Abstract
Consumers’ preferences for products derived from genetic improvements and innovations in plant breeding are often conditioned by technophobia and negative public imaginaries. The current study addresses this issue by analyzing consumers’ monetary preferences for a win-win innovation (generating gains for both private actors and the community) in the viticulture sector, namely fungus resistant grapes (FRG). The use of these grapes reduces the quantity of chemical inputs applied to vineyards, simultaneously improving firms’ economic performance. This study aimed to assess whether consumers prefer wines originating from FRG varieties to conventional wines. In particular, through an experimental online survey involving 627 Italian regular wine drinkers, the study compares individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) for conventional wines with the WTP for two FRG wines produced with two different techniques: horticultural hybridization and genome editing. The study also assesses the potential effect of polarized media coverage on preferences by testing, in a between-subjects experimental design, two diverging (positive/negative) information scenarios, and the core drivers of these preferences. The findings suggest that respondents express a premium price for horticultural FRG wines compared to conventional wines (+9.14%) and a strong discount for genome edited FRG wines (–21.13%). The results also reveal that negative information reduces consumers’ WTP for horticultural FRG wines, while positive information increases their WTP for genome edited FRG wines. Last, the study highlights that individuals concerned with food sustainability issues and knowledgeable about wine are more likely to accept both FRG typologies. Overall, the study confirms the crucial role of appropriate information for market acceptance of innovations based on plant genetics to foster the adoption of sustainable pest-reducing practices in wine production.
Highlights
Transitioning toward sustainable agri-food systems is a theme of ever-growing relevance [1]
275 completed responses were collected for the control group and 176 for the treatment groups. Experiment participants expressed their preferences for three wine typologies: conventional wine, fungus resistant grapes (FRG) wine produced with horticultural hybrids, and FRG wines produced with genome edited hybrids
The distributions of the three willingness to pay (WTP) reveal that consumers prefer FRG wine produced with horticultural hybrids to conventional wines, which in turn, are preferred to FRG wines generated from genome edited hybrids (Fig 2)
Summary
Transitioning toward sustainable agri-food systems is a theme of ever-growing relevance [1]. Role of information in consumers’ preferences for eco-sustainable genetic improvements in plant breeding production, often referred to as hypermodern and highly technological production alternatives [2,3,4,5] These two perspectives are divisive and polarize the debate on agricultural sustainability. The agro-industrial paradigm is criticized for reproducing highly contested intensive production schemes, being inappropriate in approaching sustainable planetary boundaries and natural equilibriums [7] As for the latter approach, sustainable agricultural intensification [8] has been charged with over-reliance on the adoption of genetic engineering to increase productivity while facing environmental problems [9], and public opinion has strongly shaped the trajectories of agricultural biotechnologies [10]. Genetic improvements of crops through conventional breeding [11, 12] and new breeding technologies [13] are currently adopted to generate plant hybrids to cope with biotic (e.g., pests) and abiotic (e.g., drought) stressors
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