Public Acceptance of Plant Biotechnology and GM Crops

Abstract

A wide gap exists between the rapid acceptance of genetically modified (GM) crops for cultivation by farmers in many countries and in the global markets for food and feed, and the often-limited acceptance by consumers. This review contrasts the advances of practical applications of agricultural biotechnology with the divergent paths—also affecting the development of virus resistant transgenic crops—of political and regulatory frameworks for GM crops and food in different parts of the world. These have also shaped the different opinions of consumers. Important factors influencing consumer’s attitudes are the perception of risks and benefits, knowledge and trust, and personal values. Recent political and societal developments show a hardening of the negative environment for agricultural biotechnology in Europe, a growing discussion—including calls for labeling of GM food—in the USA, and a careful development in China towards a possible authorization of GM rice that takes the societal discussions into account. New breeding techniques address some consumers’ concerns with transgenic crops, but it is not clear yet how consumers’ attitudes towards them will develop. Discussions about agriculture would be more productive, if they would focus less on technologies, but on common aims and underlying values.

A future scenario of the global regulatory landscape regarding genome-edited crops

“…Although the USA is the world's largest commercial cultivator of GM crops, not all people accept GM food products (Lucht, 2015;Li et al, 2015;Wunderlich and Gatto, 2015). The regulatory stance of the USDA APHIS seems unfavorable because they have applied their GMO regulations to crops generated using genome editing techniques that substantially differ from conventional GMO techniques.…”

“…Although off-target mutations may result in a silent mutation or a loss of function, some could lead to a gain of function through such mechanisms as a frameshift mutation, potentially affecting food safety or the environment (Araki et al, 2014) (Araki and Ishii, 2015;Ishii and Araki, 2016). Notably, the negative attitude of people toward GMOs is in part associated with a lack of trust in relevant regulations and/or developers (Lucht, 2015;Wunderlich and Gatto, 2015;Siegrist, 1999;Tanaka, 2004;Zilberman et al, 2013). To enhance public trust in genome edited crops, developers should investigate the occurrence of off-target mutations in the resultant plants.…”

“…The leading countries are the United States, Brazil, Argentina, India, Canada, China and Paraguay. In contrast, no GM crops have been commercially cultivated in the Russian Federation, ) most of the EU countries (except in Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania), (Lucht, 2015) New Zealand, ) the Republic of Korea, (The_US_Library_of_Con-gress, 2014) Japan (The_US_Library_of_Con-gres, 2014) and a number of countries. One of major concerns surrounding GM crops is the possibility that their transgenes, which are derived from an unrelated cross-incompatible species, could have adverse effects on the environment and/or human health.…”

Corporate Concentration and Technological Change in the Global Seed Industry

“…Moreover, in certain countries such as those in the EU, new GE varieties might not be approved. In addition, food products from authorized GE crops could be rejected by consumers if there are many articles presenting them as hazardous, as the case has been for GM food products [65,66]. Indeed, even when some have been authorized in the EU, very few GM food products have been sold because of consumer reluctance to purchase products labeled as GMO, which is mandatory when products contain more than 0.9% of GM ingredients.…”

Perception of biotech trees by Slovak university students – a comparative survey

“…However, the key arguments are associated with ethical consideration and moral imperatives. Most of studies on public attitude of GMOs are referred to GM crops (Lucht et al 2015) but only few GM trees (Nonić et al 2015;Kazana et al 2016). Here, students of four Slovak universities with different field of study were asked to give anonymously their opinion on GM tree plantation.…”