World Food Policy WFP Volume 4, No. 2, Spring 2018 | Page 31

The Role of Multinational Corporations in the Supply of
Agricultural Production Technology to China & India
Figure 1. Total Factor Productivity (TFP) Growth—China and India (1971-80 to 2001-13)
Source: Keith Fuglie, ERS-USDA, Washington D.C., USA
Figure 2. Maize and Cotton yields (Kg/Ha) — China and India (1990-2016)
Sources: Maize Yields (FAOSTAT, 2017); Cotton Yields (USDA-FAS, 2017)
numbers indicate that imports of mod-
ern technology imbedded in inputs was
not very important since bulk fertilizer
imports have little modern technology
Imports of inputs that did not imbedded in them.
It is difficult to measure the im-
come through FDI or acquisitions of
companies like Syngenta were virtually pact of FDI and foreign technology on
non-existent in seeds, limited in ma- agricultural productivity. So far no one
chinery and pesticides and large in fer- has measured its impact on total factor
tilizer in both countries (Table 2). These productivity.
into large foreign investments by MNCs
in the 1990s. In recent years Chinese
and India firms are buying foreign firms
to access technology.
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