From Green Revolution to Biorevolution: Some Observations on the Changing Technological
Bases of Economic Transformation in the Third World
Author(s): Frederick H. Buttel, Martin Kenney, Jack Kloppenburg and Jr.
Source: Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Oct., 1985), pp. 31-55
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1154063
Accessed: 02-04-2015 18:49 UTC
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From Green Revolution to Biorevolution:
Some Observations on the Changing
Technological Bases of Economic
Transformationin the Third World*
Frederick H. Buttel
Cornell University
Martin Kenney
Ohio State University
Jack Kloppenburg, Jr.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Introduction
For over a decade the theory and practice of rural and agricultural
development in the Third World have revolved largely around alternative postures regarding the so-called Green Revolution. Proponents of
the Green Revolution have tended to see the further penetration of
factor markets (and, accordingly, of product markets) in the Third
World as, on balance, desirable. Proponents have argued that the substantial productivity improvements afforded by the transfer of Green
Revolution practices have far outweighed the socioeconomic dislocations that resulted from the superimposition of new technical forms on
"modernizing" social structures.' Green Revolution detractors, on the
other hand, have placed major emphasis on these dislocations. Critics
have rejected the assumption that developing nations can or should
develop along the same path as the present industrial/high-income
countries.2 These critics have argued that the Green Revolution strategy has exacerbated class inequality and/or differentiation and led to
"premature" rural emigration and urbanization.3
To be sure, the positions taken by advocates and critics have
become somewhat less polarized in recent years. Advocates in academic circles and in national and multilateral agencies have recognized
? 1985 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
0013-0079/86/3401-0003$01.00
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32
Economic Development and Cultural Change
the problems that can be caused by rapid market penetration and by
the tendencies toward biased development and application of practices
built around high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and petrochemical inputs.4
Accordingly, there has been increased targeting of the smallholder
sector for special research and extension attention (e.g., through farming systems research) by USAID, the World Bank, International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs), and comparable agencies.5 Likewise, critics of the transfer of HYV and petrochemically based
technologies to the Third World have come to recognize the importance of stimulating productivity improvements in developing regions
of the globe.6
Disillusioned by the failures of "appropriate technologies" to provide these productivity improvements and by the increasingly remote
prospects for meaningful land reform, many critics of the Green Revolution have grudgingly accepted the need for increased energy and
capital intensity in Third World agriculture as a means to increase
production and provide for basic needs. But even as this concession is
made, there is growing evidence that the massive increases in agricultural productivity enjoyed by the advanced industrial nations since
1935 have slowed or even plateaued7 and that the Green Revolution has
been stalled, far short of its productivity potentials, in the developing
world.8 Many analysts speculate that the yield-enhancing potentials of
mechanical and petrochemical inputs may be largely exhausted, and
there is widespread concern that past levels of agricultural performance may be increasingly difficult to sustain.9 Coupled with fears of
continued population growth, the evidence of lagging productivity has
focused attention on support for agricultural research and on recent
advances in applied genetics and molecular biology, which appear to
contain the potential to undergird a new era of productivity gains in
agriculture in both developed and developing nations.
The principal argument of this article is that the technological
pivot of the literatures on international agricultural and rural development is in the process of being superceded by new technical forms that
will significantly change the context within which technological change
in the Third World is conceptualized and planned. We suggest that the
cluster of emergent techniques generically known as "biotechnology"
will be to the Green Revolution what the Green Revolution was to
traditional plant varieties and practices. 1
Biotechnology and the coming "Biorevolution" will not supercede the differences in theoretical viewpoints regarding the Green Revolution. Indeed, it may well intensify them because, as we shall argue,
the ramifications of biotechnology for Third World agriculture will
reinforce trends associated with the Green Revolution: the intensification of international trade linkages, the exacerbation of international scientific disparities, and the furtherance of national market
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
33
penetration. On the other hand, the Biorevolution will exhibit some
significant differences from its predecessor, most notably in the geographic and sectoral breadth of its impact, in the respective roles of
private capital and public agencies in its guidance, and in the creation
of entirely new production processes for many agro-export commodities. This article calls attention to some of the important parameters of what is in all probability a path-breaking technology and to urge
that social research resources be directed to increasing our understanding of the likely impact of biotechnology in developing regions of the
globe.
The Technology and Its Development
Biotechnology is perhaps best defined as the manipulation of living
organisms in order to alter their characteristics in some fashion, to
encourage them to produce some desired product, or to use them as a
component of a broader production process. In this sense it is very old
indeed, for such a definition encompasses traditional plant and animal
breeding as well as the fermentation of such products as beer, cheese,
and yogurt. But whereas the "old" biotechnology depended largely on
selection to obtain desired traits, the "new" biotechnology uses an
enhanced understanding of the molecular constitution of organisms to
achieve directed alteration at the cellular and molecular levels."
Biotechnologists now have access to the very building blocks of life
itself; the "new" biotechnology is a qualitative advance over the old.12
In its present usage, the term biotechnology refers to a cluster of
techniques of current vintage. The most prominent and potentially the
most powerful of these is DNA recombination. Essentially, this involves the insertion of genetic material from one organism into the
genetic code of another, thereby causing the "genetically engineered"
organism to exhibit a trait uncharacteristic of natural members of the
species. Conventional barriers of genetic incompatibility can thus be
circumvented. This opens remarkable possibilities in both agricultural
and industrial production: plant and animal varieties incorporating useful characteristics of other varieties or species, microorganisms programmed to manufacture large quantities of useful chemical substances
not easily or economically extractable from their natural sources, or
"bioengineered" bacteria that efficiently convert one organic chemical
to another more valuable one (e.g., methanol to single-cell proteins).
Simultaneous with the breakthroughs in molecular biology that led
to the development of rDNA techniques were important advances in
plant cell and tissue culture. Plant cell fusion is another method for
circumventing the heretofore rigid parameters of speciation and sexual
compatibility. In this process, cells from different organisms are
stripped of their walls and fused. The resulting hybrid contains genetic
material from both entities-a combination that would not be possible
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34
Economic Development and Cultural Change
in traditional sexual interchanges of genetic material. Progress in tissue
culture may permit regeneration of a complete plant from such an
operation, and this process can also provide new genetic variation.
Breeders can perform mutagenesis and screening procedures on a
growing mass of cells in a petri dish rather than on whole organisms,
with enormous savings in time and space. Tissue culture is thus becoming increasingly important as a way of increasing the speed and
efficiency of germ plasm evaluation. Tissue culture may also be used to
produce large quantities of undifferentiated cells of slow-growing
plants and animals from which useful chemicals can be extracted.'3
This provides an opportunity to produce the desired cells within a
factory located anywhere in the world.
Advances in the life sciences are now on the verge of being commercialized. We feel that there are four major vectors of technological
change that will affect global agriculture: (1) plant genetic manipulation
and breeding, (2) industrial tissue culture, (3) animal applications of
embryology and genetically engineered products, and (4) the use of
genetically manipulated microorganisms to produce or displace agricultural products. Each of these broadly defined areas subsumes
numerous concrete products and processes, and these areas of innovation are, in many cases, mutually reinforcing.
