Abstract
Biotechnology can provide innovative and efficient tools to support sustainable development of aquaculture. It is generally accepted that use of the term ‘genetically modified’ causes controversy and conflict among consumers, but little is known about how using the term ‘biotechnology’ as a salient feature on product packaging affects consumer preferences. In an online discrete choice experiment consisting of two treatments, a set of 1005 randomly chosen Swedish consumers were surveyed about use of hormone and triploidization sterilization techniques for salmonids. The information given to the treatment group included an additional sentence stating that the triploidization technique is an application of biotechnology, while the control group received the same text but without reference to biotechnology. Analysis using a hierarchical Bayes approach revealed significant consumer reactions to the term biotechnology. When the term was included in information, variation in consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates increased significantly. Moreover, some participants were dissuaded towards an option guaranteeing no biotechnological intervention in production of fish. These results have multiple implications for research and for the food industry. For research, they indicate the importance of examining the distribution of variation in WTP estimates for more complete characterization of the effects of information on consumer behavior. For the food industry, they show that associating food with biotechnology creates more variability in demand. Initiatives should be introduced to reduce the confusion associated with the term biotechnology among consumers.
Highlights
Aquaculture is among the most sustainable of animal protein production systems
The coefficient for wild fish was negative, indicating that consumers who were not informed about the use of biotechnology evaluated farmed fish positively, and were not willing to pay for wild fish if the price difference with farmed fish was greater than ~18 SEK/
E.g., those who believe that science has a positive impact on food quality, fish from biotechnology is not disregarded as an option
Summary
Aquaculture (e.g., fish farming) is among the most sustainable of animal protein production systems. Increasing competition for resources such as land and water are pushing the practice toward limits that could have negative impacts on the ecosystems[1]. Biotechnology offers applications that could help improve and optimize the aquaculture practice (involving growth, nutrition, health and reproduction), while at the same time reduce the pressure on the ecosystems. Most of these applications can be found on salmonid, and are typically linked to Genetic Modifications (GM). Biotechnology comprises a broad range of human interventions in biological processes in order to make those processes, or the organisms undergoing these processes, better suited to their human purpose. Genetic modification is a specific type of biotechnology where artificial changes are made to the genome of an organism to better suit its human purpose
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