Thursday, June 14, 2012

Tweeps of Interest: Rent Seeking and Biotech


The following tweets from Anastasia Bodnar  @geneticmaize capture the essence of of rent seeking and the impacts on the the biotech sector.

@farminthehood @AgEconomist Opposition to M has resulted in consumer and regulatory climate where only few big companies can do anything.

@farminthehood @AgEconomist So to be honest we don't really know what small companies would do. They've all been quashed.

Excellent analysis on her part.

See also :

And this from the New York Times is almost verbatim the first tweet above:

"Yet today we have only a handful of genetically modified crops, primarily soybeans, corn, canola and cotton. All are commodity crops mainly used for feed or fiber and all were developed by big biotech companies. Only big companies can muster the money necessary to navigate the regulatory thicket woven by the government's three oversight agencies: the E.P.A., the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration."

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