Addressing Gender Inequality in Developing Countries Through Crop Improvement

A lot of production related benefits of biotechnology have been discussed in the literature, for instance decreased greenhouse gas emissions (Brookes and Barfoot, 2017), reduction in exposure to toxic chemicals (Kouser & Qaim, 2011), and food safety(Munkvold et. al, 1999). However additional research indicates that there may also be social benefits related to gender equality as discussed in
Social and Economic Effects of Genetically Engineered Crops (National Academies of Science, 2016).

Below are some highlights from this research:

• Women comprise a significant proportion of agricultural related labor in developing countries (~43%)
• Women in developing countries face significant challenges related to access to education, information, credit, inputs, assets, extension services, and land 

The adoption of biotechnology in developing countries has had some mitigating effects:

• In India biotechnology adoption (Bt cotton) resulted in increased work hours and income for women (Subramanian and Qaim, 2010)
• Reduced exposure and freeing women from spraying toxic chemicals and related labor (Bennett et al., 2003; Zambrano et al., 2013; Zambrano et al., 2012; Smale et al., 2012)
• Increased importance of women in decision making within households (Yorobe and Smale, 2012; Zambrano et al., 2013; Rickson et al., 2006

References:

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources; Committee on Genetically Engineered Crops: Past Experience and Future Prospects. Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2016 May 17. 6, Social and Economic Effects of Genetically Engineered Crops. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK424536/

Graham Brookes & Peter Barfoot (2017) Environmental impacts of genetically modified (GM) crop use 1996–2015: Impacts on pesticide use and carbon emissions, GM Crops & Food, 8:2, 117-147, DOI: 10.1080/21645698.2017.1309490

Bennett R, Buthelezi TJ, Ismael Y, Morse S. Bt cotton, pesticides, labour and health: A case study of smallholder farmers in the Makhathini Flats, Republic of South Africa. Outlook on Agriculture. 2003;32:123–128.

Kouser, S., Qaim, M., Impact of Bt cotton on pesticide poisoning in smallholder agriculture: A panel data analysis,Ecol. Econ. (2011), doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.06.008

Comparison of Fumonisin Concentrations in Kernels of Transgenic Bt Maize Hybrids and Nontransgenic Hybrids. Munkvold, G.P. et al . Plant Disease 83, 130-138 1999.

Rickson ST, Rickson RE, Burch D. Women and sustainable agriculture. In: Bock BB, Shortall S, editors. Rural Gender Relations: Issues and Case Studies. Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishing; 2006. pp. 119–135.

Smale M, Zambrano P, Paz-Ybarnegaray R, Fernández-Montaño W. A case of resistance: Herbicide-tolerant soybeans in Bolivia. AgBioForum. 2012;15:191–205.

Subramanian A, Qaim M. The impact of Bt cotton on poor households in rural India. Journal of Development Studies. 2010;46:295–311

Yorobe JM Jr, Smale M. Impacts of Bt maize on smallholder income in the Phillipines. AgBioForum. 2012;15:152–162

Zambrano P, Smale M, Maldonado JH, Mendoza SL. Unweaving the threads: The experiences of female farmers with biotech cotton in Colombia. AgBioForum. 2012;15:125–137.

Zambrano P, Lobnibe I, Cabanilla DB, Maldonado JH, Falck-Zepeda J. Hiding in the plain sight: Women and GM crop adoption. Paper presented at the 17th ICABR Conference: Innovation and Policy for the Bioeconomy, June 18–21. Ravello, Italy: 2013.

Rational Irrationality and Satter's Hierarchy of Food Needs

In HIERARCHY, DISAGREEMENT, AND FOOD POLITICS food economist Jayson Lusk discusses Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and a modification or application by Ellyn Satter. Satter conceptualizes a hierarchy of food needs. Basically the idea is that as society reaches more advanced levels of economic development and incomes rise, our preferences related to food change.

"Satter called the top of this pyramid "instrumental food" and she said such foods were consumed to "achieve a desired physical, cognitive, or spiritual outcome."  If we're talking about food satisfying a particular view of what I think of myself (I eat what I am) or food satisfying a "spiritual outcome", why would we expect you and I to agree on what is "best"?  In this sense, we might expect food consumption to be more politicized"

Another way of thinking about this is that high end food fads marketed by the likes of Chipotle and Whole Foods are 'normal goods' i.e. as incomes rise their consumption should increase. There is a reason why you only find certain food chains and grocery stores in areas where incomes are higher.

Satter notes: "These instrumental reasons may or may not be rational or supported by scientific inquiry."

This is not so different from the concept of 'rational irrationality' discussed in Brian Caplan's 'The Myth of the Rational Voter':

"...people have preferences over beliefs. Letting emotions or ideology corrupt our thinking is an easy way to satisfy such preferences...Worldviews are more a mental security blanket than a serious effort to understand the world."

This means that:

"Beliefs that are irrational from the standpoint of truth-seeking are rational from the standpoint of utility maximization."

And in application:

"Support for counterproductive policies and mistaken beliefs about how the world works normally come as a package. Rational irrationality emphasizes this link."

One of the main themes in the book is that this leads to systematic biases in voting behavior and policy. Particularly, these kinds of preferences create a gap between economic principles and policies supported by most economists vs. the general public. The authors note that this division probably is not unique to economics and they are correct. As Jayson Lusk notes, a few years ago research from the Pew Foundation identified a number of scientific issues for which there is a gap between views held by scientists and the public. 

