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Faced with increasing numbers of food-insecure people through the next decade, many African nations hope genetically modified (GM) crops can do what the Green Revolution of the 1970?s failed to accomplish for the continent. Developing countries will, however, realize the promise of biotechnology only if appropriate national policies conducive to the needs of small-scale farmers are implemented. This paper examines two of Kenya?s most high-profile GM crop projects to determine whether the political and institutional landscape will deliver benefits of GM technology to small-scale farmers. Part of international development programs, the projects (viral-resistant sweet potato; sesame variety with enhanced oil properties) illustrate classical ?top-down? approaches to setting research agendas. Lacking the mechanisms to directly include small-scale farmers in the identification of the research problem and solution, the sesame project failed to identify the appropriate end-user, while the sweet potato project successfully managed to identify the small-scale farmer as the intended beneficiary. The technology developed in the latter case is projected to provide an 18 percent average increase in crop yields. Both projects may potentially assist small-scale farmers by building institutional and scientific capacity for agricultural research, assuming future projects will address appropriate farming constraints. Small-scale farmers will realize such indirect gains only if future projects actively seek input from all stakeholders. The Kenyan government must encourage farming system research and participatory approaches to project design, while increasing its overall investment in agricultural research and institutional capacity building.
Section One