Pesticide applications are essential for peanut production to control insects, weeds, and other plant pathogens and for a profitable operation. We use a stochastic frontier analysis/primal system approach to test the hypothesis of the overuse of fungicides among peanut farmers. With nationally representative data available from the Agricultural and Resource Management Survey, we find evidence that U.S. peanut growers used excessive amounts of fungicides to prevent fungal infections. If those farmers adopt a new cultivar resistant to fungal pathogens, they could reduce the total cost of chemicals up to 36.2%. The reduction in fungicide use would have spillover environmental benefits.

Agro-biotechnology is evolving from a pre-commerical phase dominated by basic research science to a commercial phase oriented around marketing products. In pursuing innovation rents in the commercial phase, firms are reorienting their strategies around complementary marketing and distribution assets. This is impacting vertical and horizontal industry structure. Conversely, industry structure is also impacting firm strategies. Horizontal alliances and consolidation continue from the pre-commercial phase into the commercial phase, while vertical coordination and integration strategies are accelerating rapidly. Interplay between firm strategy and industry structure is too complex for firms to anticipate early in the pre-commercial phase for long-term strategy formulation.

Conjoint analysis is used to measure the preferences of United States consumers for labeling of biotech foods. The study found that consumers in the sample support mandatory labeling of biotech foods. This suggests that U.S. consumers would support revisions to the present voluntary labeling policy of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Results also showed that the preferred labeling format is a text disclosure that describes the benefits of biotechnology in combination with a biotech logo.

It is emerging that benefits of new innovations in agricultural biotechnology may not be realised without appropriate biosafety regulatory mechanisms. The Kenyan regulatory experiences related to regulation of genetically engineered (GE) agricultural activities are explored to provide some basis for defining the challenges involved in biosafety regulation. The various shortcomings in the way the Kenyan biosafety process has been implemented are consistent with the way regulatory systems have been evolving in Africa. The proposed adoption of a “smart regulation” provides the basis for a learning process through which subsequent biotechnology policy initiatives can be improved.