In all cases of investments of irreversible or quasi/irreversible and/or postponable type, the traditional NPV marshallian criteria of investment analysis is likely to be unfit. In fact, in all such cases, a valuable option of waiting arises which should be properly considered by the instrument of “ real option analysis”. The GM crops, differently from the traditional ones, have many of the characteristics of irreversible investments and in any case their adoption can indeed be postponed. In this work we shortly present the method of “real option analysis” and apply it to the issue of adopting the GM technology at farm level. We show that, differently from the traditional NPV analysis when the delaying option is valued the GMO option is unlikely to be economically convenient
