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Pakistan achieved high levels of Green Revolution Modern
Variety (GRMV) adoption in the Green Revolution. Pakistan out-performed
India and Bangladesh in the Green Revolution. Only China, among major
countries, out-performed Pakistan in the Green Revolution. Pakistan does
not have the food safety and environmental risk studies in place to
support a regulatory environment for biotechnology. In effect, Pakistan
is following the "precautionary principle" and applying it to science
policy. This paper argues that this is a mistake. Pakistan is paying a
"double penalty" for its inability to develop the regulatory systems
required to take advantage of genetically modified (GM) crops. Not only
does it lose the cost reductions enabled by GM crops, but because other
countries have adopted GM crops, world prices are lower as a result and
affect Pakistan's export crops.

Most forms of agricultural technology have not been transferred from developed to developing countries. This is particularly true of technology of the biogenetic type. Plants and animals interact with the soil and climate environments in which they live. Natural selection pressures produce highly varieagted species and types of plants and animals, each suited or appropriate to an environmental niche. Modern plant breeding methods have only partly overcome the sensitivity of biological material to environments. Environmental interactions play a lesser role in biochemical and mechanical technology in agriculture. Research programs to improve agricultural technology accordingly require a high degree of targeting to local environmental conditions. In some cases new technology, as in the improved "green revolution" wheat and rice varieties, is initially adapted to a wide range of environments. Improvements on the initial high-yielding varieties have tended to be more narrowly adapted. Agricultural research programs serving relatively small regions have been successful in undertaking adaptive research to develop region-specific improvements to varieties developed in international centers in the developing countries.