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Study
Willingness to pay premium [1]
premium, negative info leads to a negative
139-percent premium (discount) for GE
foods, and positive info on heart-healthy
characteristics leads to a 23-percent
premium for GE foods
Kenya
Maize
meal
Kimenju
and De
Groote,
2008
Consumers surveyed in 2003 would pay a
13.8-percent premium for GE food
[1] Lusk et al., 2005 contains a more exhaustive review of the literature prior to 2005.
[2] Across all information treatments.
A new area of research has been the contrast between intragenic and
transgenic goods. Intragenic goods are created by transferring genes from a
plant of the same species, but of a different variety, as opposed to transferring
a gene from another species or type of plant. Huffman (2010), using
experimental auctions, found that consumers discounted GE foods, but were
willing to pay a premium for intragenic foods that had enhanced vitamin
content versus a plain-labeled product. The difference between the premia for
intragenicand transgenic-enhanced vitamins, however, was not statistically
significant unless pro-biotech information was given to consumers. A survey
of stakeholders in the potato industry (Toevs et al., 2011) found that certain
categories of stakeholders (women, Canadians) were optimistic about
intragenic potato varieties. More research remains to be done to determine
whether consumers as a whole will find intragenic foods more acceptable than
transgenic foods.
Effect of Information on the Desire of Consumers to Purchase
GE Foods
Several studies have also considered the impact of information on the
desire of consumers to purchase GE foods, and the results have varied.
Huffman (2010), Huffman et al. (2007), Hu et al. (2006), and Tegene et al.
(2003) found that positive information regarding biotechnology increased the
willingness-to-pay for GE foods, while negative information reduced it.
Onyango et al. (2004) found that those given both positive and negative
information were less willing to buy GE foods than those given only positive
information. Martinez-Poveda et al. (2009) found that previous knowledge of
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