Title:Consumer acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods in Europe: What’s trust in government and industry got to do with it?
Presenter:
Andreas Boecker
Authors:
Andreas Boecker and Jonathan Nzuma
Date: June 12 2007
Location: Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Guelph
Abstract:
Common wisdom has it that low levels of GM food acceptance among European consumers are rooted to a large extent in the lack of trust in government and industry. Two pieces of evidence appear to be in obvious support of that statement. First, public resistance to GM food only rose to more pronounced levels after the first BSE crisis in 1996 and the general erosion of public trust in its wake. Second, in North America consumer trust in government and industry is high, while resistance to GM food is low. As a result of differences in trust levels, perceived risk associated with the technology are reported to be high in Europe and low in North America. Recent empirical evidence, however, suggests that the role of trust in consumer acceptance of GM food is considerably smaller than assumed. This paper provides further evidence in support of the “diminishing” role of trust in the acceptance decision. The key counter hypothesis is derived from logical reasoning acknowledging that risk is a precondition for trust to play a role in decision making in the first place. Empirical evidence is based on three Italian and three German samples of a quantitative survey and one German sample of a qualitative study. The data were collected between November 2003 and February 2005.
Presentation:
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