Agricultural Biotechnology Innovation Capacity and Economic Development

Abstract

This book presents the findings of a multi-year study of the agricultural system of biotechnology across six countries in Asia and Africa. The basic proposition of the study that informs the book was applied across all countries. The key questions were framed to expose what those countries in the catch-up phase require to build and sustain a competitive science and technological infrastructure to deal with the food crisis and to solve the underlying challenge of poverty. The underlying hypothesis of this line of inquiry is that the resolution of the problems of endemic poverty will require — among other development efforts — that countries make long-term sustainable investments not only in science and technological infrastructure but also in developing the right kinds of institution and policy to exploit modern biotechnology. To achieve this, latecomer countries will have to invest in resources for building a complex multidimensional and dynamic range of knowledge, skills, actors, institutions, and policies within specific political policy structures defined as ‘innovation capacity’.