Public Sector Has Major Role to Play in Fulfilling the Promise of Biotechnology

By Mary Arends-Kuenning, assistant professor of consumer economics in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois.

Biotechnology certainly holds great promise for the people who live in developing countries. To fully benefit from it, however, poor people must have access to new varieties that address their needs. Although the private sector corporations are efficient at developing new products and bringing them to market, the public sector and non-governmental organizations still have important roles in bringing the benefits of biotechnology to the poor.  

The Green Revolution showed that the economic and social structures in a society play a larger role in determining how innovations affect people than the scientific content of the innovations. Social and economic structures within developing countries and within the international community will determine what crops are enhanced using biotechnology, which traits of the crops are altered, and how the new seeds and plants will be distributed.

The fact that the private sector is taking the lead in biotechnology rather than public sector institutions has important implications for developing countries. Crops with high public benefits will not be developed by the private sector if they are not profitable. To make the new technology accessible, the public and nonprofit sectors will need to play important roles.

Institutions such as the International Agricultural Research Centers around the world and the Rockefeller Foundation are focusing attention on subsistence crops that have been neglected by the multinational corporations, such as cassava. Such institutions are also developing crop traits that could be beneficial to the poor, but are not profitable Rockefeller investments in biotechnology have started to pay off as researchers funded by the foundation recently announced the development of “golden rice” that is enriched with vitamin A.

At this time, collaborations between private and public sector organizations on biotechnology research hold the most promise for getting some of the beneficial transgenic varieties into the hands of small farmers quickly. The countries that will benefit the most from these collaborations are those countries that have similar disease and pest problems as developed countries, that grow crops like corn, soybeans, and potatoes where a backlog of research already exists, and that have strong legal and regulatory systems.

Those types of public and private sector collaborations, however, are not going to guarantee that biotechnology reaches all the poor. The private sector corporations are deciding when to collaborate and can dictate the terms. The private sector’s motives in collaborating include public relations and access to developing country markets. Monsanto has provided technology to Mexico and Kenya under liberal terms, but might not always be willing to do so.

Currently, the international centers are collaborating with private corporations. However, the centers do not have a well-developed intellectual property rights policy in place, and as a result, might not be in a strong negotiating position with private corporations. The international centers now are considering patenting their technologies so that they can be provided free of charge to developing country farmers while strengthening their bargaining position with private corporations.

Of course, it is not the role of the private sector to be concerned about equity or gender considerations. The private sector is very efficient at developing new products and getting them into the market when it is profitable to do so. The public and nonprofit sectors, however, will ultimately need to work together with the private sector to ensure that the promised benefits of biotechnology are available to the people who need them the most around the world.