GM Cotton for Africa

Abstract

Cotton is the most important cash crop for smallholders in many countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Although GM cotton has been grown in South Africa for more than 10 years, most of the other SSA countries are only now enacting the biosafety legislation, with the supporting biotechnology policy, to enable them to acquire GM cotton technology from the biotechnology companies that hold the intellectual property rights. Burkina Faso, now the largest cotton producer in SSA, will be the first to make GM cotton available to smallholders. GM cotton is being promoted in the rest of SSA on the basis of its apparent success in improving the profitability of cotton growing as a smallholder enterprise in South Africa, India and China. With several other African countries soon to follow Burkina Faso in adopting GM cotton technology, this paper examines the potential benefits for Africa in the light of evidence from smallholder adoption elsewhere in the world.