The Gene Revolution: GM Crops and Unequal Development

Book, Earthscan

December 2006

Editor: Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Former Research Fellow, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project/Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 2005-2006

Ordering Information for this publication

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: Science, Technology, and Globalization; Science, Technology, and Public Policy

OVERVIEW

The high-yield selective breeding of "the Green Revolution" of the 1960s and ’70s is now being overtaken by "the Gene Revolution" — the development and spread of GM crops across the world.

With over 90 million hectares already under cultivation and 60 countries conducting research, GM is reviled by some as a vast Pandora’s Box and corporate sell-out, while hailed by others as the necessary technological solution to stagnating agricultural output, ballooning populations, climate change and drought. Sandwiched in between are developing and transitional countries where the need to feed vast populations and to compete against the US in international markets are compelling reasons to get on the GM bandwagon.

This is the first book to bridge the gap between the "naysayers" and "cheerleaders", and to provide a penetrating examination of the realities, complexities, benefits and pitfalls of GM adoption in developing countries that are desperately fighting poverty while trying to stay afloat in the hyper-competitive global economy.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr is a Visiting Professor at the New School University in New York. She was a Research Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She was Director and chief author of UNDP’s Human Development Report from 1995 to 2004 and a member of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Technology.

Chapters

• Introduction: Genetically Modified Crops and National Development Priorities
• Emergence and Global Spread of GM Crops: Explaining the Role of Institutional Change
• Institutional Changes in Argentina, Brazil, China, India and South Africa
• The Role of Government Policy: For Growth, Sustainability and Equity

Praise for The Gene Revolution:

"An accessible introduction to the food and environmental policy issues posed by the Gene Revolution...should be required reading!"
—Vernon W. Ruttan, University of Minnesota

"An indispensable guide for evidence-based discussions on the institutional aspects of biotechnology"
—Calestous Juma, Harvard University

"A much needed antidote to the highly polemical writing on both sides of the this issue"
—Raymond C. Oppenheiser, President, Oxfam America

For more information about this publication please contact the STPP Web Manager at 617-496-1981.

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Document Length: 224 pp.