the cost of feed is an important constraint to increased live­stock production, along with poor-quality and fluctuating feed supplies (FFTC, 2007). Deterioration of common prop­erty resources and an increasing shift towards cash crops have adversely affected fodder availability and the use of indigenous feed resources, especially for the poor, landless and pastoralists. Poor people need technical, infrastructural and institutional support to benefit from livestock market opportunities.
     Similarly, a number of social, economic and institu­tional issues must be confronted if aquaculture is to fulfill its potential in the ESAP region. Since the 1990s NGOs, researchers and environmental groups have focused on the environmental and social impacts of aquaculture. The criti­cisms, centered on concerns about mangrove destruction, pollution and social conflict generated by aquaculture, were convincing enough to cause funding to India and Thailand to be halted in the 1990s. Recent solutions to address these issues tend to favor capital-intensive technical interventions, sidelining small farmers. Furthermore, they suggest farm-level solutions, which may reduce environmental impact at that level, but overlook interactions with activities in related sectors. Policies for aquaculture need to be cross-sectoral, integrated and wide-reaching (Dene, 2005), with policy guidelines that specifically target the poor to encourage de­velopment and explore participatory community manage­ment in aquaculture (Edwards, 2000).
     As the resource systems in question are both complex and dynamic in their biophysical and human aspects, it is not always possible to understand how a system works or to predict the outcome of management actions (Arthur, 2005). In such circumstances, the standard approach of govern­ment guidelines based on "best practice" in management is unhelpful since not only are best practices uncertain or unknown but the resources to implement them are also lacking. An "adaptive learning" approach takes these con­straints as a starting point and seeks to build on whatever knowledge is available with the aid of planned management experiments and the development of knowledge sharing net­works which seek to reduce uncertainties. This approach has yielded fruitful results in the rice-fish systems of West Bengal, India and in the fisheries, including reservoirs, in Lao PDR, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand (by MRAD Ltd., WorldFish Centre, Mekong River Commission, Indian Central Inland Fisheries research Institute and the State Government of West Bengal).
     The challenge for post Green Revolution crop, livestock and aquaculture systems in the ESAP region is to improve productivity without the negative ecological and social side effects experienced during and after the Green Revolution. It needs to address the problem of diminishing supplies of oil and escalating prices of fuels and petrochemical products such as fertilizers and pesticides, finding and incentivizing ways to minimize these inputs—for health, environmen­tal, as well as economic reasons. Similarly, incentives for improved water use efficiency, rain harvesting measures, training, credit and infrastructure (e.g., for cheaper fuel and energy) for increasing organic inputs are critical as the natural resource base in the region becomes more oversub­scribed and degraded. More attention and investment in the public and private sectors needs to be devoted to integrated

pest and nutrient management (IPM and INM) technolo­gies. These approaches hold promise for optimizing agri­cultural productivity and environmental sustainability while minimizing adverse effects on human health by combining low input approaches with the judicious and timely use of reduced chemical applications.

5.3.4     Transgenic technology or "the gene revolution"
Humans have been knowingly or unknowingly modifying the genetic makeup of plants for thousands of years, but transgenic technology to produce crops, pharmaceuticals (pharming), food vaccines and genetic use restriction tech­nology (GURT) is one of the newest and most controversial developments. Transgenic technology uses genetic engineer­ing to produce crops with a variety of properties, includ­ing herbicide tolerance and insect resistance, micronutrient enhancement and vaccine production. Despite arguments for a cautious approach as with any extensive change in agricultural practices (NAS, 2003), land planted to trans­genic crops is expanding rapidly (James, 2005). Often four­teen countries in which more than 50,000 ha are planted to transgenic crops, nine are "resource-poor", of which three are in the ESAP region: China, India and the Philippines (James, 2005).
     Transgenic crops can increase agricultural production (Peng et al., 1999; Taylor et al., 2001; Regierer et al., 2002) e.g., through decreased loss to pests. By replacing chemical sprays to control pests, insecticide-resistant crops such as those with insecticidal genes from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) can reduce or eliminate adverse effects of such insecticides on human and environmental health (Je-yaratnam, 1990; Gray et al., 1993; Gray, 2000; Huang et al., 2002; Qaim and Zilberman, 2003). On small-scale farms in China and India Bt cotton yields were significantly higher with pesticide use reduced by up to 70% (Huang, 2002; Qaim and Zilberman, 2003; Hossain et al., 2004; Wu and Guo, 2005). Herbicide-resistant crops presuppose the avail­ability of affordable herbicide and represent an economic risk for farmers who are dependent on seed and chemicals. From the perspective of a mechanized agroecosystem, use of herbicide-tolerant crops allows reduced and zero-till prac­tices to work more effectively. The resulting decrease in soil disturbance is beneficial for retaining soil organic matter, improving soil structure, reducing soil compaction and im­proving soil water relations.
     Transgenic technology is being used to develop crops resistant to abiotic stresses such as drought, soil acidity and salinity, although the value of these modifications in the field has yet to be established (de la Fuente-Martinez, 1997; de la Fuente-Martinez and Herrera-Estrella, 1999; Liu et al., 1999; Zhang and Blumwald, 2001; Zhang et al., 2001; Garg et al., 2002; Singla-Pareek et al., 2003). Work on improving storage stability and manipulating ripening and processing-related factors aims to provide improved storage stability, delayed ripening and other changes to increase flexibility in distribution and/or facilitate juicing or other processing for greater economic benefit. Much of this work has been lim­ited to transgenic tomatoes (Fromm et al., 1993; Grierson, 1994; Picton et al., 1995; Kalamaki et al., 2003ab; Powell et al., 2003) and potatoes (Greiner et al., 1999). Advances in