Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
More recent research on consumer willingness-to-pay for GE foods has
focused on consumers in developing countries and has yielded different results
than in wealthier nations (table 10). Several authors found that consumers are
willing to pay a slight premium for GE foods in India (Krishna and Qaim,
2008; Anand et al., 2007), Kenya (Kimenju and De Groote, 2008), and China
(Li et al., 2002). The few studies that have considered second generation
attributes like nutrition have also found willingness-to-pay a premium for GE
foods in India and Brazil (Anand et al., 2007; Gonzalez et al., 2009a).
However, these findings are not universal across all developing countries. Hu
et al. (2006) found that, on average, consumers in Nanjing would consume GE
vegetable oil at a discount of 14 percent if presented with basic information or
positive information and would require a discount of 66 percent if presented
with negative information. Lin et al. (2006) also found that Chinese consumers
would pay an average premium of 52 percent for non-GE foods. In addition, in
Romania, a lower income country that is also in the EU, Curtis and Moeltner
(2007) could not calculate a premium for non-GE goods over GE goods since
too few in their survey of Romanians were willing to purchase GE goods. A
cluster analysis of Brazilian stakeholders in the debate over GE foods found
that while many respondents perceived little or no risk from GE foods, some
were skeptical of the benefits (Gonzalez et al., 2009b).
Some studies found that consumers, on average, would pay a premium for
the non-GE version of the product while some would be willing to purchase
GE foods without a premium (Lin et al., 2006). Bukenya and Wright (2007)
found that younger consumers were willing to pay a premium for GE versions
of the product.
More research is beginning to focus on second-generation attributes.
Many of the currently marketed varieties of GE foods come from crops that
have been engineered to decrease yield losses to pests and/or reduce costs of
production (first generation). Second-generation attributes refer to genetically
engineered characteristics of the foods themselves, such as extra vitamins that
might make the food more attractive to consumers. Lusk et al. (2005)
examined the literature up until 2005 and found that benefits to the consumer
were significant in explaining the size of the premium consumers would pay
for a non-GE food. Huffman (2010) found that U.S. consumers were willing to
pay a premium for vitamin-enhanced GE food, as did Lusk (2003). Gonzalez
et al. (2009) and Anand et al. (2007) found the same thing for consumers in
Brazil and India. With an online survey of German consumers, Hartl and
Herrmann (2009) found that GE enhancement of the Omega-3 content of
foods or the addition of cholesterol-fighting compounds reduced the discount
