Robert Paarlberg
Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization
Contact:
Email: robert_paarlberg@ksg.harvard.edu
Experience
Robert Paarlberg is the Betty Freyhof Johnson Class of 1944 Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He received his B.A. in government from Carleton College in Minnesota and his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. He has served as visiting professor of government at Harvard, as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate, and as an officer in the U.S. Naval Intelligence Command..
Paarlberg's principal research interests are international agricultural and environmental policy. He has published books on the use of food as a weapon (Food Trade and Foreign Policy, Cornell University Press), on international agricultural trade negotiations (Fixing Farm Trade, Council on Foreign Relations), on environmentally sustainable farming in developing countries (Countrysides at Risk, Overseas Development Council), on U.S. foreign economic policy (Leadership Abroad Begins at Home, Brookings), and on the reform of U.S. agricultural policy (Policy Reform in American Agriculture, Chicago University Press, with David Orden and Terry Roe).
Paarlberg's most recent research focus has been on the regulation of modern technology, including biotechnology. In 2004–2005, he published articles on the competitive posture of scientific research in the United States and on the global stem cell research competition. He has worked most intensively on policies toward genetically modified crops and foods in developing countries. In recent years he has done research on this topic in Kenya, Zambia, Brazil, Cameroon, Senegal, India, China, and Argentina. He published a lead article on this topic in Foreign Affairs Quarterly in May/June 2000, a discussion paper on this topic for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in December 2000, and his book on this subject, The Politics of Precaution: Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Countries, was published in 2001 by Johns Hopkins University Press. He is currently researching a book that will compare the international regulation of agricultural biotechnology to the regulation of medical biotechnology.
Paarlberg is currently a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Research Council of the National Academies, and a member of the Biotechnology Advisory Council to the CEO of the Monsanto Company. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Winrock International, a member of the Emerging Markets Advisory Committee at the United States Department of Agriculture, a scientific liaison officer to IFPRI from the U.S. Agency for International Development, and a consultant to the National Intelligence Council (NIC), USAID, IFPRI, and the World Bank. Rob Paarlberg was raised in West Lafayette, Indiana, and currently resides in Watertown, Massachusetts. His wife, Marianne Perlak, is Art Director at Harvard University Press.
April 22, 2008
"It's Not the Price That Causes Hunger"
Op-Ed, International Herald Tribune
By Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization
"Africa's food crisis grows primarily out of the low productivity, year in and year out, of the 60 percent of all Africans who plant crops and graze animals for a living. The average African smallholder farmer is a woman who has no improved seeds, no nitrogen fertilizers, no irrigation and no veterinary medicine for her animals. Her crop yields are only one third as high as in the developing countries of Asia, and her average income is only $1 a day."
March 2008
Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa
Book
By Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization
Heading upcountry in Africa to visit small farms is absolutely exhilarating given the dramatic beauty of big skies, red soil, and arid vistas, but eventually the two-lane tarmac narrows to rutted dirt, and the journey must continue on foot. The farmers you eventually meet are mostly women, hardworking but visibly poor. They have no improved seeds, no chemical fertilizers, no irrigation, and with their meager crops they earn less than a dollar a day. Many are malnourished.
Nearly two-thirds of Africans are employed in agriculture, yet on a per-capita basis they produce roughly 20 percent less than they did in 1970. Although modern agricultural science was the key to reducing rural poverty in Asia, modern farm science—including biotechnology—has recently been kept out of Africa.
February 29, 2008
"Africa's Organic Farms"
Op-Ed, International Herald Tribune
By Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization
"In Europe, meanwhile, some official donors and nongovernmental agencies are working to block farm modernization in Africa. Despite Africa's worsening soil nutrient deficits, European donors like to promote costly organic farming techniques as the alternative to chemical fertilizer use. This is not how European farmers escaped poverty....European governments and NGOs also promote regulatory systems that block the use of genetically engineered crops, including crops capable of resisting insects without pesticide sprays. Europe's own science academies have found no new risks to human health or the environment from any of the genetically engineered crops placed on the market so far, but since overfed Europe can do without this technology, underfed Africa is told to do the same."
2007
"Patterns of Political Support and Pathways to Final Impact"
Journal Article, AgBioForum: The Journal of AgroBiotechnology Management & Economics, Special Issue: Biofortified Food Crops: Progress and Prospects in Developing Countries, issue 3, volume 10
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project, Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization, Carl Pray and Laurian Unnevehr
"To summarize and conclude this special issue of AgBioForum it will be useful first to present the lessons learned so far in the form of a scheme for predicting which biofortified food technologies will enjoy the greatest political support or opposition, and from which actors on the political landscape. The approach here is necessarily hypothetical, given that most of the biofortified food technologies currently under scientific development have yet to be released into any commercial marketplace. After offering this summary projection of likely political responses, this final section then examines the likely consequences in terms of actual nutritional impact."
2007
"Political Actors on the Landscape"
Journal Article, AgBioForum: The Journal of AgroBiotechnology Management & Economics, Special Issue: Biofortified Food Crops: Progress and Prospects in Developing Countries, issue 3, volume 10
By Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization and Carl Pray
"Efforts to introduce novel agricultural crops or foods are welcomed and supported by some politically important groups in the developing world, ignored by others, and at times opposed by a significant few. When considering the political actors on the landscape most likely to take active positions either for or against novel foods, there is little or no evidence of political resistance to any of the biofortified foods developed thus far using conventional crop-breeding techniques, yet resistance to GMO crops has been widespread for much of the past decade. Which actors on the landscape are opposing GMOs, how powerful are they, and will their opposition weaken if the current generation of GMO crops carrying improved agronomic traits is followed by a second generation of GMOs carrying improved nutrient traits?"
2007
"Patterns of Political Response to Biofortified Varieties of Crops Produced with Different Breeding Techniques and Agronomic Traits"
Journal Article, AgBioForum: The Journal of AgroBiotechnology Management & Economics, Special Issue: Biofortified Food Crops: Progress and Prospects in Developing Countries, issue 3, volume 10
By Carl Pray, Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization and Laurian Unnevehr
"Political responses to novel foods and crops can be specific to the new traits of those crops (agronomic versus enhanced nutrients), to the intended uses of those crops (food for people versus feed for animals), and also to the methods used to introduced those traits (conventional breeding versus genetic engineering). This article describes variations in observed political responses to three different categories of novel foods and crops: conventionally bred crops with enhanced nutrient traits; genetically engineered/modified organisms (GMOs), in this case, plant varieties with enhanced agronomic traits; and GMOs with enhanced nutrient traits."
2007
"Addressing Micronutrient Deficiencies: Alternative Interventions and Technologies"
Journal Article, AgBioForum: The Journal of AgroBiotechnology Management & Economics, Special Issue: Biofortified Food Crops: Progress and Prospects in Developing Countries, issue 3, volume 10
By Laurian Unnevehr, Carl Pray and Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization
"Improving the nutritional value of staple food crops has usually been a secondary concern for high-income consumers, who have access to improved nutrition through dietary diversification. As a consequence, the scientific improvement of staple food crops has focused on improving yield and productivity (Morris & Sands, 2006). Market forces have tended to reward higher yield far more than higher nutrient content, and crop breeders have often felt they must sacrifice the latter to get the former."
Summer 2004
"Knowledge as Power: Science, Military Dominance, and U.S. Security"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 29
By Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization
Robert Paarlberg investigates factors behind the “unparalleled military dominance” of the United States and challenges to it in a post–September 11 world, particularly the overwhelming U.S. lead in science and research and development.
