Performing Department
Applied Economics & Statistics
Non Technical Summary
In the race to feed nine billion people by 2050 on the same resources of today's crops, agricultural research has focused on genetic improvement of plants and animals. The vast majority of this work comes from traditional breeding- simply crossing select males and females followed by evaluation of offspring. Breeding timelines have been greatly hastened by genomic selection strategies and other technologies that speed generation time. Still, the glacial pace of plant and animal breeding cannot keep pace with the demand for improved varieties in a time of increasing resource scarcity and changing climate.The techniques known as "gene editing" stand to add precision and speed to the genetic improvement process. Gene-editing technology has the ability to silence, replace, or add genes without using a donor organism (e.g., Agrobacterium), creating a final custom product identical to one that could have been obtained by traditional breeding over decades or centuries. One method of gene editing (CRISPR/Cas9) was selected as the 2015 Breakthrough of the Year by Science (Travis, 2015).But will gene editing be welcomed by a public that does not understand genetics or the need for improved food crops and animals? While gene-editing technology will most likely improve agricultural production, consumer acceptance is necessary for the technology to achieve its full potential (MacFie, 2007). It is imperative to examine lessons learned from public opposition to current genetic engineering (GE) technology so that the benefits to society from gene-editing, and future genomic technology, can be maximized.A major lesson learned from consumer opposition to current GE technology is that simply providing scientific information about safety is not sufficient to win public trust. While more than 280 scientific and technical institutions support the safety of GE food (Norero, 2017), almost all consumers think a mandatory label is necessary (McFadden and Lusk, 2016) likely because of a perceived risk to either human or environmental health (Stofer and Schiebel, 2017a). A study conducted by the Pew Research Center found only 37% of U.S. consumers believe that GE food is safe to eat, compared to 88% of scientist members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Funk and Rainie, 2015). Additional research has identified that consumers oppose the statement GE foods are safe for human consumption when compared to other statements about the advantages and disadvantages of GE food (Ruth et al., 2017). In fact, McFadden and Lusk (2015, 2016) demonstrated that among the U.S. public audience, beliefs about the safety of GE food ingredients is uniformly divided between: safe, unsafe, and not sure.Intuitively, increased science communication appears to be the solution to decrease the large gap between perceptions of scientists and the general public. This deficit model assumes that consumer skepticism of GE technology persists because of a lack of information and that decreasing the information failure will also decrease skepticism. However, as recently pointed out by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017):"People rarely make decisions based only on scientific information; they typically also take into account their own goals and needs, knowledge and skills, and values and beliefs. A related widespread assumption in both the scientific and science communication communities is that if only science communication were done "better," people would make choices consistent with scientific evidence. This assumption has not been fully tested in diverse situations. And although people may need to have more information or to have information presented more clearly, a focus on knowledge alone often is insufficient for achieving communication goals."In addition, even if people are more aware and more scientifically informed does not mean they change behavior (Chazdon et al, 2016; McKenzie-Mohr, 2013). Thus, true acceptance of and support for gene-editing technology depends on other factors than just transmission of information and simply supplying more information is unlikely to decrease the information failure associated with gene-editing technology. Communicating science effectively to change behavior is a complex task, and what will be most effective for specific audiences and contexts is not obvious or ubiquitous. A single message is unlikely to be effective at addressing all audiences' concerns and barriers to behavior change. To effectively communicate science, a communicator should take into account an individual's sociodemographic characteristics, existing knowledge and beliefs, values, level of engagement with the topic, level of trust associated with the communication source, and preferred communication channel. While values, engagement, and trust are not well defined and difficult to measure, scientists need to understand better how these factors affect science communication. and preferences for regulation and consumption of gene-edited foods.Furthermore, values, engagement, and trust may affect preferences for regulation and consumption of gene-edited foods differently. It is important to separate preferences for indirect influence through regulation from direct influence through consumption when examining preferences for food technology, because these preferences do not always align and may result in a "citizen versus consumer" dilemma (Verbeke et al, 2010; Batley et al. 2001). The citizen behaves as more of a moral agent than the consumer. An example of the citizen versus consumer dilemma recently occurred during the vote on Proposition 2 in California, where 63.5% of voters opted to ban caged eggs while less than 10% of all egg sales were cage free or organic before the vote (Norwood and Lusk, 2011).
Animal Health Component
35%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
35%
Applied
35%
Developmental
30%
Goals / Objectives
The techniques known as "gene editing" stand to add precision and speed to the genetic improvement process. Gene-editing technology has the ability to silence, replace, or add genes without using a donor organism (e.g., Agrobacterium). But will gene editing be welcomed by a public that does not understand genetics or the need for improved food crops and animals? Intuitively, increased science communication appears to be the solution to decrwease aversion towards gene editing. However, a major lesson learned from consumer opposition to current GE technology is that simply providing scientific information is not sufficient to win public trust. Thus, true acceptance of and support for gene-editing technology depends on other factors than just transmission of information.A single message is unlikely to be effective at addressing all audiences' concerns and barriers to behavior change. To effectively communicate science, a communicator should take into account an individual's sociodemographic characteristics, existing knowledge and beliefs, values, level of engagement with the topic, level of trust associated with the communication source, and preferred communication channel. The purpose of the proposed research is to define consumer preferences for regulation and consumption of food derived from gene-edited crops and determine the most effective way to communicate about gene-editing technology to effect consumer intentions to change behavior.The proposed research has direct bearing on the RFA request for research to, "Assess the broad social, ethical, legal and other potential impacts that gene drive/genome editing technologies may pose for society, agricultural markets, consumer preferences, and other domains."
Project Methods
A representative sample of U.S. consumers will be recruited to complete surveys to gain a better understanding of knowledge of gene editing, preferences for regulation and consumption of gene-edited food, and the mechanisms behind communicating the merits and risks of gene-editing technologies. Using knowledge gained from the focus groups, various online surveys will be developed that deliver information about gene editing. The messages in the surveys will systematically vary by values, engagement, and trust variables designed after gaining insight from the focus groups. This experimental design will allow for determination of what components of a message resonate most with different audience segments.We will estimate multinomial regression models to determine how individual factors and message components affect understanding of the merits and risks of gene editing, and thus preferences for regulation and consumption, for various audience segments after receiving a message. Specifically, we will estimate ordered logit models because the dependent variable is discrete and varies in an ordinal manner (i.e., change in understanding or preferences after receiving a message). For example, a respondent's change in understanding, denoted as y*, depends on the explanatory variables measured denoted as x (i.e., sociodemographic characteristics, prior knowledge, and prior beliefs, values, engagement, and trust).Lastly, communication materials such as videos, fact sheets, or news articles from different sources such as scientists or industry representatives will be created as test items to explain the nuanced differences between of conventional breeding techniques and gene editing based on results from the focus groups and the first nationwide survey. A second nationwide survey will be conducted to a) determine preferences for regulation and consumption before and after viewing communication materials, and b) determine preferences for educational approaches for further information and discussion about regulation. Survey participants will indicate which types of educational approaches they have participated in the last year, and on what science topics. Educational approaches could include reading a newspaper article, watching a documentary, visiting a museum, participating in a community forum, and talking with another person casually.The first survey questions would allow us to segment the audience based on prior knowledge, values, trust, overall science engagement, and opinions on gene-editing technology. Then, according to their segment, participants would be shown appropriate communication materials. After the intervention with communication materials, we would again measure knowledge, values, trust, and opinions on gene editing. Finally, participants would be asked about their likelihood to engage in educational activities after receiving the communication materials in the survey, to determine the effect of the materials at changing these educational behaviors.