The manipulation and alteration of the genetic or cellular integrity
of organisms to produce novel life forms promises to revolutionize
chemical and pharmaceutical production, pollution and waste management, energy generation, food processing, and plant and animal breeding. 14The complexity of plant and animal genetic engineering has led
some to argue that the effects of biotechnology on agriculture are far in
the future.'" We will discuss a number of biotechnologies, some of
which within the next 10 years will affect Third World agriculturalists
in both animal and plant husbandry. Furthermore, we will demonstrate
that the Biorevolution will be expressed in a cumulative and growing
wave of applications. The Biorevolution is much more than the production of new crop varieties-it involves directly or indirectly nearly all
of man's uses of living organisms for the reproduction of human life.
The Corporate Response
A persuasive index of the ultimate impact and value of biotechnology is
the response that it has engendered in the international corporate community. Stimulated by the broad range of areas over which biotechnology appears to be commercially exploitable, business interests have
invested heavily in the new technologies. In the last few years the
establishment of agricultural genetic engineering firms (e.g., Agrigenetics, Calgene, and DNA Plant Technology) has been very rapid (see
table 1). Transnational corporations have also felt compelled to establish a presence in biotechnology by purchasing equity interests in the
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TABLE 1
AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY VENTURE-CAPITAL
Company
Agrigenetics
Advanced Genetics Science
International Plant Research
Institute
FIRMS: SELECTED UNIVERSITY-BASED RESEARCHERS, FIN
Principal University-based
Researcher Affiliation
Timothy Hall, U. of Wis.
John Kemp, U. of Wis/USDA
Vernon Gracen, Cornell
Lawrence Bogorad, Harvard
Milton Schroth, U. of Calif.,
Berkeley
Oluf Gamborg, Prairie Regional
Laboratory, Canada
Formerly, Martin Apple, U. of
Calif., San Francisco
Zoecon Corp.
Calgene
Genetic Engineering Co.
DNA Plant Technology Co.
Molecular Genetics
Raymond Valentine, U. of Calif.,
Davis
Edwin Adair, U. of Colo.
Thomas Wagner, Ohio U.
Norman Borlaug, Texas A & M
Philip Ammirato, Columbia
Melvin Calvin, U. of Calif.,
Berkeley
Anthony Faras, U. of Minn.
Charles Green, U. of Minn.
Lynn Enquist, NIH
Financial Linkages
Hoffmann-LaRoche
Kellogg Co.
Rothschild Bank
Rohm & Haas
Hilleshog
Davy-McKee Corp.
General Foods
Bio-rad Laboratories
Sandoz
(formerly, Occidental Petro
Allied Chemical (20%)
Johnson & Johnson
Cambell Soup (40%)
Koppers Co.
General Foods
American Cyanamid
Moorman Manufacturing
U.S. Dept. of Defense
NoTE.-All information is accurate to the best of our knowledge, but it should be kept in mind that
difficult to keep abreast of the latest data.
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Economic Development and Cultural Change
36
TABLE 2
IN-HOUSE
Corporation
Monsanto
Chevron
Pfizer
ARCO
DuPont
CORPORATE LIFE SCIENCE RESEARCH: DESCRIPTION AND LOCATION
Area of Interest
Description
Location
Agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture
Life sciences
$40 million invested in research
$38 million facility
20 Ph.D. researchers
15 scientists, 57 employees
$85 million investment
Missouri
California
Missouri
California
Delaware
NoTE.-These data are presented for illustrative purposes only. Other companies
that have important in-house agricultural research activities include Eli Lilly, Sandoz,
and Ciba-Geigy.
TABLE 3
INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY
Corporation
Monsanto
Monsanto
Monsanto
Glass
Comrning
Union Carbide
Kodak
Hoechst
W. R. Grace
Bendix
General Foods
Koppers
Mead
Noranda Mines
Elf-Acquitaine
Dupont
Celanese
Allied Chemical
NoTE.-These
CONTRACTS: COST, DURATION, AND AREAS OF RESEARCH
University
Harvard
Washington
Rockefeller
Cornell
Mass. General
Hospital
MIT
U. of Calif.,
Berkeley; and
Stanford
Harvard Medical
School
Yale
U. of Calif., Davis
Cost
($ Millions)
Duration
(Years)
23
23.5
4
2.5 each;
7.5 total
10
5
70
8.5
10
5
2.4
4
6
1.1
2.5
5
3
...
6
Areas of Research
Molecular biology
Biomedical
Plant cell biology
All aspects of biotechnology
Genetics
Biotechnology
Biochemical engineering
Genetics
Enzyme research
Nitrogen fixation
data are presented for illustrative purposes only.
venture capital-financed firms, by enhancing or establishing their own
in-house research capabilities (see table 2), and by consummating unprecedented research funding arrangements with universities engaged
in state-of-the-art biotechnology research (see table 3). Although corporations with major investments in biotechnology include engineering, food processing, grain marketing, and conglomerate corporate interests, the transnational petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies
have been the most active investors.
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
37
Many of the corporations now investing in biotechnology have
also attracted attention for their participation in the wave of acquisitions that has been sweeping the American and European seed industries (see table 4). These acquisitions were initially motivated by considerations related to rising world food demand and the introduction of
plant breeders' rights that confer patent-like protection on new plant
varieties. However, in the late 1970s, increasingly evident synergies
among biotechnology, seeds, and agrichemicals made this logical corporate strategy even more attractive.'6 Agricultural biochemistry has
now found in biotechnology a common technical basis with plant
breeding."7 Genetically engineered plant varieties may be developed to
be compatible with proprietary plant protection chemicals manufac-
TABLE 4
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS, PRODUCT LINES, AND SEED COMPANY SUBSIDIARIES
Multinational
Parent
Primary Products
Sandoz
(Switzerland)
Pharmaceuticals
Shell
(U.K./Netherlands)
Oil, chemicals
CIBA-Geigy
(Switzerland)
Pharmaceuticals,
chemicals
Celanese
(U.S.)
Textiles, chemicals
Cargill
(U.S.)
Grain
Occidental
Petroleum (U.S.)
Oil, petrochemicals
NoTE.-These
Seed Subsidiaries
Ladner Beta Seed (Canada)
Zaadunie (Netherlands)
Northrup King (U.S.)
Rogers Brothers (U.S.)
National-NK (U.S.)
Sluis en Groot (Netherlands)
International Plant Breeders (U.K.)
Comanie General de Semillas (Spain)
Rothwell Group (U.K.)
Interseeds (Netherlands)
IPB Japan (Japan)
Nickerson P. Gmbh (West Germany)
Zwaan (Netherlands & Belgium)
North American Plant Breeders
(U.S., with Olin Chemical)
Funk Seeds International (U.S.)
Stewart (Canada)
Louisiana Seeds (U.S.)
CIBA-Geigy Mexicana (Mexico)
Celpril (U.S.)
Moran (U.S.)
Joseph Harris (U.S.)
Nugrain
ACCO (U.S.)
Dorman (U.S.)
Kroeker (Canada)
PAG (U.S.)
Ring Around Products (U.S.)
Excel Hybrid (U.S.)
Missouri (U.S.)
Moss (U.S.)
data are presented for illustrative purposes only.
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38
Economic Development and Cultural Change
tured by another subsidiary of the same company.'8 Biotechnology
could thus make possible the full integration of biological and chemical
product lines.
