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Supports for GMOs drop significantly in Australia
Sep. 15, 2015
There has been a drop in both awareness and support for gene technologies in Australia since 2012, with mean levels of support dropping from 6.07 out of ten to 5.33, according to a report of a 2015 survey conducted by Instinct and Reason for the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator. As in previous studies it appears that people with less knowledge of gene technology are less likely to support it.
However, there were still more people in support of GMOs generally than were opposed, although this changed with the applications. Support was much greater when the applications were for medical uses (such as producing insulin or vaccines), for industrial uses (such as making biofuels or plastic replacement parts from plants) and for other uses (such as modifying microbes to clean up the environment). Using gene technology in food and crops had far less support than the other applications.
Generally speaking, women were more concerned than men about the possible negative impacts of gene technology, and older people were more concerned than younger people.
Most support or rejection of GM foods was conditional, and is likely to move based on knowledge of regulation or scientific evidence of safety, indicating that a higher awareness of the OGTR and other regulators, and their roles, would have some impact on public concerns.
Thirteen per cent of people were aware of the OGTR before participating in the survey – up from 5% awareness in 2012. This was a significant rise, although still relatively low in comparison to the other agencies mentioned in the study. But trust in the OGTR was high, at 7.6 out of ten – the highest of all organisations tested.
Dividing the audience into four segments based on their support for GM foods, almost a half of survey respondents were against the production of GM foods until the science proved it was safe. More than a quarter stated they were open to the production of food this way as long as the regulations were in place to make sure it is safe. Only 15% were completely against the production of GM foods and would never change their minds, and 12% accepted it was safe way to produce food.
Other key findings included:
• Knowledge about what foods were genetically modified in Australia is generally poor.
• As has repeatedly been shown in previous studies, people have different attitudes towards different genetic modifications, and there is more support for modifications that are perceived to be less radical.
• Awareness of whether GM crops were grown in a respondent’s state was generally not high, with an average of only 37% being aware of whether GM crops were grown in their state.
• There has been a significant drop in support for growing GM crops in a person’s state from more than 50% support in 2007, 2009 and in 2012 to a low in 2015 of 38%.
• Those organisations thought to be regulators of GM were the Department of Agriculture 37%, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) 34%, CSIRO 30%, the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) 25%, Department of Health 24%, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 21%, State government 19%, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) 18%, and the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) 16%.
• When asked about the rules and regulations relating to GM, and whether they were sufficiently rigorous and complied with, there was majority agreement, but also significant don’t know responses.
• Most respondents (69%) felt that biotechnology would improve our way of life in the future, while only 46% felt that GMOs would improve our way of life in the future.
• Although only 46% of people had any awareness or knowledge of synthetic biology, there was significant support for it with 59% of respondents stating they felt it would improve our way of life in the future.
Source: OGTR
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