Measuring the Economic Impacts of Transgenic Crops in Developing Agriculture During the First Decade: Approaches, Findings, and Future Directions

A vast literature has accumulated since transgenic crop varieties were initially released to farmers in 1996. Several years after their introduction in the United States, crop varieties with transgenic resistance to insects or herbicide tolerance were supplied to farmers in countries with developing economies and nonindustrialized agriculture. Essays, editorials, newsletters, web conferences, articles, and books have argued the pros and cons of transgenic crops. The global debate continues in this second decade of their use. A comparatively minor segment of this literature consists of studies conducted by agricultural economists to measure the impact of transgenic crop varieties on farmers, the size and distribution of the economic benefits from adopting them, consumer attitudes toward products made with transgenic ingredients, and implications of the use of transgenic crops for international trade. An even smaller subset treats the impacts of transgenic crops in developing economies.