The corporations that appear to be best situated to dominate the
new era of biologically based agricultural productivity growth are those
that combine in-house research capabilities, equity interests in genetic
engineering venture firms, seed company ownership, and access to
university research via funding arrangements. For example, Sandoz, a
Swiss pharmaceutical transnational, in addition to in-house research
capabilities, owns the biotechnology firm Zoecon as well as more than
six American and European seed companies, including Northrup King.
Connections to Michigan State University researchers through Zoecon
complete the pattern of integration.
Third World Applications of Agricultural Biotechnology
The potential of the new biotechnologies has also excited those concerned with international agricultural development."9 India, the Philippines, and several other developing countries have established national
institutes of or programs in biotechnology. Moreover, at the request of
USAID, the National Academy of Sciences convened a conference on
"Priorities in Biotechnology Research for International DevelopThe United Nations Industrial Development Organization
ment.."'2 recently proposed the establishment of an International
(UNIDO)
Centre for Genetic Engineering and Bio-Technology that would perform LDC-oriented research and facilitate the transfer of new biological technologies to the Third World.2'
The effects of biotechnology on Third World agricultural production will be as profound as on the agriculture of industrialized societies.
Transnational pharmaceutical and chemical companies, genetic research firms, and university labs are pursuing the development of
bioengineered crop varieties across the entire spectrum of world crops.
Principal areas of research include yield improvement, achievement of
nitrogen fixation in nonleguminous crops, enhancement of photosynthetic activity, manipulation of growth regulators, improved stress tolerance (to cold, moisture, drought, salinity, and other soil conditions),
pest and pathogen resistance, and plant architecture. Achievements in
any of these areas could have far-reaching consequences. For example, in Southeast Asia alone there are 86.5 million hectares of poor
soil unsuitable for traditionally bred HYVs because of adverse soil
conditions."22Achievement of nitrogen fixation in crops such as rice or
maize could greatly reduce capital expenditures for fertilizers, and
various pest-resistance characteristics could do the same for other
chemical inputs. Development of varieties that use water more
efficiently would enable certain marginal bioclimatic, and soil regimes
to become productive agro-ecosystems without recourse to costly irri-
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
39
gation schemes. Forest species genetically engineered for rapid growth
or other quality characteristics, such as soil-stabilizing capacity, and
multiplied by clonal propagation could greatly alleviate the fuelwood,
deforestation, and erosion problems now characteristic of much of the
Third World.23 In almost every aspect of economic cultivation there
are tantalizing prospects for biotechnology to enhance yields, renewable resource-based production, and human welfare.
However, the deployment of a new technology is rarely socially
neutral, as became apparent during the Green Revolution. Have the
lessons of the Green Revolution truly been learned? Will the coming
Biorevolution have a more equitable impact than did its predecessor?
Will the improved plant varieties emerging from the Biorevolution be
designed with the smallholding peasant farmer in mind, or will they
contain a bias toward the sophisticated and well-capitalized "progressive" farmer? Initial answers to such questions are ominous. Differential access to the new technologies is becoming apparent, and in the
absence of proper precautions, implementation could become a zerosum game. For example, the first genetically modified field crop varieties to be commercialized are expected to be types resistant to various
herbicides.24 The reasons for breeding herbicide resistance are inextricably linked to the important economic interests chemical companies have in merchandising herbicides. This strategy, if successful,
will lead to increased use of commercial herbicides and greater dependence on the agrochemical suppliers.
The Structures of the Green and Biorevolutions
The emergent Biorevolution differs in form from the Green Revolution
in several important ways. First, Green Revolution strategy focused on
the utilization of traditional plant breeding to improve yields by developing varieties on the best available land.25 In addition, breeding goals
often assumed the use of irrigation, and thus Green Revolution HYVs
were generally quite limited in the geometeorological zones in which
they could be grown. Adoption of HYVs apparently slowed in the
1970s, and vast areas of poorer land in the Third World have not been
planted with the improved varieties.26 Biotechnology will certainly be
used to improve cereal grain varieties in the zones now favorable to
intensive cultivation. However, the Biorevolution also promises to expand vastly the geographic sphere in which technological research and
development can be applied to agricultural production. Whereas the
Green Revolution led to large gains in circumscribed areas, the
Biorevolution will permit the extension of commercial agriculture to all
regions, including those characterized by marginal soils where subsistence and petty commodity production have persisted unchallenged.
The impacts of the Biorevolution have the potential to encompass the
entire rural population of the LDCs.
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40
Economic Development and Cultural Change
Similarly, the Green Revolution was limited in the number of commodities to which it was targeted; efforts were focused largely on the
improvement of maize, wheat, and rice. Although the original IARCs
(CIMMYT, IRRI) have over the years been joined by other research
centers with responsibility for other crops (e.g., Centro Internacional
de Agricultura Tropical, International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, Centro Internacional de la Papa), returns to this research have
been far less dramatic. Moreover, a large number of minor and agroexport crops receive little or no research attention. By contrast, one of
the principal features of biotechnology is its generality and possible
applicability to any living organism. Researchers in corporate labs are
working on the genetic improvement of the entire range of world crops,
from redwoods to pyrethrum.27
Yet the defining feature of the Biorevolution, and that which differentiates it most sharply from the Green Revolution, is its predominantly private character. Despite all the controversy generated by the
tendency of the Green Revolution to serve narrow private ends, it is
important to remember that it was conceived and implemented within
an institutional structure composed mainly of public and quasi-public
organizations. In particular, the Green Revolution was spearheaded by
the IARCs organized under the auspices of the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research.2s Historically, the IARCs have
been funded by grants from governments of developed countries, governments of developing countries, private foundations (especially
Rockefeller and Ford), and multilateral development banks. Though
somewhat less the case now than when the centers were in their infancy, the reservoir of technical expertise of the 13 IARCs was and still
remains closely tied to the public agricultural research institutions of
the developed countries, especially those of the United States.
This is not to say that private interests, particularly agrochemical
transnationals, did not benefit from the spread of the Green Revolution. Clearly they did. But private corporations themselves did not
spearhead the Green Revolution, take responsibility for technology
transfer, or play a determinate role in the shaping of research priorities.
There were several reasons for this. First, the research base for the
principal Green Revolution crops (maize, wheat, rice) was well established and had been developed in the public agricultural institutions of
the advanced industrial nations. Private industry had no critical contributions to make to the research process." In any case, the agrochemical firms automatically stood to benefit from varietal development in
the IARCs, since the plant varieties developed incorporated the assumptions of developed nations regarding the need for fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides. Moreover, because wheat and rice could not be
successfully hybridized, seed companies had little interest in Third
World markets. In the absence of breeders' rights legislation or the
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
41
natural proprietary protection conferred by the inbred parents of a
hybrid, seed prices could not diverge far from bulk grain prices, nor
could farmers be brought into the market each year. Thus, the major
clients of the IARCs have been the governments of developing nations
and their national breeding programs, with private-sector involvement
in the merchandising of Green Revolution inputs largely at the discretion of individual governments.
We do not wish to imply that the Green Revolution was initiated
and implemented autonomously by the IARCs; that is clearly not the
case. Nevertheless, the strong public-sector overlay of the Green Revolution at least theoretically assured public participation in setting research priorities. This was not sufficient to avoid serious problems,30
but the dislocations stimulated by the inequitable deployment of Green
Revolution technologies could have been considerably worse had the
IARCs not been committed to a mission-oriented ideology of the
"public interest." In fact, as noted at the outset, one can cite the
surprisingly large influence that criticisms of the Green Revolution
have had on the IARCs in their diversion of increasingly large proportions of their expenditures to farming systems research and other strategies for addressing the needs of smallholders.
