GMOs and poverty: the relationship between improved seeds and rural transformations

This essay draws on the extensive empirical literature to address the question: Can genetically modified (GM) crops help poor people? The evidence suggests that GM crops can generate sizeable yield advantages for small-scale farming families in low-income countries through avoiding losses to pests and disease. These advantages may improve considerably the welfare of people who depend on farming for most of their income. However, since poverty is a complex phenomenon and improved seed in and of itself plays a limited role in rural transformation, much more is needed to generate an impact on poverty, including investments in the architecture of rural institutions and farmer knowledge.