Agrobiotechnology and Competitiveness
回顾农业生物技术从实验室到市场的历程，分析技术前景、制度和市场趋势，探讨其对国家竞争力的影响。
By now the story of agrobiotechnology is well known. After almost twenty years in the lab and the experimental fields, agrobiotechnology arrived at the market in the mid-1990s and was quickly embraced by farmers in key agricultural producing countries (James). Consumers in Europe, and more recently in other parts of the world, however, have been skeptical and often combative toward the new technology (Gaskel, Bauer, and Durant). This apparent dissonance between technology providers and users, on the one hand, and some consumer quarters on the other hand, has led some to speculate that agrobiotechnology is heading the way of nuclear energy--a promising technology but ultimately one with unfulfilled expectations (Mitsch and Mitchell). Interestingly, such gloomy predictions coincided with others that hailed agriculture as the primary beneficiary of the emerging genomics revolution (Abelson). Will agrobiotechnology live up to the high expectations set out by its purveyors for over a quarter of a century? While it may be difficult to predict the future trajectories of agrobiotechnology, the factors that will shape them are more or less understood. Technical prospects, institutions, and markets will shape the future of agrobiotechnology. In this paper, the author looks at emerging trends in these key factors and discusses their implications for the future of agrobiotechnology and for national competitiveness.