The private and proprietary character of biotechnology research in
the developed countries has become especially marked with regard to
agricultural applications. There are several reasons for this. First, the
publicly funded land-grant universities' traditional hegemony in agricultural research is being eroded. Corporate-sponsored research into
agricultural biotechnology is now frequently being contracted to private universities outside the traditional agricultural research community (e.g., Harvard, MIT, Rockefeller University) whose programs in
molecular and cell biology-the parent discipline of biotechnologyare superior to those of the land-grant universities. Second, fiscal austerity in national and state governments has limited the ability of the
land-grant universities to maintain even conventional breeding programs, much less expand their biotechnology research efforts."3 Third,
passage of the Plant Variety Protection Act32 and the recent Supreme
Court decision permitting the patenting of genetically modified life
forms have greatly increased the attractiveness to private industry of
both conventional and biotechnological modes of plant breeding. The
land-grant universities are under increasing pressure to withdraw from
releasing finished plant varieties and to limit their efforts to maintaining, evaluating, and improving germ plasm. The center of gravity of
breeding activities in the United States is shifting away from public
agencies toward the private sector.
This trend has important implications for the shape of the
Biorevolution. With regard to the development and deployment of
biotechnology, the IARCs no longer have a strong, unrivaled public
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42
Economic Development and Cultural Change
agricultural research sector in the United States to rely on for crucial
expertise in the new technology. Moreover, the IARCs themselves are
facing difficulties similar to those confronted by the land-grant universities. Funding for the IARCs in 1983 will fall short of inflation by 6%,
and virtually all 13 centers are cutting back on research and training
programs.33 Although the IARCs are moving to take advantage of the
new biological technologies, they may be unable to do so at a level
consistent with their enormous responsibility of deploying biotechnology in the Third World.
In contrast with the Green Revolution, it is clear that this time
private capital is willing to act as the principal agent for technological
transfer and development. Private corporations have every intention of
shaping the Biorevolution to their own needs and objectives. In
biotechnology, industry finds itself in a superior technological position
vis-a-vis the IARCs and the national programs of the LDCs. Moreover,
the plane of competition in the agro-inputs industries has become increasingly international. Many seed and agrochemical markets in the
advanced industrial nations are saturated, and profit gains there can
only be achieved via competitive increases in market share. On the
other hand, the Third World offers vast and largely untapped sales
potential, and many firms see their future in the LDCs.34 Since the
advent of the Green Revolution, seed companies and their transnational parents have established footholds in most LDCs. For example,
Pioneer Hi-Bred now has sales outlets in over 90 countries and has
breeding and research facilities in Brazil, Argentina, the Philippines,
India, and Thailand.35
It is even possible that the bulk of technology transfer in the
Biorevolution will bypass the IARCs and national programs and occur
in the context of competitive market consolidation under the aegis of
private capital. A possible prototype for the private transfer of biotechnology to the LDCs may well be the joint venture recently formed
between a leading agricultural genetic engineering research firm and
one of the largest agricultural and industrial conglomerates in Southeast Asia. A private company located in the United States, the International Plant Research Institute, and Sime Darby Berhad, located in
Kuala Lumpur, have announced the formation of the ASEAN Biotechnology Corporation and the ASEAN Agro-Industrial Corporation. The
former will "apply genetic engineering and recombinant DNA technology to a broad range of tropical crops, and will allow for the introduction into Southeast Asia of technologies developed at the IPRI laboratories in California."36 The latter will manage and market the products
of this collaboration. In its pervasively private character, the
Biorevolution will depart fundamentally from the experience of the
Green Revolution.
The mode of technology transfer characteristic of the Biorevolu-
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
43
tion will further differ in two other ways directly related to the massive
involvement of private interests. In comparison with Green Revolution
technology, the instrumentation, facilities, and, above all, personnel
required for biotechnology research, development, and production are
relatively expensive. Tissue culture and monoclonal antibody labs are
relatively cheap, but scaling up for production is very costly. Recombinant DNA facilities would entail a $6 million investment,"37and creating
the infrastructure for production for the market would be at least an
order of magnitude more expensive. Even if the IARCs and national
programs in the LDCs limit themselves to the less costly end of
biotechnology research, it is possible that they will be swamped by the
sheer amount of capital that corporations are investing. UNIDO's proposed International Centre for Genetic Engineering and BioTechnology is projected to have a budget of $8.6 million a year and a
staff of 168, including 50 Ph.D.'s.38 The leading genetic engineering
research firm, Genentech, alone accounts for a staff of 350, of whom 70
are Ph.D.'s, and enjoys an annual research and development budget of
$21 million.39 The leading 50 genetic engineering firms have attracted a
total capital investment of over $1 billion. There can be little doubt that
the major share of products emerging from biotechnology labs will be
privately developed. Biotechnology would appear to portend not a
diminution but a reinforcement of the scientific and technological gap
between the LDCs and the advanced industrial nations.
The genesis of the Biorevolution also introduces the problem of
patents and proprietary information into the question of technology
transfer. This was not a consideration of the Green Revolution: with
public agricultural research agencies producing new varieties, there
was no difficulty in arranging for the release and exchange of germ
plasm in the public domain. The Plant Variety Protection Act and
similar legislation have already slowed scientific intercourse as measures are taken to protect proprietary genetic information. The Union
for the Protection of Plant Varieties is taking action to persuade LDCs
to institute variety protection legislation similar to that in the developed world. Such legislation would ease private-sector access to LDC
seed markets and help create the conditions for enhanced profits.
Of far deeper long-term significance may be the U.S. Supreme
Court decision upholding the validity of patents on genetically engineered organisms. Should a company like Monsanto successfully
make a breakthrough, such as inserting the nitrogen-fixing gene complex into the genetic code of a maize variety, that breakthrough could
presumably be patented. It would be available only to those willing and
able to pay a royalty fee. Biotechnology thus promises to exacerbate
what has long been a major point of contention in the North/South
debate: the problem of patenting and the free flow of scientific and
technical information.
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Economic Development and Cultural Change
Industrial Tissue Culture
The previous section discussed the impacts that biotechnology will
have on agricultural plant production. But industrial tissue culture
could have a totally different effect: it introduces the possibility of
eliminating the need for the complete plant. This is possible due to
advances in the ability to sustain life in plant or animal eukaryotic cells
separate from the organism from which they have been removed.40 If,
for example, the root cells of a plant contain a chemical that is a
desirable ingredient for flavoring, tissue culture would allow the root
cells to be cultured in a fermentation vessel and the desired chemical to
be extracted from those cells. There are, of course, drawbacks to this
process-the foremost is its high cost. A recent estimate is that the
material produced through tissue culture must be worth over $300 per
pound.41 Yet it seems reasonable to expect this break-even figure to
decline significantly in the next decade.
