Isolating the 'farmer' effect as a component of the advantage of growing genetically modified varieties in developing countries: a Bt cotton case study from Jalgaon, India

The present paper explores the 'farmer' effect in economic advantages often claimed for Bt cotton varieties (those with the endotoxin gene from Bacillus thuringiensis conferring resistance to some insect pests) compared to non-Bt varieties. Critics claim that much of the yield advantage of Bt cotton could be due to the fact that farmers adopting the technology are in a better position to provide inputs and management and so much of any claimed Bt advantage is an artefact rather than reflecting a real advantage of the variety per se. The present paper provides an in-depth analysis of 63 non-adopting and 94 adopting households of Bt cotton in Jalgaon, Maharashtra State, India, spanning the seasons 2002 and 2003. Results suggest that Bt adopters are indeed different from non-adopters in a number of ways. Adopters appear to specialize more on cotton (at least in terms of the land area they devote to the crop), spend more money on irrigation and grow well-performing non-Bt varieties of cotton (Bunny). Taking gross margin as the basis for comparison, Bt plots had 2.5 times the gross margin of non-Bt plots in both seasons. If only adopters are considered then the gross margin advantage of Bt plots reduces to 1.6 times that of non-Bt plots. This is still a significant advantage and could well explain the popularity of Bt in Maharashtra. However, it is clear that great care needs to be taken with such comparative studies.

Explaining contradictory evidence regarding impacts of genetically modified crops in developing countries. Varietal performance of transgenic cotton in India

A study of the commercial growing of different varieties of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton compares the performance of growing official and unofficial hybrid varieties of Bt cotton and conventional (non-Bt) hybrids in Gujarat by 622 farmers. Results suggest that the official Bt varieties (MECH 12 and MECH 162) significantly outperform the unofficial varieties. However, unofficial, locally produced Bt hybrids can also perform significantly better than non-Bt hybrids, although second generation (F-2) Bt seed appears to have no yield advantage compared to non-Bt hybrids but can save on insecticide use. Although hybrid vigour is reduced, or even lost, with F-2 seed the Bt gene still confers some advantage. The F-2 seed is regarded as 'GM' by the farmers (and is sold as such), even though its yield performance is little better than the non-GM hybrids. The results help to explain why there is so much confusion arising from GM cotton release in India.

Isolating the 'farmer' effect as a component of the advantage of growing genetically modified varieties in developing countries: a Bt cotton case study from Jalgaon, India

The present paper explores the 'farmer' effect in economic advantages often claimed for Bt cotton varieties (those with the endotoxin gene from Bacillus thuringiensis conferring resistance to some insect pests) compared to non-Bt varieties. Critics claim that much of the yield advantage of Bt cotton could be due to the fact that farmers adopting the technology are in a better position to provide inputs and management and so much of any claimed Bt advantage is an artefact rather than reflecting a real advantage of the variety per se. The present paper provides an in-depth analysis of 63 non-adopting and 94 adopting households of Bt cotton in Jalgaon, Maharashtra State, India, spanning the seasons 2002 and 2003. Results suggest that Bt adopters are indeed different from non-adopters in a number of ways. Adopters appear to specialize more on cotton (at least in terms of the land area they devote to the crop), spend more money on irrigation and grow well-performing non-Bt varieties of cotton (Bunny). Taking gross margin as the basis for comparison, Bt plots had 2.5 times the gross margin of non-Bt plots in both seasons. If only adopters are considered then the gross margin advantage of Bt plots reduces to 1.6 times that of non-Bt plots. This is still a significant advantage and could well explain the popularity of Bt in Maharashtra. However, it is clear that great care needs to be taken with such comparative studies.

Intergenerational persistence in health in developing countries : the penalty of gender inequality?

This paper is motivated to investigate the often neglected payoff to investments in the health of girls and women in terms of next generation outcomes. This paper investigates the intergenerational persistence of health across time and region as well as across the distribution of maternal health. It uses comparable microdata on as many as 2.24 million children born of about 0.6 million mothers in 38 developing countries in the 31 year period, 1970–2000. Mother's health is indicated by her height, BMI and anemia status. Child health is indicated by mortality risk and anthropometric failure. We find a positive relationship between maternal and child health across indicators and highlight non-linearities in these relationships. The results suggest that both contemporary and childhood health of the mother matter and that the benefits to the next generation are likely to be persistent. Averaging across the sample, persistence shows a considerable decline over time. Disaggregation shows that the decline is only significant in Latin America. Persistence has remained largely constant in Asia and has risen in Africa. The paper provides the first cross-country estimates of the intergenerational persistence in health and the first estimates of trends.

