in style and temper, but they generally subscribed to three viewpoints (Mohanty, 1999):
•   Modernization further exacerbated the inequities.
•   Improvement of the economic conditions of the poor and the landless in agriculture reduced existing inequal­ities.
•   Modernization of agriculture had mixed effects.

These views indicate that the measurement of poverty is complex.  Different  proxy  indicators  measure  economic analysis, welfare and food security. The choice of indicators and their use and interpretation should be considered, along with other factors:
•   The loss in diversity and the equivalent monetary value when farmers switch from diverse systems to monocul­ture
•   The extra costs of Green Revolution systems, in chemi­cal inputs and the cost of environmental degradation •   Who will benefit from the surplus

For awhile, the Green Revolution contributed to increased agricultural production (Janvry and Sadoulet, 2002). Since the main objective was to generate more food, little atten­tion was directed to how the benefits would be distributed equitably. The Green Revolution was intimately tied to the purchase of seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and inten­sive irrigation—all external inputs. Its effect included the high dependency it created on external inputs and the debt that farm families incurred. Alternative knowledge was ne­glected. The approach seemed to assume that farmers were ignorant; it devalued local and indigenous knowledge (Gad-gil et al., 1996). The introduction of pesticides and chemical fertilizers diminished land productivity, creating a need for more and more inputs to reap the same yield, adding an extra financial burden on the farmer (Pereira, 1996). Ros-set and Collins (1998) reported that in Central Luzon, Phil­ippines, rice yield increased 13% during the 1980s, but it came at the cost of a 21 % increase in fertilizer use. They re­ported that in the central plains yields went up 65%, while fertilizer use increased 24% and use of pesticides jumped 53%. In West Java, the benefit of a 23% yield increase was virtually cancelled by a 65% increase in use of fertilizers and 19% in pesticides.
     The Green Revolution was not neutral. The real wages during 1970/71 to 1973/74 inUttar Pradesh, when the Green Revolution was making a big impact on yields, showed that wages decreased 18% because large landowners brought in more machinery and migrants to compete with local labor and the landless. In many areas, the Green Revolution failed to raise incomes of the rural poor appreciably or contrib­ute substantially to their effective purchasing power. Also, larger-scale farmers had greater access to subsidies for irri­gation and credit from the government (Dogra, 1990).
     Credit became a major factor in Green Revolution tech­nology and the consequences of debt repayment took their toll on farmers. Cheap credit in one market may merely have the effect of subsidizing and maintaining expensive credit elsewhere. Some landlords in the Philippines who borrowed cheap credit with land as collateral from the rural banks lent the money to their tenants at interest rates left to their own discretion (Palmer, 1976).

     Overall, far less research was done on integrated tech­nology for diversifying the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in developing countries and increasing the sustainability of land use. Little was understood, for instance, about the role of organic matter in soil, reduced tillage systems, use of farm organic resources in combination with inorganic fertilizers and the role of legumes in biological nitrogen fixation. Simi­larly, research was limited in integrated pest management and in weed and pest control. These were topics of little in­terest to the private sector and were also in danger of neglect by public research institutions.
     India was among the first countries in the world to pass legislation granting farmer rights, protecting them in the Plant Varieties and Farmers' Right Act 2001. Farmers' rights were not just an alternative to breeders' rights (Ra-manna, 2006). Their rights should be multidimensional, including rights to conservation of biodiversity and to af­fordable inputs, rights to equity and justice, and above all, the right to reliable quality seeds. The value of conserva­tion of indigenous diversity was implied. The Plant Variety Protection Act of 2002 did not explicitly include in its defi­nition of breeders, farmers and farming communities who continuously nurture, conserve and improve crop varieties. It subsumed farmers under persons who bred or discovered and developed a new plant variety. To give an example, the Philippines Plant Variety Protection Act of 2002 neither rec­ognized nor protected farmer rights to seeds and to partici­pate in the agriculture of the country. Like most policies and laws that directly affect their lives, farmers in many of the countries were generally unaware of the existence of such a law.
     A plant variety protection system is an administrative procedure that an applicant complies with to secure a form of intellectual property rights, called the plant breeder's rights. This right is awarded in recognition of the intellectual creation of innovative citizens, as applied on plant varieties, particularly the transformation of plants through breeding, whether done the classical way or through modern technol­ogy, such as genetic engineering.

2.4.1.3   Effects of biotechnology
Biotechnology and genetic engineering are increasingly used in a few countries in ESAP, for example, China and India but these two countries together account for only 8% of GM crop production worldwide (FAOSTAT, 2004). Despite the  perceived  advantages,  serious  reservations  persisted about health and environment implications of large-scale application of biotechnology.
     Genetically engineered crops can be sprayed with a her­bicide to kill weeds without killing the crop plants (Stein-brecher, 1996). Intensified spraying boosts weed resistance to the herbicide. As weeds become resistant, higher and higher doses of herbicide are needed, leaving larger and larger amounts of chemical residue on the crops and the soil. In addition, the engineered crop may itself become a weed. Alongside the development of herbicide tolerance and pest resistance, some scientists have sought to engineer plants to be resistant to pathogens, such as fungi, bacteria and viruses. The immediate hazard from herbicide-resistant crops is the spread of transgenes to wild relatives by cross-pollination, creating superweeds (Ho, 1998). Although it is