Deregulating Technology Transfer in Agriculture: Reform's Impact on Turkey in the 1980s

Abstract:     
Liberalizing the regulation and welcoming the private delivery of inputs and technology greatly increased the private transfer of technology to Turkish farmers. Regulatory reform in Turkey allowed private firms to increase their share of input markets and allowed farmers to significantly increase yields and production.

Turkey is one of a handful of developing countries that have liberalized regulation of agricultural inputs and welcomed private firms delivering technology and inputs. Gisselquist and Pray show that Turkish regulatory reform affecting seeds and other inputs in the 1980s:
° Greatly increased private technology transfer into Turkey.
° Encouraged market entry for more foreign and domestic companies involved in production and trade in Turkey.
° Allowed private firms to increase their share of input markets.
° Where inputs brought new technology, allowed farmers to significantly increase yields and production.

Gisselquist and Pray recommend that the World Bank and other donors involved with agriculture pay more attention to the regulation of inputs in developing countries. They also recommend that developing country governments revise regulations to leave choices about technology performance to farmers and markets-and to focus instead on externalities, removing unnecessary obstacles to private technology transfer through the production and trade of inputs.

Other countries that have similarly reformed the regulation of agricultural inputs include Chile (in the 1970s), Bangladesh and India (at the end of the 1980s), Malawi (in 1995-96), and Romania (in 1997).

This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is one of four country case studies of regulatory reform for agricultural inputs. Other studies examine the impact of regulatory reform in Bangladesh, India, and Zimbabwe (where reform was partial). This study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under research project Regulating Technology Transfer: Impact on Technical Change, Productivity, and Incomes. David Gisselquist may be contacted at [e-mail].

Number of Pages in PDF File: 62

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