Questions about Specialty Crop Perception and the Consumer Valuation Survey
When will your survey results be available to the public?
- Our survey results will be available to the public probably by the end of the year.
- The talks that you just heard today will be publicly available on the arboretum's Forum website. Again if you want to take some time and look at some of the figures a little more closely and ask questions you can certainly do that through the Arboretum website and through pigeonhole even today if you got another question please feel free to ask Maria Carissa you know at the end of the day.
Where or at what level does the pushback for bioengineering start?
- The pushback for bioengineering on specialty crops, we were trying to figure out whether it starts in the growers or the consumers, and from what I understand from our results, is that it's a mix of both. They interact so closely together in specialty crops, that there is not a point where you can say it's only growers or only consumers.
- Part of what was interesting for me digging into that too was the difference in reasons for growers and consumers to push back.
Are there comparable studies in agricultural crops that tell us why there's so much more bioengineering adoption for those crops?
- There are definitely comparable studies on agricultural crops that tell us why there are so much more up for adoption and it kind of boils down to what we just said about the interaction between growers and consumers in agricultural crops is a lot less than the interactions between growers and consumers in specialty crops. So since growers and consumers have a much closer relationship with specialty crops, so you get into this negative loop of refusing to adopt.
Will consumers buy a GMO tomato if it comes with a warning label? Or will a GMO/ bioengineered label reduce sales, especially at farmers' markets?
- It depends. I think it's the information avoidance aspect, that's kind of what I find interesting is the salience of GM products kind of lead to people to either rebel more or learn more about the products. I don't know the answer to this but that's what we're studying.
- Our willingness to pay for study is trending negative and so we could probably generalize and say if there is a bioengineered label on it, the product is bioengineered presumably, then the consumers will avoid buying it or it will have to be discounted significantly for them to buy it.
- In previous literature and our study, we all found that people discount GM food but there exists some market segmentation. Some consumers do not care here so as long as the price is within their acceptable range, they will buy them. Some care so much that they actively avoid any GMO labeling no matter the type of consumer.
Outside of a desire for a food and non-food crop why were petunias and potatoes chosen?
- A very common argument from companies or producers or wholesalers, and retailers against the labeling of GMOs and specialty crops was always that if we put a label on that will increase the perception that these are risky or have health consequences and would decrease sales. So I think that's a pretty common belief from the commercial side.
- Petunias and potatoes were chosen because we actually have deregulated petunias and potatoes right now and it's things that you can touch like things that exist in the real world instead of a theoretical crop. So the non-browning potato is a real thing, and the novel color petunia is a real thing that you can buy.
Does the complexity of information affect information avoidance?
- We didn't have a varying complexity of information in this study but I think as far as information avoidance, It is a complex topic and there is uncertainty involved so that complexity being there within the topic itself is important to elicit information avoidance.
- The complex technology certainly leads to a perception that this has increased risk over something that's more like conventional breeding where you just take a normal reproductive process and pollinate another plant and then look at what you've produced from that pollination and seed production. Part of what our study hopes to eventually get to is providing that information in an understandable way. Again, to make informed decisions that's really our goal.
Are there more GM crops or GE crops?
- There are definitely more genetically modified crops than genetically edited crops because genetic editing has only been around since about 2018 and genetic modification since 1992.
How was your consumer survey distributed or how were folks made aware of the survey opportunity?
- We did that on Qualtrics which is a professional survey company that provided us with a panel. We could specify who we were targeting, and how many people we want to reach, and then they will provide the consumer panels.
Can a USDA organic crop also be bioengineered?
- A USDA organic crop cannot be bioengineered at all.
- We did survey USDA organic certified Growers just because they are Growers too and they deserve a seat at the table. The result of that was that they weren't any more likely to be negative towards genetic engineering. They were still overall negative but they weren't any more negative than the rest of the non-organic growers.