WASHINGTON, D.C. — Despite intense media coverage of the StarLink corn debacle, Americans are showing few signs of alarm over genetically modified food.
A sociologist who monitors consumer reaction to biotechnology issues said he was surprised at the non-reaction to the hubbub over StarLink.
The GM variety has been approved for feed use in the United States, but its modified genes have turned up in taco shells and other non-GM corn products.
Tom Hoban, from North Carolina State University, said polls showed consumers didn’t stop buying corn chips or taco shells after the news broke.
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Compared to other food safety concerns, GM food worries play only a minor role in the minds of consumers, said Hoban.
“On the U.S. radar screen, it’s not really there,” he told the recent annual meeting of the Canola Council of Canada.
In January, 70 percent of Americans said they would be willing to buy GM potatoes and tomatoes, up seven percent from January 2000, he said.
Hoban said all new technologies take time to find acceptance. Pasteurized milk, hybrid corn and microwave ovens all faced suspicion when they were introduced.
Most Americans have a limited understanding of science and agriculture, said Hoban.
Yet the safety of food produced from science and agriculture is a personal, emotional issue, he said, making the food industry vulnerable to well-funded protest campaigns.
After the StarLink controversy, U.S. consumers said they find biotechnology most acceptable when used in medicine, according to a poll cited by Hoban.
More than half find the biotech tool acceptable to help protect crops from insects, while 27 percent do not accept the use.
But only 40 percent were favorable toward GM low-fat foods, and 37 percent did not accept the concept.
Consumers are most wary about the use of biotechnology to make animals resistant to disease, or create faster growing fish, Hoban said.
An Environics poll of 35,000 people from 35 countries shows 85 percent support the use of biotechnology in medicine.
Use in plastics, environmental clean-up, and crops that need fewer chemicals also received strong support, said Hoban.
Two-thirds of U.S. consumers see more benefits than risks in biotechnology compared to 55 percent in Canada, 44 percent in Australia and 38 percent in Europe.
Support for biotechnology is strong in Indonesia, China, Thailand and India, but in South Korea and Japan, more people oppose biotechnology than support it.
Within Europe, opposition is greatest in France and Greece, where only 22 percent of people see more benefits than risks in biotechnology, Hoban said.
Key European scientific and government leaders are starting to acknowledge the EU’s tough stance on GM food is holding back progress, said Hoban.
“I think we see some light, I think we see some hope over there.”