Numerous companies, large and small, have embarked on research programs aimed at developing industrial-scale processes for
extraction of chemicals from tissue cultures. Table 5 provides a preliminary list of plants for which tissue culture is being considered.42
Note that in addition to high-value/low-volume chemicals, corporate
research in both Japan and England is underway to grow huge quantities of tobacco cells to replace or supplement leaf tobacco in tobacco
products.43 The areas that would appear most promising economically
in the near future include naturally occurring drugs, flavors, fragrances, dye stuffs, and crop protection chemicals.44
Cell tissue cultures essentially transfer agricultural activities into
the factory and accordingly give tissue cultures certain economic advantages over traditional techniques of extracting chemicals from
plants. Previous uncertainties due to weather, pests, labor problems,
and transport interruptions can be eliminated by operating within the
confines of an industrial factory, and the traditional dependence on
potentially unreliable suppliers of raw materials or producer states is
minimized. With most plants, cultivation is seasonal, and the harvest
must be either stored (which frequently leads to a loss of potency) or
immediately processed (requiring an oversized factory designed for
peak loads). Tissue culture alternatives to conventional processes or
extraction of chemicals from plants eliminate the seasonality of production and make possible the vertical integration and control over the
production process that is essential in a modern firm to ensure a
steady, predictable cash flow. Finally, the number of laborers required
for tissue culture production tends to be much lower than for the traditional production of chemicals from plants. This is the case primarily
because the factories currently being scaled up for industrial tissue
culture will not depend on agricultural raw materials that are produced
under labor-intensive conditions (especially with regard to planting and
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
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TABLE 5
PLANT
PRODUCT
Product
Opium
Cinchona
Digitalis
Ginseng
Catharanthine
Pyrethrum
Tobacco
Murasaki
NoTE.-These
TISSUE
CULTURE:
PERFORMING
CORPORATION
Company
Plant Science (U.K.)
Plant Science (U.K.)
Plant Science (U.K.)
Plant Science (U.K.)
Institutefor Biotechnology
Research(West Germany)
Biotec (Belgium)
JapaneseSalt and Tobacco
Monopoly
Mitsui Petrochemical(Japan)
AND
COUNTRY
OF ORIGIN
Country of Origin
or Cultivation
Turkey,Thailand
South America,Indonesia
United States, Korea
Kenya, Tanzania,Uganda
United States
Japan, Korea, China
data are presented for illustrative purposes only.
harvesting activities). The tissue culture factories are also unlikely to
generate significant manufacturing employment; these factories are
highly automated through the use of computer-guided production techniques. Industrial tissue culture thus has a number of potential economic advantages relative to extraction of chemicals from plants.
Industrial tissue culture also has significant technical advantages.
The most important technical advantage is that a tissue culture yields
products that are more easily purified. The fact that only the desired
cell or group of cells is cultured ensures that both quality and quantity
are predictable and planned. Also, manipulation of temperature and
lighting can significantly increase yields of the desired compound. This
makes feasible the recovery of plant substances that are present only in
very minute quantities, that are from plants grown only in remote
areas, or that are from plants that are very difficult to cultivate. Finally,
a tissue culture fermentation plant will generally not be limited to one
product but rather will be multivalent (i.e., capable of producing
numerous different products).
The impact of tissue culture will not be sudden, but as developments in this area proceed, the markets for many of the Third World's
primary products will be eroded. Some Third World countries are already developing a counterstrategy by starting indigenous tissue culture laboratories with the aid of developed countries. For example,
Indian and German universities have initiated joint projects to tissue
culture rare Indian medicinal plants. This agreement provides training
for Indian scientists but simultaneously provides German pharmaceutical companies with access to numerous valuable drugs. A crucial contradiction presented by these arrangements is that the LDCs (the
sources of the plants to be cultured) will be competing with their own
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Economic Development and Cultural Change
primary products if they initiate tissue culture production. However,
the more typical case will likely be a straightforward process of tissue
culture displacing a traditional industry in which plants are the source
of a chemical or a pharmaceutical: developing countries will provide
the plant species (whose genetic material will be used to produce the
desired compound through tissue culture) but will be unable to reap
any of the monetary benefits from its use because of the lack of technical resources with which to develop indigenous tissue culture industries. The traditional industry will see its share in the world market
stagnate or disappear. The final result might even be that the original
producer countries will be forced to import from producers in developed countries a commodity that these Third World countries formerly
exported.
Animal Husbandry
In sharp contrast to the Green Revolution, the Biorevolution will not
be confined to plants. Increases in animal productivity, in both the
advanced and developing nations, have lagged behind those of crops.45
This state of affairs will be altered by biotechnology. There are numerous important biogenetic products and services being developed to
increase the productivity of animals. Paradoxically, the animal sector
has received a greater amount of research attention, even though domesticated animals are not only more biologically complex than plants
but also less important agriculturally in aggregate total value. Mammalian research has been undertaken for many years by scientists attempting to improve human health. This has led to an impressive body
of knowledge that is being devoted to biotechnology for animal agriculture. It is probable that the first commercially successful agricultural
biotechnology products will be for animals. These products can be
divided into three categories: hormones, vaccines, and reproductive
technologies. Numerous breakthroughs and innovations are being
made in each area.
The most important animal hormones under development are
those that encourage growth. For example, in recent tests bovine
growth hormone has increased milk output 10%-15%, although neither
requiring more feed nor lowering the quality of the milk.46 The recent
development of a chicken growth hormone provides the potential to
speed broiler growth and thereby reduce the turnover time for broilers.47 Growth hormones offer the possibility of significantly lowering
the costs of poultry and dairy production and thereby increasing the
availability of these products.
Animal losses to disease are very significant for farmers in developing countries, and numerous biotechnology companies are searching
for appropriate vaccines. Of particular importance for LDCs is the
hoof-and-mouth disease vaccine that has been developed separately by
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
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researchers at Genentech (in cooperation with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture) and Molecular Genetics, Inc. Molecular Genetics has already supplied quantities of the vaccine to a research institute in
Buenos Aires for tests.48 These new genetically engineered hoof-andmouth vaccines have significant cost and efficacy advantages over traditional vaccines, which must be refrigerated and are therefore difficult
to use in developing countries. The successful commercialization of
this vaccine would significantly enhance the livestock production and
processing industries of several developing countries, making increased exports possible. Other vaccines are being developed to control neonatal diarrhea in calves and piglets and numerous other animal
diseases that have historically contributed to low livestock survival
rates. 49
Finally, the development of new techniques in embryology is making possible tremendous advances in genetic selection among larger
animals. For cattle, techniques for transplanting and sexing embryos
are making possible much greater specificity in reproduction. Commercializable techniques have been developed to secure the survival and
development of numerous fertilized ova from a desirable cow. These
ova can be frozen and transported internationally for transplantation
into a surrogate mother from which the ova acquire her environmentally specific immunities. The ability to preserve cattle embryos cryogenically makes possible a world market in cattle genetic material and
provides the potential for less developed countries to upgrade their
herds. Other techniques have been developed to determine the sex of
the embryos, allowing specificity in choice of dairy or meat cattle.50
These sexing techniques ensure that embryos of the desired sex can be
purchased. Similar techniques are being examined for swine"' and in all
likelihood will follow for other commercially significant animals.
