Bio-innovation and Poverty Alleviation

Case Studies from Asia

The proposed volume attempts to understand how forms of bio-innovation might be linked to the problem of poverty and its reduction through an inquiry into a number of empirical cases of present-day bio-innovations in Asia. Conditions and circumstances in countries like Cambodia, China, India, Korea, Nepal, Philippines, and Thailand are quite different and provide a mosaic of varied experiences in bio-innovation that include shrimp farming, GMO cotton, bio gas, organic farming, and vaccines.

Offering important insights into various forms of bio-innovation efforts and their effects on poverty alleviation, this volume is divided into three major themes that organize the main sections of the book—benefits for the poor: actual, direct, and prospective benefits for the poor; absence of positive impacts and institutional constraints; pro-poor drivers and embedding in anti-poverty alleviation.

The central questions addressed here are:
• Ways and circumstances in which certain forms of bio-innovations affect the poor and enable poverty alleviation. 
• Critical factors and conditions for improving the positive impact of bio-innovations on poverty alleviation.
• Poverty alleviation goals should be the point of departure in rationalizing, identifying and designing appropriate and relevant bio-innovation programs.