Genetic Modification Impact on Markets
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| Associate Professor John Knight |
Marketing Associate Professor John Knight and his colleagues have been conducting research funded by the Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust (AGMARDT). The research tested whether the introduction of genetic modification technology into New Zealand would be likely to harm perceptions of New Zealand food products in international markets.
Assoc Prof Knight, Damien Mather, Dr David Holdsworth and David Ermen, published a paper in Nature Biotechnology that reported results from a series of fruit stalls set up on the side of the road at locations in New Zealand, Sweden, Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Shoppers chose fruit labelled as “organic”, “conventional”, or “spray-free genetically-modified”, at different price levels which changed every 50 customers.
Teams of Otago students, fluent in the local language, were sent to each country to set up shop.
A total of 2736 customers visited the fruit stalls in the six different countries. Once they had made their choice, but before money changed hands, customers were advised that this was a university-run experiment, and that in fact they could purchase the fruit at the lowest of the prices shown.
The study showed that a significant (and in some markets, surprisingly high) percentage of consumers visiting these stalls appeared willing to purchase genetically-modified food, provided there was a price advantage coupled with a consumer benefit, in this case “spray-free”.
On the basis of this paper, Assoc Prof Knight has been invited to address The First International Symposium on Molecular Strategies for Crop Improvement in Beijing in July 2009.