We have all heard the arguments about the pros and cons of agricultural technology - pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and biotechnology. The Green Revolution is touted by some as being one of the great accomplishments of modern society and others as one of the great evils. A distinction is often made between the applications of agricultural technology in developing countries and developed ones.

I have had the pleasure to work in both developing countries and developed ones. I have come to the conclusion that there is a strong correlation between the infrastructure that surrounds the technology, and the amount of benefit derived from that technology. The more infrastructure (education, regulations, oversight) the greater the benefits and the lower the negative impacts. The less developed the infrastructure, the lower the benefits and the greater the negative impacts.

In my opinion, the negative impacts of the Green Revolution were not so much a result of the introduced technology, but a result of having an inadequate infrastructure behind it. Pesticide poisonings and development of pest resistance were, and are, by far more frequent in countries where Extension Education and Regulation are under-funded and otherwise inadequate. The result is that the technology is often blamed for the problems, rather than the fact that it was introduced into a "market" that was not prepared for it.

Ten years ago when I was in India, I saw a strong difference between rice growers and cashew growers in the degrees of benefits and problems they had with pesticides. Being a major crop, there was a strong effort from the Ministry of Agriculture in training and education for rice cultivation. Rice growers demonstrated fairly good knowledge Integrated Pest Management and safe handling of pesticides. Cashews however, were of little financial consequence nationally, and little was provided to cashew growers in terms of education. Few could distinguish between a beneficial insect and the target pest. Many still mixed tanks of methyl parathion with their hands. The result was what one would expect - rice growers benefited economically from the use of pesticides with few apparent health problems. Cashew growers spent more money on pesticides than they save, and had a relatively high incidence of poisoning.

I have yet to see or hear of any concerns with developing an infrastructure around agricultural biotechnology, other than to warn of over-regulation. I am very concerned that we are falling into the same trap with agricultural biotechnology as we did with the first Green Revolution, which was to introduce a technology without the infrastructure to support it's use.

This is of particular concern in developing countries, but may also be of concern in certain areas of developed countries. Most applications of agricultural biotechnology in the US have been targeted towards major crops - corn, wheat, soy, cotton. I assume that extension folks in areas where major crops are grown extensively are actively educating growers on this new technology. However, there is considerably less grower education here in the Northeast on ag biotechnology (none that I know of in Massachusetts). Still, the technology still makes it here. A corn grower from a nearby state told me that he was going to plant Bt corn for a pest I know it to be ineffective against. I was reminded immediately of the Indian cashew growers.

Right now, most growers in the northeast tell me their main source of info on biotech seeds is the seed salesman. I don't discount the value of advice from salesman, but as the sole source of information, it is dangerous. Salesman generally work on commission which creates a strong bias towards giving any information out which might curtail the use of a product they sell. We have had several new pesticide chemistries introduced in the past few years here and development of resistance has occurred in a very short time.

Anyway, I would be very interested in hearing from group members on their thoughts on the need to develop an infrastructure for biotechnology. I am particularly interested in hearing from Industry folks on their plans/efforts to ensure an adequate infrastructure before they introduce a technology into a country or location. - Brad

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