Gradients of the intergenerational transmission of health in developing countries

This paper investigates sensitivity of the intergenerational transmission of health to changes in the socioeconomic and public health environment into which children are born using individual survey data on 2.24 million children born to 600000 mothers during 1970-2000 in 38 developing countries merged by country and cohort with macroeconomic data. We find that children are more likely to bear the penalty exerted by poor maternal health if they are conceived or born in adverse socioeconomic conditions. Equivalently, shocks to the child’s birth environment are more damaging of children born to women with a weaker stock of health at birth.

Factors influencing adoption of improved grassland management by small-scale dairy farmers in central Mexico and the implications for future research on smallholder adoption in developing countries

There have been limited recent advances in understanding of what influences uptake of innovations despite the current international focus on smallholder agriculture as a means of achieving food security and rural development. This paper provides a rigorous study of factors influencing adoption by smallholders in central Mexico and builds on findings to identify a broad approach to significantly improve research on and understanding of factors influencing adoption by smallholders in developing countries. Small-scale dairy systems play an important role in providing income, employment and nutrition in the highlands of central Mexico. A wide variety of practices and technologies have been promoted by the government public services to increase milk production and economic efficiency, but there have been very low levels of uptake of most innovations, with the exception of improving grassland through introduction of grass varieties together with management practices. A detailed study was conducted with 80 farmers who are already engaged with the use of this innovation to better understand the process of adoption and identify socioeconomic and farm variables, cognitive (beliefs), and social–psychological (social norms) factors associated with farmers' use of improved grassland. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) was used as a theoretical framework and Spearman Rank Order correlation was conducted to analyse the data. Most farmers (92.5%) revealed strong intention to continue to use improved grassland (which requires active management and investment of resources) for the next 12 months; whereas 7.5% of farmers were undecided and showed weak intention, which was associated with farmers whose main income was from non-farm activities as well as with farmers who had only recently started using improved grassland. Despite farmers' experience of using improved grassland (mean of 18 years) farmers' intentions to continue to adopt it was influenced almost as much by salient referents (mainly male relatives) as by their own attitudes. The hitherto unnoticed longevity of the role social referents play in adoption decisions is an important finding and has implications for further research and for the design of extension approaches. The study demonstrates the value and importance of using TRA or TPB approaches to understand social cognitive (beliefs) and social–psychological (social norms) factors in the study of adoption. However, other factors influencing adoption processes need to be included to provide fuller understanding. An approach that would enable this, and the development of more generalisable findings than from location specific case studies, and contribute to broader conceptualisation, is proposed.

Experience of international students from developing countries in negotiating technology for learning

International students are important economically and culturally, bringing diversity and an international perspective enriching learning experiences in classrooms. With the global transformations eLearning has become an important element of students’ higher education experience in developed countries. Although students of developed countries have digital exposure at an early age, many students from developing countries, on the journey of becoming international students, are inadequately prepared for eLearning. The lack of digital skills, prior experience, cultural differences and language barriers together with the drastic changes in learning environments require international students to not only adapt to the host environment but also to negotiate technology for learning. The scarcity of research exploring the eLearning experiences of international students from developing countries and the benefits of this understanding is discussed in an effort to promote research in this area.

Introduction to politics of climate change: discourses of policy and practice in developing countries

This Themed Section aims to increase understanding of how the idea of climate change, and the policies and actions that spring from it, travel beyond their origins in natural sciences to meet different political arenas in the developing world. It takes a discursive approach whereby climate change is not just a set of physical processes but also a series of messages, narratives and policy prescriptions. The articles are mostly case study-based and focus on sub-Saharan Africa and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). They are organised around three interlinked themes. The first theme concerns the processes of rapid technicalisation and professionalisation of the climate change ‘industry’, which have sustantially narrowed the boundaries of what can be viewed as a legitimate social response to the problem of global warming. The second theme deals with the ideological effects of the climate change industry, which is ‘depoliticisation’, in this case the deflection of attention away from underlying political conditions of vulnerability and exploitation towards the nature of the physical hazard itself. The third theme concerns the institutional effects of an insufficiently socialised idea of climate change, which is the maintenance of existing relations of power or their reconfiguration in favour of the already powerful. Overall, the articles suggest that greater scrutiny of the discursive and political dimensions of mitigation and adaptation activities is required. In particular, greater attention should be directed towards the policy consequences that governments and donors construct as a result of their framing and rendition of climate change issues.

