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Socioeconomic
Factors Affecting Consumer Attitudes Toward Biotech Food Labeling and
Filing for Safety of Biotech Foods Requirements
Enefiok
Ekanem
Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Research
Seminar Series
Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN
November 16, 2005
In the United States, three agencies:
the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are
charged with regulating biotechnology. While the USDA, through its
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), oversees any field
tests of biotech seeds and plants, the FDA assesses the safety of all
biotech plant products intended for human and animal consumption. The
EPA evaluates the environmental safety of biotech plants. The regulatory
authority of the FDA is embedded in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act
which requires modified foods and ingredients to pass the same rigorous
tests as their conventional counterparts. Labeling of foods modified
through biotechnology has been quite controversial and remains a
contentious issue in agricultural trade. The literature is replete with
arguments made by experts for and against labeling. This presentation
uses mail survey data collected from 250 primary household food shoppers
in Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee to gauge reactions to three
key issues in labeling and voluntary filing of safety reports by
companies producing foods with modified ingredients. Only 4.8% of
respondents agreed that labeling should not be required for biotech
foods while 27.0% thought that it should be required for some. A total
of 67.3% of the respondents agreed that labeling should be required for
biotech foods. Regarding the filing of voluntary safety report by
companies producing biotech foods, 10.5% of survey participants
indicated that the reports should be voluntary while 88.7% believed that
it should be required. Chi-square tests of independence, implemented
with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), showed that
there were significant gender, ethnic, education, place of residence and
gross household income differences on preference for biotech food
labeling, filing of food safety report before marketing biotech foods,
and approaches on how the FDA should verify results testing the safety
of biotech foods. Findings from this kind of study could provide input
into the biotech crop and foods regulatory process, given the
controversial nature of food labeling policy in the country. Although
the results should be interpreted cautiously due to the limited scope
and the small number of states that participated, a nationwide survey
using the instrument developed from the project would provide findings
that may shed more light on whether or not these findings can be
generalized to the entire U.S. population.
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