So how does this play out? A colleague brought up a very important point. Rational irrationality implies that there are costs associated with irrational beliefs, and people are willing to hold on to certain world views given the costs are low. Since the costs associated with voting are much lower, and voters don't necessarily bear the full costs of their actions we would expect to see 'rational irrational' behavior more often in voting than we see with regard to food purchasing behavior. However, when we think about Satter's hierarchy the idea is that with increased incomes preferences for food become more abstract (related to politics, ideology, social status etc.). Consumers are willing to pay for that. However, for higher income consumers the share of food in the household budget is relatively small (Engel's Law). Hence the costs of 'irrationality' are minimal compared to what those costs would be for lower income consumers or at the bottom of Satter's hierarchy. This means that wealthier demographics and wealthier societies can afford to be 'rationally irrational' to some degree when it comes to actual food purchases as well as voting.

When you think about the opportunity this presents to food marketers in addition to special interest agendas like the non-GMO Project and US Right to Know combined with low cost voting and it’s a perfect storm.  As this influences food manufacturers and the regulatory environment, we begin to see an impact on food choices on the shelves. This impacts the way food is labeled, marketed, and perceived and the ingredients used or not used. This has impacts going all the way back the supply chain to the farm gate. These influences may come at the expense of more affordable options that may otherwise be produced with more efficient and sustainable technologies. This can exasperate issues related to food waste and food insecurity. Examples include Vermont's GMO labeling law, push back against new food technologies like the arctic apple, and the attempt in Brazil to ban glyphosate and related court cases here in the U.S.

Portlandia: True Food Democracy-Voting with Your Fork

Whatever the true intentions of this humorous scene from the IFC series Portlandia, one thing it illustrates (with a little embellishment) is how well market forces respond to the wide array of consumer preferences that exist.  Many people may  feel that so called 'corporate industrial agriculture' has dominated the food supply, and that only by democratizing the food supply can we get the politically correct form of agriculture (as in local, free range, organic, natural etc.) that we should want and deserve.

As discussed before, markets ( in a sense voting with your fork), provide a much better way to express food preferences than voting schemes. In a food democracy, the vast array of options the people in the video are after, and what most 'foodies' desire, would be limited to only reflect the limited knowledge and preferences of a few voters or bureaucrats. Instead of allowing the multitudes to express their food preferences as often and intensely as they desire through the market, input about food options would be limited to the untimely occasion of a blunt vote, with intense lobbying, protesting, and letter writing (to elected officials, newspapers etc.) in the interim. With food democracy we move away from a system that continuously captures everyone's input via the price system (perhaps imperfectly) to one that simply samples (even more imperfectly) it in the voting booth.  Of course some advocates of food democracy could argue that they are not advocating every calorie be put to a vote, but simply democratically setting some ground rules about how food is produced, processed, marketed, regulated, labeled, etc. and letting the market take over from there.

The analysis is still the same. Instead of allowing the multitudes to express their food preferences (in relation to about how food is produced, processed, marketed, regulated, labeled, etc.) as often and intensely as they desire through the market, input about these options would be limited to the untimely occasion of a blunt vote, with intense lobbying, protesting, and letter writing (to elected officials, newspapers etc.). The principle still holds that whenever we move away from allocating resources based on prices that reflect the knowledge and preferences of multitudes of free people, to democratically allocating resources, we shrink the pool of knowledge we are willing to consider in making these choices. The information we throw out is often the most personal and meaningful (unless of course your preferences exactly match those that get the most votes!)

Food Democracy *Not* Now or Ever

Are food choices something that should be determined by democratic decision making?  To understand this, it is important to understand the fundamental problem of economics known as the knowledge problem. The problem facing all forms of government including democracies is that centralized decision makers never have enough information or proper incentives to act on the information at hand. As Economist F.A. Hayek (1945) described it:

'the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form, but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all separate individuals possess'

The price system allows us to channel the imperfect knowledge of multitudes of imperfect people with imperfect incentives and utilize it to coordinate decisions. Democratic decision making on the other hand, allocates resources using command and control based on the more limited knowledge and preferences of a few voters, elected officials, or appointed bureaucrats. So, when we move from market based food choices to democratically based choices we are drastically reducing the amount of information we are willing to consider in making these decisions.

Many people complain about phone and cable bundling packages. Voting is the ultimate form of bundling, only worse, the voter often doesn't get to even choose the 'service.' As explained in article 'The Public Choice Revolution'  (Regulation, Fall 2004):

 "In our democracies, voters do not decide most issues directly. In some instances, they vote for representatives who reach decisions in parliamentary assemblies or committees. In other instances, they elect representatives who hire bureaucrats to make decisions. The complexity of the system and the incentives of its actors do not necessarily make collective choices more representative of the citizens’ preferences."

Voting also fails to capture the intensity of our preferences. When we vote, its just one vote, no matter how intensely we may care about an issue. With a price system, we can express our interests penny by penny and minute by minute (as we toil to earn an income).

Does that mean that we should leave the country or start a dictatorship? Of course not. We should however, limit democratic decision making and government involvement to as few areas of our lives as possible, which is what our founders had in mind when they created our Constitutional Republic.

So what does that mean for food choices? Food is an extremely personal and detailed consumption product. Of all areas of our life, food is an area where we would hope our choices can be expressed as precisely and intensely as possible, based on our own private knowledge, tastes, and preferences; not bundled with the preferences of others or subject to how some stranger may 'vote' about it or some politician or bureaucrat may dictate (Sorry Mayor Bloomberg).

In fact, the market does a pretty good job of providing consumers a variety of food choices, from non GMO organic, to local, to an array of modern sustainable choices made possible by companies like Cargill, ADM, and Monsanto. Food in a democracy should be food that we choose to consume, not food that we vote to consume. 

References:

'The Public Choice Revolution', Regulation Fall 2004. ( link ).

The Use of Knowledge in Society
F.A. Hayek
The American Economic Review Vol 35 No 4 (Sept 1945) p. 519-530