Genetically modified crops in Africa

SOCIOECONOMIC AND FARM-LEVEL EFFECTS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS 29

estimated that close to 3,000 of the 3,229 farmers on the Flats planted Bt, reaching close to 90 percent adoption in five years (Gouse 2009). This remarkable adoption rate was explained partly by the impressive

performance of Bt cotton as planted by the first adopting Makhathini farm- ers. However, the other major explanation was that the sole credit and input supplier and cotton buyer on the Flats, Vunisa, also noticed the performance of Bt cotton and started to recommend the seed to its clients/farmers. As the main objective of a cotton gin is to gin as much cotton as possible, Vunisa wanted to increase the cotton crop on the Flats but not at the expense of their credit book. After monitoring the performance of Bt cotton for the first couple of seasons, Vunisa decided that it could increase the ginable cot- ton crop, and decrease the risk of crop failure (due to bollworm damage) and thus their credit risk by recommending Bt cotton to farmers. It can be argued that even though Vunisa was making inputs available to farm- ers under credit long before Bt was introduced, the availability of credit and the role Vunisa’s extension officers had in recommending Bt seed played a large role in smallholders’ ability and decision to adopt the new technology (Gouse 2009). All the peer reviewed publications on Bt cotton in South Africa (mainly

focusing on smallholder farmers) report yield increases with the use of Bt cotton compared to conventional varieties (Table 1.2). Almost all studies also showed savings in insecticide expenditure; with the exception of results from the one-year, 20-farmer study by Hofs, Fok, and Vaissayre (2006). Even though most of the yield differences were substantial, some were found not to be statistically significant, mainly due to small sample sizes and large vari- ability in the data. Compared to study results in countries like Australia, China, India, and Mexico, the relative yield gain from the use of Bt cotton in South Africa is higher. One of the reasons for this is that the base yield (non- Bt cotton) of smallholders is very low, and a small change in yield is exag- gerated when expressed relative to a low conventional variety yield. In fact, in some other countries, the yield advantage of Bt cotton was more than the total seed cotton yield attained per hectare in South Africa (Fok et al. 2007). Gouse, Kirsten, and Jenkins (2003) found an 18.5 percent yield increase for South African large-scale irrigation farmers for the 2000/2001 sea- son, which compares well with a 16.8 percent increase measured on field trials at a Clark Cotton (a ginning company) experimental farm in Mpuma- langa. Large-scale dryland farmers enjoyed a 14 percent yield increase, while some studies found that small-scale dryland farmers enjoyed an increase of between 23 and 85 percent over a number of seasons (Table 1.2).

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