Biotechnology has the potential to boost global agricultural productivity in a sustainable way. The prospects are particularly bright for the developing world, where the need for new farm technologies is most pronounced. Biotechnology advances, however, are predominantly taking place in the industrialized world. The research capacity in many developing countries is limited, and so these countries will have to import biotechnology in order to be able to use it. But technological requirements differ across countries, and some fear that the needs of the South will be bypassed by biotechnological research programs that are dominated by the private sector in the North. For the so-called 'orphan commodities,' those food crops that have minor international appeal but that are of great importance to semisubsistent farmers in developing countries, this could especially prove true. In this study, however, we examine innovative undertakings that have been jointly launched by the public and private sector to develop recombinant sweetpotato technologies for use in Africa. The economic impacts of the resulting transgenic sweetpotato varieties for Kenya are scrutinized using an ex ante analytical framework. The study seeks to improve the empirical evidence about the repercussions of biotechnology in the small-farm sector of developing countries. It also seeks to enrich the knowledge base needed for formulating policies that include the poor in the biotechnology revolution.