Agricultural Biotechnology and Public Attitudes: An Attempt to Explain the Mismatch between Experience and Perception

Abstract

The main barriers to maximize the benefits and minimize the risk of modern agricultural biotechnology for society and the environment are not technical but regulatory in nature. Preventive regulation of agricultural biotechnology must be understood as a policy response to public rather than scientific concerns about the development and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. But measuring "public concern" is not an accurate science. Views voiced about GMOs are largely influenced by stakeholders who frame the public debate in the mass media. In this chapter, we discuss the endogeneous character of public attitude formation toward agricultural biothechnology and how stakeholders manage to shape a public narrative on the risks and benefits of GMOs. We conclude that the analysis of stakeholder interests may better help explain ongoing public opposition toward GMOs than different survey methodologies used to capture public attitudes.