Title: The economic impacts of second generation Bt cotton in West Africa: empirical evidence from Burkina Faso

Authors: Jeffrey Vitale, Harvey Glick, John Greenplate, Oula Traore

Addresses: Oklahoma State University, 308 Ag Hall, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA. ' Monsanto Singapore Co (Pte) Ltd., 151 Lorung Chuan, #06-08 New Tech Park (H Lobby), 556741, Singapore. ' Monsanto Co., 800 N. Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63167, USA. ' INERA (Institut de l'environnement et de recherches agricoles), BP 208, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso

Abstract: West Africa has been slow in adopting agricultural biotechnology. The most progressive stance has been taken by Burkina Faso, which began field testing Bt cotton in 2003. This paper reports the first three years of Bt cotton field trials, which found that Bt cotton increased cotton yields by an average of 20% and reduced insecticide applications by two-thirds. While the technical success of Bt cotton is encouraging, the tests were confined to small scale plots and unit returns found on the experiment station. This paper extrapolates the field test results to the national scale using an economic model, which predicts the economic impacts of introducing Bt cotton in the Burkina Faso cotton sector. The model results found that Bt cotton would generate benefits of $106 per year under typical pest density conditions.

Keywords: transgenic development; cotton yield; bollworm; economic impact; biotechnology; Burkina Easo; West Africa; Bt cotton; GM crops; agricultural biotechnology; insecticides; bacillus thuringiensis; genetically modified crops; GM cotton; pesticide use.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBT.2008.018352

International Journal of Biotechnology, 2008 Vol.10 No.2/3, pp.167 - 183

Published online: 18 May 2008 *

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