It is important to emphasize the diversity of the role of livestock in
Third World agricultural systems to understand the potentials for socioeconomic benefits and dislocations deriving from productivity improvements afforded by advances in reproductive and disease prevention technologies. For much of the Third World, livestock products are
primarily items of luxury consumption or are heavily produced for
export. Typically, livestock production involves extensive use of agricultural resources and reflects the legacy of inegalitarian landholding
systems that restrict peasant access to land for subsistence or commercial production. Under these circumstances, productivity improvements in livestock production may make little direct contribution
to feeding the hungry and, at worst, may make livestock (especially
cattle) production sufficiently profitable so that it will further displace
labor-intensive production of subsistence food crops on small plots. On
the other hand, livestock production in other contexts, especially in
Africa, plays a more central role in the peasant economy. In addition to
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Economic Development and Cultural Change
supplying meat, livestock are pivotal in providing traction, transportation, milk, clothing, fertilizer, and so on. Productivity improvements in
livestock production in zones where livestock are not largely items of
luxury production would thus make a far more direct and immediate
contribution to improving the livelihoods of rural and agricultural
populations.
Genetic Manipulation and Agricultural Products
The previous sections examine specific substantive arenas of biotechnological progress, but the magnitude of the Biorevolution's effect on
Third World agriculture is potentially even broader. As we have indicated earlier, any production process based on living organisms could
be affected by biotechnology. This section briefly discusses a number
of other areas of research and production, with the aim of indicating
the inclusivity of biotechnology (see also table 6).
Perhaps the most instructive example of the power of biotechnology is the tremendous growth in the use of high-fructose corn
sweetener that is produced through the use of immobilized enzyme
technology. This industry has had remarkable success in both the
United States and Japan, even though it is only 15 years old.52 Predictions are that by 1985, corn sweeteners will have captured 10% of the
world sweetener market and over 45% of the U.S. market.53 Rather
than disappear, the current world sugar glut will in all likelihood continue, and only the low-cost cane sugar growers will remain competitive in the world market.54 Corn sweeteners produced by immobilized
enzyme technologies probably represent the first example of the potential that biotechnology has for displacing a major tropical product.
Feed protein for animals is another product that may be replaced
by a process that uses genetically engineered organisms. Imperial
Chemical Industry has built a single-cell protein (SCP) factory using
methanol as a feedstock. The SCP factory process requires only onetenth the labor power of soybean production; although not yet fully
competitive with soybean meal, the venture has been economically
successful."55The Soviet Union is aiming to be self-sufficient in animal
feed by 1990 through increased production of SCP.56 The implications
of SCP production for world feed protein exporters-such
as the
United States, Brazil, and Argentina in soybeans and the Ivory Coast
and Senegal in peanuts-thus may be problematic.
It should be emphasized as well that biotechnology offers tremendous promise for LDCs. For example, the Brazilian alcohol program is
based on the microbial transformation of sugarcane juices into ethanol.
Genetic engineering could improve the speed and productivity of this
microbial conversion process, making the alcohol program more competitive with imported oil. If bacteria that efficiently metabolize cellulose are developed, it could become possible to use the abundant
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
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TABLE 6
OTHER POTENTIAL PRODUCTS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY:
RESEARCH LOCATION AND BRIEF DISCUSSION
Product
Research Location
Discussion
Single cell protein
Hoechst, ICI, and companies in the USSR
Conversion of palm
to cocoa oil
High fructose corn
syrup
Several companies, esp.
in France
Numerous companiesglobal, esp. in Japan
and U.S.
Papain
Numerous companies
Ethanol
Numerous companies
Produced either for cattle feed or
perhaps for human consumption; at least initially will displace mainly soy protein
Would cheapen high-cost food
oils
By 1987 will supply 44% of U.S.
sweetener market and displace
cane and beet sugar production
Current production 100 tons; exporting countries include Sri
Lanka, India, S. Africa
Brazil produces over 2 million
tons per year by biological
processes from sugarcane and
cassava
biomass available in the tropics as feedstock. The perfection of such
bacteria could lead to an escape from dependence on imported oil by
making possible alcohol production from cellulose.
Conclusion
In each of the previous sections we have indicated important areas of
research and application of these new productive forces. Furthermore,
we have indicated the overwhelmingly private character of these technologies and their applications and suggested some likely consequences of this private mode of R & D and technology transfer. It is
very likely that less developed countries will become increasingly dependent on technology owned by companies located in developed
countries. This observation is, of course, not novel. As noted above,
recognition of this problem has led UNIDO to sponsor the establishment of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and BioTechnology dedicated to research into applications in the Third World
context. The proposal has received support from nearly all countries
with the exception of Japan and the United States, the two leaders in
biotechnology.57 But whether a research institution with a yearly
budget of $8.6 million can compete with companies such as Cetus or
Genentech-two
of the largest U.S. biotechnology companies, with
research budgets of over $20 million each-and with the large transnational corporations with their huge research budgets is certainly open
to question. The situation is especially problematic when nearly all of
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50
Economic Development and Cultural Change
the companies are attempting to patent processes in order to require
other users to pay royalties.
The need for some mechanism for delivering the benefits of
biotechnology to the less developed countries is clear. This issue has
recently been dramatized by a clash between the public good and private interest in the international arena over the effort to develop and
produce a vaccine for malaria, which kills two million persons annually. New York University (NYU) researchers, with USAID and WHO
funding, have developed the basic knowledge needed to create a
malaria vaccine. The university contacted Genentech to proceed with
the necessary research to bring the vaccine into production. But after 2
years of negotiation, Genentech balked when the WHO refused to
extend an exclusive license to the company.58 John Maddox, the editor
of Nature, has written that negotiations with another company could
delay the project by 2 years.59 Genentech's concern-in effect, that it
would be unable to collect monopoly rents on the production of malaria
vaccine-does not auger well for the UNIDO-sponsored international
center. The center's research breakthroughs, like those of the NYU
malaria vaccine researchers, will require scaleup. Whatever the final
outcome in the case of the malaria vaccine, a chilling precedent has
been set in cautioning researchers that commercialization of breakthroughs targeted to the poor will be problematic. Futhermore, the
incident dramatizes the fact that research alone does not create products; the expertise for scaling research discoveries up to the production
stage is crucial, and not only is the transition from innovation to
scaleup expensive but the expertise and financial capacity are concentrated in only a few companies and countries.60
We began this article by arguing that the major characteristics of
an emergent Biorevolution can be most clearly gauged by comparison
with the experiences of the Green Revolution. In addition to the pervasively private character of biotechnology R & D and technology transfer, the Biorevolution will have a far greater span of applications (and
hence impacts) than did the Green Revolution. Moreover, the infrastructural investments involved in biotechnology R & D are considerably greater than those incurred by the IARCs at the outset of the
Green Revolution. Finally, the Biorevolution is emerging in a backdrop
of exclusionary legal arrangements (plant variety protection and the
ability to patent novel life forms) that played a very small role in the
early activities of the IARCs.
