Do People Really Want to Express an Opinion on GMO Labeling?

With Gwyneth Paltrow making her way to Washington to make the case for mandatory GMO labeling, and with competing bills circulating through the US Congress (one of which was passed by the House), I'm hearing a lot about GMO labeling these days.  

I wanted to draw your attention to an aspect of this debate that you probably don't hear a lot about.  Let's start with this quote from an interview in the Verge with William Hallman of Rutgers who has done lots of polling on GMOs over the years: 

“A number of surveys show that consumers overwhelmingly support GMO labeling, but Hallman says there’s an important caveat to keep in mind. Most polls don’t give the option of saying “I don’t know” when asked about support for labeling, and few consumers will say they don’t want more information. In fact, Hallman’s own survey shows most Americans aren’t even part of the conversation”

I largely agree with Hallman's statement.  Yes, if you ask people whether they want GMO labeling, a large majority will say "yes."  But that sentiment is not very deep (I've found similar levels of support for absurd policies like DNA labeling; moreover, the policy has failed to garner majority support now in 5 state ballot initiatives where people actually had to vote).  

More broadly, asking people whether they want mandatory GMO labeling misses a larger question: how seriously do consumers take their own views?  Do they even want to have to express an opinion on the issue?  

Back in May, I polled a representative sample of over 1,000 US consumers.  I asked them:  “How should the issue of mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food be decided?”  They could choose from one of six options.  

The majority, 61%, of the respondents stated “by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)”.  Just over 10% of respondents stated “I don’t know” and only 5% of respondents stated “by ballot initiatives in each state”.

So, despite the fact that ~80% of people will say they want mandatory GMO labeling in a poll, the above results suggest that they also don't want themselves or fellow citizens to directly decide that policy (9.1% want a nationwide ballot initiative and 5.3% want a statewide vote).  Interestingly, only 8.8% want Congress to decide.

My interpretation of this result is that, if forced to state an opinion, most consumers will express positive support for labels (absent any information on costs or consequences).  But, consumers also realize that they are not terribly knowledgeable on the issue and would defer to "experts" like those at FDA.  

In fact, back in July of 2014, I directly asked over 1,000 US consumers whether they thought decisions about labeling of GMOs should be based on views of experts or views of average Americans.  Over 70% said decisions should be based on views of experts.  

Maybe that seems a bit elitist.  But, I'm not sure that's the right word.  These aren't experts saying experts should decide.  These are normal, everyday people saying they want experts to decide.  This is an entirely reasonable position.  Many of us could do our own taxes or make our own retirement planning decisions, but instead we farm these decisions out to experts because it simply isn't worth our time to become experts in everything.   

GMO animals

In the past couple weeks, I've seen several articles on GMO animals.  They are often created using cisgenic techniques or gene editing (i.e., moving genes within a species or "turning off" expression of existing genes), so they may (or may not) be more acceptable to consumers than transgenic GMOs.  That said, the research suggests consumers are much more averse to genetic engineering in animals as compared to plants (for example, here's one recent study we conducted).  

Here's a sampling of the stories and applications mentioned:

Tamar Haspel in National Geographic - mentions bird-flu resistant chicken (well, they're not actually resistant but they don't spread the disease).

David Cyranoski in Nature News - mentions "double muscled" pigs.

Hannah Devlin in the Guardian - mentions pigs resistant to African swine fever (includes a nice graphic).

Kat McGowan in Mother Jones - mentioned polled (or hornless) Holstein cows (bet you didn't know almost all dairy cows currently have to be dehorned), also mentions more heat tolerant cows.

This is an old one but don't forget the larger, faster growing transgenic salmon.

It will be interesting to see how this field develops and how consumers respond.  Reducing proensity for disease and need for dehorning are clear animal welfare improvements, and of course more efficient animals mean less environmental impacts and lower prices.  Will that assuage consumer concerns?  Only time will tell.

