“It is the seed that controls the system, not the other way around.”

Chef and seed company owner Dan Barber reminded us of this fact in his thoughtful analysis of the global seed industry’s evolution over the past 150 years. Barber described the rapid proliferation of patents on crop traits, the concentration of the crop science industry into the hands of just four multinational companies, and the stagnation of U.S. public spending on crop improvement for a healthier and more sustainable future.

The problems Dan Barber identifies—particularly insufficient investment in plant breeding and crop improvement—are even more pressing in less-developed countries, where livelihoods often depend on the ability of smallholders to produce food on degraded soils, without sufficient irrigation, and at the mercy of both climatic shocks and market price volatility.

Read the whole piece on Devex.com.

David Spielman is a Senior Research Fellow with IFPRI’s Environment and Production Technology Division (EPTD). Isabella Di Pietro is an IFPRI Communications Intern.