The implications of the divergences between the institutional
structures of the Green and Biorevolutions are potentially quite dramatic. As long as the IARCs enjoyed virtually unrivaled hegemony in
international agricultural research by virtue of their technical expertise
and the unattractiveness of Third World-oriented agricultural research
for private investment, international agricultural research goals were at
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
51
least theoretically a matter of public participation and debate. As we
emphasized above, for example, the IARCs, despite their tendency
toward inertia in responding to criticism, have begun to. take modest
strides toward research targeted to the needs of smallholders and
oriented to the perfection of labor-intensive technologies in laborsurplus economies.61 This shift of research emphases was clearly made
possible by the fact that the IARCs are quasi-public institutions and
that their activities are subject to public scrutiny. But if, as we suspect,
neither public agricultural research institutions in the developed countries62 nor those of the "international public sector" (i.e., the IARCs
and the UNIDO-sponsored International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Bio-Technology) can retain their supremacy in agricultural R &
D, control over research goals will shift toward the private sector. In
some instances and under certain conditions, this shift from public to
private control will be beneficial or at least benign. The weakness of
this largely private system of R & D and technology transfer, however,
will be in ensuring that there is sufficient attention paid to the technical
needs of peasant smallholders and the rural poor in general, who will
lack the purchasing power to constitute an attractive market. Will the
rapid deployment of malaria vaccines; the development of highyielding, disease-resistant strains of cassava; or research into vaccines
against pervasive infectious diseases of cattle in Africa be delayed
because of corporate fears about inadequate market potentials? Will
exclusionary legal arrangements lead to the withholding of technical
information from the IARCs or to the extraction of monopoly rents
from peasant purchasers of agricultural inputs? Will the timing of technological transfer of biotechnology to the Third World be perverse?
That is, will the highly profitable initial products of biotechnology (e.g.,
industrial tissue culture production, immobilized enzyme-based production of sugar substitutes, improvements in livestock health and
reproductive performance) cause significant harm to the Third World's
poor before the biotechnologies of more direct benefit to the poor come
on line? These questions, although largely hypothetical at this point,
raise profound issues about how the public interest will be affected by
the ongoing reorganization of international agricultural research and
development.
A final, ironic consequence of the restructuring of international
agricultural R & D relating to biotechnology may be a significant shift
in the politics of the IARCs and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Heretofore, the critics of technological change in the Third World have directed their attacks against
the IARCs. But in the future these same critics may have little choice
but to cast their lot with their former adversaries as a means of preserving public input into agricultural research goals.
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52
Economic
Development
and Cultural Change
Notes
*An earlier version of this article was presented at the preconference
session on "The Structure of Agriculture" at the annual meeting of the Rural
Sociological Society, Lexington, Kentucky, August 1983. The authors contributed equally to the preparation of this article.
1. Y. Hayami and V. W. Ruttan, Agricultural Development (Baltimore;
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971); G. M. Meier, ed., Leading Issues in
Economic Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 56162; and S. Wortman and R. W. Cummings, Jr., To Feed This World (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). It is with some hesitation that we use
the expression "Green Revolution." Nevertheless, the expression now has
wide usage (see, e.g., Wortman and Cummings) and is commonly understood
to refer to the intensification of agricultural production in developing countries
based on the utilization of high-yielding varieties of staple food crops.
2. M. Lipton, Why Poor People Stay Poor (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1977); A. de Janvry, The Agrarian Question and Reformism
in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981); and
R. E. Galli, ed., The Political Economy of Rural Development (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1981).
3. H. M. Cleaver, Jr., "Contradictions of the Green Revolution,"
Monthly Review 24 (June 1972): 80-111; K. Griffin, The Political Economy of
Agrarian Change (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974); A.
Pearse, Seeds of Plenty, Seeds of Want (New York: Oxford University Press,
1980); and W. Falcon, "The Green Revolution: Generations of Problems,"
American Journal of Agricultural Economics 52 (December 1970): 698-709.
4. B. F. Johnston and P. Kilby, Agriculture and Structural Transformation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); and B. F. Johnston and W. C.
Clark, Redesigning Rural Development (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1982).
5. R. R. Harwood, Small Farm Development (Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press, 1979); R. E. McDowell and P. E. Hildebrand, Integrated Crop and
Animal Production: Making the Most of the Resources Available to Small
Farms in Developing Countries (New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 1980);
and World Bank, World Development Report, 1982 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
6. de Janvry (n. 2 above); D. Ghai, E. Lee, J. Maeda, and S. Radwan,
Overcoming Rural Underdevelopment (Geneva: International Labour Office,
1979).
7. W. W. Cochrane, The Development of American Agriculture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979).
8. de Janvry (n. 2 above).
9. Rockefeller Foundation, Science for Agriculture (New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 1982); L. Lewis, "Agriculture Overview," in Priorities in
Biotechnology Research for International Development, ed. National Research Council (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1982), pp. 14758; V. W. Ruttan and W. B. Sundquist, "Agricultural Research as an Investment: Past Experience and Future Opportunities," in Report of the 1982 Plant
Breeding Research Forum, ed. Pioneer Hi-Bred International (Des Moines,
Iowa: Pioneer Hi-Bred International, 1982), pp. 55-103.
10. Implicit in this notion is the fact that the technological and socioeconomic course taken by the Biorevolution will build on and be shaped by that of
the Green Revolution, just as the Green Revolution was superimposed on postcolonial agrarian structures and traditional "farming systems." Put somewhat
differently, biotechnologies will by no means totally displace the Green Revolution technologies that preceded them.
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
53
11. D. Baltimore, "Priorities in Biotechnology," in Priorities in Biotechnology Research for International Development, ed. National Research Council, pp. 30-37.
12. Following current usage, the term "biotechnology" refers specifically
to a cluster of highly sophisticated, novel biogenetic techniques developed
within the last decade as a result of major advances in our understanding of the
dynamics of molecular and cell biology. For extended descriptions of
"biotechnology," see Office of Technology Assessment, Impacts of Applied
Genetics (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1981); Science, vol.
219 (February 11, 1983), special issue on biotechnology; and Scientific American, no. 245 (September 1981), special issue on industrial microbiology.
13. G. Graff, "Plant Tissue Culture," High Technology (September/
October 1982), pp. 67-74.
14. This argument is most true in regard to the possibility of genetically
engineering the higher plants in which economic traits are controlled by a
number of interacting genes; see K. A. Barton and W. J. Brill, "Prospects in
Plant Genetic Engineering," Science 219 (February 11, 1983): 671-75. Recombinant DNA and many of the other major biotechnological processes being
developed are most effective at the single-cell organism level and under conditions in which a trait is controlled by a single gene. Unfortunately, most economic characteristics of crop species (e.g., yield and protein content) are polygenic (i.e., controlled by several interacting genes).
15. See, e.g., N. Borlaug, "Contributions of Conventional Plant Breeding
to Food Production," Science 219 (February 11, 1983): 689-93. It should be
noted that a substantial number of agricultural scientists believe, as does Borlaug, that biotechnologies will not make a significant contribution to food production in developed or developing countries for 1-2 decades.
16. J. Kloppenburg, Jr., and M. Kenney, "Biotechnology, Seeds, and the
Restructuring of Agriculture," Insurgent Sociologist 12 (Fall 1984): 3-18.
17. H. Geissbuhler, P. Brenneisen, and H.-P. Fischer, "Frontiers in Crop
Production: Chemical Research Objectives," Science 217 (August 6, 1982):
505-10.
18. This private-sector strategy is not necessarily limited to biotechnology; see, e.g., "Ciba-Geigy Introduces Unique 'Package' for Sorghum," Farm
Chemicals 142 (July 1979): 55. Nor will all or even a large number of such
efforts to link genetically engineered plant varieties with proprietary chemicals
in "packages" be successful. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that
pesticide resistance and "encapsulation" of seeds by plant protection chemicals are among the most important research thrusts in applied plant molecular
biology; see, e.g., F. Gebhart, "Plant Genetics Inc. Reports Successful Vegetable Harvest from 'Synthetic Seeds,' " Genetic Engineering News 3 (January/
February 1984): 31.
