A recent study published in the International Journal of Biotechnology demystifies the belief that releasing a GM crop costs tens, if not hundreds, of millions of U.S. dollars. The study assessed the cost and time of developing a GM late blight resistant (LBr) potato variety for deregulation and release as a public good, in a specific developing country. Two independently not-for-profit assessed projects have estimated that to deliver one LBr variety to resource-poor farmers in a developing country, it would cost between US$1.3-1.5 million, within a period of eight to nine years. Such costs are not far from a conventionally-bred variety. . .
Publicly funded institutions have been deterred from developing biotech crops because of the cost implications attached to the process of developing and releasing a GM variety. . . . These findings therefore suggest that public institutions in developing countries can make significant contribution to crop improvement through genetic engineering.
The paper titled Demystification of GM crop costs: releasing late blight resistant potato varieties as public goods in developing countries is available online using DOI: 10.1504/IJBT.2016.077942.
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