Craig A. Bond, Colin A. Carter, and Y. Hossein Farzin
Department of Agricultural Economics, University of California, Davis

This paper gives estimates of the potential profitability of herbi- cide-tolerant (HT) rice cultivation in the Sacramento Valley region of California. We estimate first-year returns for the aver- age producer and use both deterministic and stochastic meth- ods to perform sensitivity analysis to account for heterogeneity and uncertainty with respect to potential adoption. Results show that adoption of the HT rice technology will likely be profitable for a majority of rice producers in California, even in the pres- ence of nontransgenic price premia and technology fees.

Key words: California, genetically modified, GM food crop, herbicide tolerant (HT), Monte Carlo, rice.