The value of new genotypes I have read the many recent mails with great interest, and would like to make one point about the value of new genotypes to any agricultural system - no one should doubt their value. To suggest otherwise is absurd, whatever the other problems in any particular country. Just look at what people anywhere grow now, and ask where it came from. Then try to imagine the situation if the introduced genotypes were not there. People have been taking new crop species and genotypes from one part of the world and using and adapting them in others successfully for a very long time.
Biotechnology is another means for generating new genotypes.
It clearly should not be seen as the only one, nor in developing regions necessarily even a major one, but it is there and should not be ignored where relevant. The vast majority of biotechnological products are either patented, or the processes used to generate them are patented, or both. If it has not happened already, it will soon reach the point where it is nearly impossible to use any aspect of biotechnology for improving any major crop species without infringing a patent somewhere in the process. This creates two main problems. The first is that any 'late comer' to the technology may be frozen out more or less permanently, even assuming they can obtain the information needed to start.