Addendum:  Ellen Goddard reminded me of this story on transgenic cows that have higher Omega 3s

Pushback against Nudges

A couple items recently came across my desk that were somewhat critical (at least in parts) of the use of behavioral economics in public policy making - in particular the idea that government can use insights from behavioral economists to nudge us into making the "right" decisions.

The first item is this new paper by Viscusi and Gayer for the Brookings Institute.  They reasonably ask why behavioral economists haven't spent nearly as much time studying the irrationality of bureaucrats, politicians, and policy makers as they have studying the irrationality of consumers.  Here's an extended quote (footnotes omitted) from their discussion on the propensity of government officials to suffer from a phenomenon called ambiguity aversion:

“Ambiguity aversion is a form of irrational behavior and should not be confused with risk aversion in which people are averse to the risk of incurring a large loss . . .

Government policies frequently reflect this ambiguity aversion with novel risks. For example, court rulings tend to demonstrate a bias against innovation and the attendant uncertainties
of novel drug products. In situations where there are adverse health effects from new drugs, the courts are more likely to levy sanctions against the producer. This bias on behalf of the public is also reflected in product liability case experiments using a sample of judges participating in a legal education program. The judges considered hypothetical cases involving novel drugs and their associated liability risks. When given a choice between a new drug posing an uncertain risk or another drug with a higher known risk, most of the judges recommend that the company market the latter drug.

Another instance of ambiguity aversion involves genetically modified organisms (GMOs) . . . GMOs have come under fire and are increasingly subject to potential regulation throughout the world. . . Critics have characterized GMO foods as being very risky products of biotechnology, labeling them “Frankenfoods.” The policy trade-off involved is that GMOs may pose uncertain risks that currently are believed to be low in magnitude, but they reduce the cost of producing agricultural products, which in turn lowers food prices and promotes better nutrition. ”

They go on to hint at the idea (though never come right out and say it) that the precautionary principle is a behavioral bias.  

The other item was an article in the The Guardian that asks whether all the cutesy messages by companies and governments encouraging us to "do the right thing" are really all that helpful or more effective than traditional policies.  The conclusion: 

“And another lesson, not mentioned by the team, but by other economists , is that it is very important to question whether the choices of the behaviourists, whether in government or in ad agencies where nudging opens up a yet more glorious prospect, are invariably wise and good. What, for instance, made the Highways Agency think that a made-up kiddie quote indebted to the Pret school of copywriting condescension (“a little girl asked us why we didn’t make gingerbread men”) might be preferable to speed cameras that build up points for offending drivers, as opposed to irritation in the law-abiding? Or preferable, indeed, to nothing? Maybe a little girl was involved.”

Unnaturally Delicious

As I've previously mentioned, I've got a new book coming out in the Spring of 2016 on entrepreneurs and scientists working on food and agricultural innovations to help address issues such as malnutrition, obesity, soil runoff, food waste, animal welfare, and much more.  Thought I'd share a draft of the book cover the publishers (St. Martins) just sent.

Food Shortages, Climate Change, and GMOs

I filmed a spot on Fox Business Network this morning in response to this story about possible food shortages due to climate change.

I was glad one of the hosts asked me about GMOs - it wasn't a topic I had anticipated coming up.

By the way, if you want to see some good recent work on the effects of climate change on agriculture within the U.S., see this comment and reply in the American Economic Review by Fisher, Hanemann, and Roberts and by Deschênes and Greenstone.  Both sets of authors wind up at the conclusion that climate change is likely to have a negative effect on agricultural profits in the U.S., but the two sets of authors differ in their subjective views about whether the effects are "large".  Neither study considers the mitigating effects of trade on consumers (i.e., we could import food from other countries who benefit from warmer weather), neither considers the mitigating effects of technological development and adaptation (they assume we wake up tomorrow with 2100 temperatures and must live with today's technology), and neither considers the great deal of uncertainty in the predictions arising from climate change modeling.  These are good studies, but I'm saying there's still a lot we don't know, and probably a lot we can't know until it happens.