Refuge Policies to Manage the Resistance of Pest Population to Genetically Modified (GM) Crops

Abstract

The development of Genetically Modified (GM) crop varieties has arguably been the most successful application of agricultural biotechnology research to date. However, the biotechnology is a two-edged sword. Behinds the great success, there are also a lot of concerns about the negative impact of the GM crops. One of the major concerns is the buildup of the resistance in the pest population. Even though refuge policies have been implemented in most of the countries to mange the development of the resistance, all the previous empirical analyses have only focused only on the United States. There is very little empirical work that has focused on other countries, especially developing countries. The overall goal of my study is to analyze, theoretical and empirically, the optimal refuge policy to mange the buildup of the resistance in a developing county. To narrow the scope of the research, I use Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton in China as a case study.genetically modified crops, refuge policies