World Food Policy WFP Volume 4, No. 2, Spring 2018 | Page 25

The Role of Multinational Corporations in the Supply of
Agricultural Production Technology to China & India
关键词：外国直接投资，农业技术，技术转移，工业政策，
农业研究
1. Introduction
the public that these companies will not
exploit monopoly power or sell prod-
ucts that are unsafe for human health
and the environment. China and In-
dia have at times severely restricted the
role of MNCs in food and agricultural
inputs while at other times they have
encourage them to invest. The objec-
tives of this paper are to assess whether
India or China have done a better job
of accessing technologies from MNCs
and identify the policies that have led to
successful access to MNC technologies.
O
ne of the gurus of the study of
agricultural technology was
Robert Evenson of Yale Uni-
versity. He argued that countries should
focus on how to work with the multi-
national corporations (MNCs) to meet
the countries’ agricultural development
goals rather than obsessing about how
they might be exploited by MNCs.
Agribusiness MNCs spend billions of
dollars on R&D. They have developed
important technologies that are used
in many developing countries. Most 2. Pathways to Access
of those billions are used to develop Technology from MNCs
technologies needed by American, Eu-
here are three pathways through
ropean and Brazilian farmers. But a lot
which multinational agricultural
of technology they develop and a lot of
technology has spread to India
research that they conduct is applicable
and China. First, companies can import
in developing countries.
technology—either “borrowing” the
The agricultural sector is often technology without payments or pur-
the last sector in which trade and re- chasing the technology or the compa-
strictions on FDI are liberalized. This nies that make the technology. Second,
is because of the political and strategic technology can come in through for-
importance of food security. Restrict- eign direct investments (FDI) by MNCs
ing FDI on agricultural input firms, is and third, technology and ideas can
not necessarily the best way to ensure spillovers from multinational invest-
that farmers get access to the innovative ments in the country to local industries
technology needed to achieve food se- and eventually to the farmers.
curity.
There have been a number of
T
Countries may be able to reach
their food security goals more rapidly
with policies that induce MNC invest-
ments but assure local businesses and
high-profile examples of borrowing.
One of the most famous examples in
India is the seed company NavBharat’s
“discovery” of insect resistant cotton
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