19. N. Brady, "Chemistry and World Food Supplies," Science 218
(November 26, 1982): 847-53; D. L. Plucknett and N. J. H. Smith, "Agricultural Research and Third World Food Production," Science 217 (July 16,
1982): 215-20; and M. S. Swaminathan, "Biotechnology Research and Third
World Agriculture," Science 218 (December 3, 1982): 967-72.
20. National Research Council, ed., Priorities in Biotechnology Research
for International Development (n. 9 above).
21. B. Zimmerman, "Conflicts Pervade Third World Biotech Proposal,"
Bio/Technology 1 (March 1983): 131-32.
22. Swaminathan.
23. P. Farnum, R. Timmis, and J. L. Kulp, "Biotechnology of Forest
Yield," Science 219 (February 11, 1983): 694-702.
24. Barton and Brill.
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54
Economic
Development
and Cultural Change
25. Plucknett and Smith.
26. Brady.
27. Office of Technology Assessment (n. 12 above), chap. 8.
28. Plucknett and Smith.
29. V. W. Ruttan, Agricultural Research Policy (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1982).
30. P. R. Jennings, "Rice Breeding and World Food Production," Science 185 (December 20, 1974): 1085-88; and A. Pearse (n. 3 above).
31. W. Pardee, D. Phillipson, J. Billings, and R. Kalton, "Panel Discussion-Public vs. Private Research," Proceedings of the 27th Annual Farm
Seed Conference (Washington, D.C.: American Seed Trade Association,
1981).
32. House Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Department Investigations, Oversight, and Research, Hearings on Plant Variety Protection
Act Amendments, 96th Cong. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
1980).
33. R. Lewin, "Funds Squeezed for International Agriculture," Science
218 (November 26, 1982): 866-87.
34. "U.S. Companies Go International," Farm Chemicals 145 (September 1982): 70-76.
35. E. Gregg, "The Seed Industry: Perspective and Prospects" (research
paper, Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., New York, 1982).
36. "IPRI and Sime Darby Berhad, Malaysia, Announce Biotechnology
Joint Venture," Genetic Engineering News 2 (July/August 1982): 25.
37. M. Kenney, F. H. Buttel, J. T. Cowan, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.,
"Genetic Engineering and Agriculture: Exploring the Impacts of Biotechnology on Industrial Structure, Industry-University Relationships, and the Social
Organization of U.S. Agriculture," Rural Sociology Bulletin no. 125, (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University, Dept. of Rural Sociology, August 1983).
38. Zimmerman (n. 21 above).
39. P. H. Abelson, "Biotechnology: An Overview," Science 219 (February 11, 1983): 611-13.
their cells are com40. All multicellular organisms are eukaryotic-i.e.,
partmentalized and are characterized by an extensive internal structure and by
the presence of a nucleus containing DNA. Prokaryotes, on the other hand, are
simpler cells that have less compartmentalization and internal structure-in
particular, the lack of a nucleus separated from the rest of the cell by a membrane. The major accomplishments in recombinant DNA technology have been
confined to genetic alterations of these simpler prokaryotic cells such as those
of bacteria.
41. M. Kenney, F. H. Buttel, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr., "Understanding
the Impacts of Industrial Plant Tissue Culture Technology on Third World
Countries," ATAS Bulletin (Advance Technology Alert System, UN Center
for Science and Technology for Development) 1 (1984): 48-51.
42. It should be recognized that companies embarking on industrial tissue
culture production tend to be secretive about the plants that they are intending
to culture. This is because a plant cell that has not been genetically modified
cannot be patented (even though the specific culturing process might be patentable). Secrecy is thus the major protection these firms have against competitors, which makes the acquisition of information on the tissue culture industry
problematic.
43. D. Fishlock, "Seed Corn for the Factory 'Farm,' " Financial Times
of London (November 3, 1983); and Graff (n. 13 above).
44. M. W. Fowler, "Plant Cell Natural Products," in Biotech 83: Pro-
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F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.
55
ceedings of the International Conference on the Commercial Applications and
Implications of Biotechnology (Middlesex: Online Conferences Ltd., 1983),
pp. 307-16.
45. J. R. Simpson and D. E. Farris, The World's Beef Business (Ames:
Iowa State University Press, 1982).
46. C. J. Peale et al., "Effect of Exogenous Growth Hormone on Lactational Performance in High Yielding Dairy Cows," Journal of Nutrition 111
(September 1981): 1662-71.
47. T. Boone et al., "Cloning and Expression of Chicken Growth Hormone in the E. Coli," DNA 2 (1983): 74.
48. Molecular Genetics Inc., 10-K filing for the Securities and Exchange
Commission (Minnetonka, Minn., June 30, 1982).
49. Ibid.; and Cetus Corporation, 10-K filing for the Securities and Exchange Commission (Berkeley, 1981).
50. M. J. Pramik, "Genetic Engineering Inc. Capitalizing on Innovation in
Embryo Sexing," Genetic Engineering News 3 (January/February 1983): 8-9.
51. Immunogenetics Co., Annual Report (1981).
52. J. P. Casey, "High Fructose Corn Syrup-Case History of Innovation," Research Management 19 (1976): 27-32.
53. S. Vuilleumier, "World Corn Sweetener Outlook" (paper presented
at the World Sugar Research Organization Annual Meeting, Buenos Aires,
March 24, 1981).
54. This is not to discount the possibility that in many countries high-cost
sugar producers will be able to survive by producing exclusively for the domestic market behind tariff barriers. In particular, beet sugar producers will depend heavily on tariff barriers and price supports, given the competition from
high-fructose corn sweetener and aspartame.
55. "The Month by 'Vulcan,' " Chemical Engineer (February 1983) p. 6;
and S. Yanchinski, "Bacteria to Textiles in U.K. Plant?" Genetic Engineering
News 1 (March/April 1981): 1, 3.
56. Office of Technology Assessment (n. 12 above), p. 107.
57. Zimmerman (n. 21 above).
58. E. Marshall, "NYU's Malaria Vaccine: Orphan at Birth?" Science
219 (February 4, 1983): 466-67.
59. John Maddox, "Malaria: What Price Progress?" The Times (April 9,
1983).
60. F. H. Buttel, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr., "Biotechnology
and the Third World: Toward a Global Political-Economic Perspective," Politics and the Life Sciences (February 1984), pp. 160-64.
61. V. W. Ruttan (n. 29 above), chap. 5.
62. See the following for extended discussions of the implications of
biotechnology for agricultural research institutions in the United States: F. H.
Buttel, J. Kloppenburg, Jr., M. Kenney, and J. T. Cowan, "Biotechnology and
the Restructuring of Agricultural Research," Rural Sociologist 3 (May 1983):
132-44; F. H. Buttel, J. T. Cowan, M. Kenney, and J. Kloppenburg, Jr.,
"Biotechnology in Agriculture: The Political Economy of Agribusiness Reorganization and Industry-University Relationships," in Research in Rural
Sociology and Development, ed. H. K. Schwarzweller (Greenwich, Conn.:
JAI Press, 1984), pp. 315-48; and M. Kenney and J. Kloppenburg, Jr., "The
American Agricultural Research System: An Obsolete Structure?" Agricultural Administration 14 (1983): 1-10.
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