Genetically modified foods

The results of the study by Kuperis et al (1999) on consumers’ perceptions of rBST-treated milk also indicated that age, gender, the number of years of education completed by the respondent and the number of children in the household under the age of six had significant effects on consumers’ risk perceptions and stated choices. [...] In contrast, in this study, consumers were asked to make trade-offs between specified types of regulatory policies relative to agricultural biotechnology and the higher levels of food costs that could be associated with the provision of higher levels of assurance of food quality from the application of these policies. [...] The Population Research Laboratory of the University of Alberta was commissioned to collect the data that are the basis of this part of the project as part of an annual survey of the population of Alberta; this survey is structured to be representative of Alberta’s population. [...] A summary of the possible responses to this set of policy preference questions is presented in Figure 2. The responses to these questions compose the second set of the data used to test the specified econometric models of respondents’ choices. [...] The questions within each of the two scenarios are structured; in view of the complexity of that structuring and the resources available for the survey, the order of presentation of the two scenarios was not randomised across respondents.