PhD student Alper Yagci has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to explore the Regulation of Genetically Modified Seeds in Developing Countries.

The grant will support comparative field research in Argentina and Brazil on three commercially significant crops: cotton, maize, and soy. Both countries have used genetically modified seeds extensively, but have developed varying intellectual property right protections. Results from these two countries will be combined in a larger project for Yagci's dissertation, which additonally explores regulation in India, Mexico, and Turkey.

According to Yagci, "The project should improve our understanding of why developing countries facing broadly similar international regime and market constraints end up with different policies for administering the challenge of GM seeds, and whether these policies have been consequential for the seed market in ways intended by the policy stakeholders." 

Research results will help to better explain policy formation in uncertain and complex environments, and it will contribute to current debates in political economy; international environmental politics; science, technology, and society; and political science, he says. The project will "inform commercial groups, policy-makers, and monitoring civil society groups interested in the regulation of agricultural biotechnology."