A Plant and Food Research survey found only 43 percent of New Zealand and Australian shoppers would be willing to buy GE produce (file picture). Photo: 123rf
A new survey shows consumers are still wary of buying gene-edited food as the GE debate re-enters the political arena.
National is pledging to change the law restricting genetic engineering if it wins the election, a move many in the tech and farming sectors say is overdue.
Asia, Africa and Australia farmers and horticulturalists have been growing genetically modified crops with pest and disease resistance for up to two decades.
But in New Zealand the practice is tightly controlled by the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, which aside from some amendments, dates back to 1996.
However, a survey by Plant and Food Research found only 43 percent of New Zealand and Australian shoppers would be willing to buy GE produce.
Plant and Food Research future urban consumer programme leader Dr Denise Conroy told Nine to Noon that focus group members felt they did not understand gene editing, which involves making a change to the DNA of an organism or genetic modification, introducing DNA from another plant or animal.
Focus groups were used to explore people's attitudes to the topic, she said.
"One of the things particularly in New Zealand that we found was that people felt quite ignorant - and I use that word in its full sense - of what genetic editing actually is or genetic modification, because as they said, we haven't had this debate in New Zealand for decades, maybe 20 years or so."
Many of those in the focus groups "felt that they didn't have the tools or the knowledge to make informed decisions", she said.
The participants wanted more information so they could make informed decisions. People were interested in exploring the possibility of gene modification but only if there were significant benefits to it, Conroy said.
"What people are looking for, which is really common with technology adoption, is that the benefits need to be much more convincing than the perceived risks."
People tend to be very cautious about adopting new technology until the obvious benefits take over, she said.
"In New Zealand everyone's quite waiting and seeing and you know, it's not that people are shut down to this idea at all, it's just that they don't necessarily understand the idea and they'd like to get more information that they can trust."
Conroy said 62 percent of shoppers would buy food grown in controlled environments such as indoor vertical farms, where crops were stacked in layers.