The creation and diffusion of innovation in developing countries: a systematic literature review

In this study, we review the literature on the creation and diffusion of innovation in the private sectors (industry and services) in developing countries. In particular, we collect evidence on what are the barriers to innovation creation and diffusion and the channels of innovation diffusion to and within developing countries. We find that innovation in developing countries is about creation or adoption of new ideas and technologies; but the capacity for innovation is embedded in and constituted by dynamics between geographical, socio-economic, political and legal subsystems. We contextualize the findings from the review in the current theoretical framework of diffusion of innovations, and we emphasize how the institutional context typical of developing countries impacts the diffusion itself.

Compensation and Rewards for Environmental Services (CRES) and efficient design of contracts in developing countries. Behavioral insights from a natural field experiment

The use of economic incentives for biodiversity (mostly Compensation and Reward for Environmental Services including Payment for ES) has been widely supported in the past decades and became the main innovative policy tools for biodiversity conservation worldwide. These policy tools are often based on the insight that rational actors perfectly weigh the costs and benefits of adopting certain behaviors and well-crafted economic incentives and disincentives will lead to socially desirable development scenarios. This rationalist mode of thought has provided interesting insights and results, but it also misestimates the context by which ‘real individuals’ come to decisions, and the multitude of factors influencing development sequences. In this study, our goal is to examine how these policies can take advantage of some unintended behavioral reactions that might in return impact, either positively or negatively, general policy performances. We test the effect of income's origin (‘Low effort’ based money vs. ‘High effort’ based money) on spending decisions (Necessity vs. Superior goods) and subsequent pro social preferences (Future pro-environmental behavior) within Madagascar rural areas, using a natural field experiment. Our results show that money obtained under low effort leads to different consumption patterns than money obtained under high efforts: superior goods are more salient in the case of low effort money. In parallel, money obtained under low effort leads to subsequent higher pro social behavior. Compensation and rewards policies for ecosystem services may mobilize knowledge on behavioral biases to improve their design and foster positive spillovers on their development goals.

Exchange rate policies, patterns of specialization and economic development: theory and evidence in developing countries

The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it intends to provide theoretical elements to analyze the relation between real exchange rates and economic development. Our main hypothesis is very much in line with the Dutch disease literature, and states that competitive currencies contribute to the existence and maintenance of the anufacturing sector in the economy. This, in turn, brings about higher growth rates in the long run, given the existence of increasing returns in the industrial sector, and its importance in generating echnological change and increasing productivity in the overall economy. The second objective of this paper is empirical. It intends to analyze examples of successful exchange rate policies, such as Chile and Indonesia in the eighties, as a benchmark for comparison with countries where currency overvaluation has taken place, such as Brazil. In the latter case, the local currency is being inflated by large capital inflows, due to high domestic interest rates and to a boom in demand and prices of commodities in the international markets. It will be argued that the industrial sector bears most of the burden when the currency appreciates, and that Brazil risks at deindustrialization if there are no changes in the exchange rate regime

The promised LAN: the transformative power of information and communications technology in developing countries

Este tese analise as implicações dos investimentos em tecnologia de informação e comunicação (ICT) em países ainda em desenvolvimento, especialmente em termos de educação, para estimular a implementação de uma infra-estrutura mais moderna em vez da continuação do uso de métodos tradicionais. Hoje, como o interesse e os investimentos em ICT estão crescendo rapidamente, os módulos e as idéias que existem para medir o estado de ICT são velhos e inexatos, e não podem ser aplicados às culturas de países em desenvolvimento. Políticos e investidores têm que considerar estes problemas quando estão pensando em investimentos ou socorros para programas em ICT no futuro, e investigadores e professores precisam entender os fatores importantes no desenvolvimento para os ICTs e a educação antes de começar estudos nestes países. Este tese conclue que investimentos em tecnologias móbeis e sem fios ajudarem organizações e governos ultrapassar a infra-estrutura tradicional, estreitando a divisão digital e dando o resulto de educação melhor, alfabetização maior, e soluções sustentáveis pelo desenvolvimento nas comunidades pobres no mundo de países em desenvolvimento.