labor. Farmers in these risky production environments often face drought that interacts with many other agronomic stresses to reduce yields and push...

Declining government budgets, pressure from donors and agribusiness firms and the failure of some government seed corporations are encouraging policy makers in a number of less developed countries (LDCs) to privatize plant breeding, seed production and seed distribution. Developed countries are...

There has been considerable debate but little empirical analysis among academics, policy makers, and civil society about whether intellectual property rights would induce private research in developing countries. China passed its plant variety protection act (PVPA) in 1997 which allowed us to do...

Conservation auctions such as the Conservation Reserve Program in the United States and the BushTender Program in Australia have been used to identify landholders who can provide on-farm conservation and biodiversity protection actions at lowest cost. These conservation auctions are typically...

A three period overlapping generations model is developed to investigate the impact of shorter life expectancy due to disease, on human capital investment decisions and income growth. This research is particularly relevant to Sub-Saharan Africa given the dramatic reduction in life expectancy due...

Although there is increasing emphasis on targeting of improved technology towards poor and female farmers, few adoption studies assess the uptake of new practices by these groups in a comprehensive manner. In this study, community members used the wealth ranking method to identify the different...

The impact of education on farmers' choice of activities and household welfare are modelled and estimated using farm household data for rural Ethiopia. We find that education has significant effects on household welfare. Schooling increases the adoption of new technologies and facilitates entry...