Conclusion
A previous draft of this paper was entitled “Should we ban the terminator gene?” The answer from this paper is ‘not necessarily’ but there are clear indications that under some circumstances GM crops may lower welfare. Monopolisation in itself though is not a cause of welfare loss, since the usual route to monopoly control for a new technology is via greater efficiency. The risks of welfare loss arise through the possibility of greater variability in output and through the possibility of predation. Predation is most likely to be a threat to welfare when: (1) there is only one GM producer; (2) the advantage of its product over traditional varieties is not large; (3) there is pre-existing uniformity in the varieties being grown; (4) the monopoly price of the crop is high relative to the competitive value; (5) there is an absence of publicly supported in situ and ex situ conservation, and (6) total storage costs are high.
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Munro, A. (2002). Monopolisation and the Regulation of Genetically Modified Crops: An Economic Model. In: Swanson, T. (eds) The Economics of Managing Biotechnologies. Economy & Environment, vol 22. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47659-2_9
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