US Consumer Acceptance of Food made from Ag Biotech Crop ingredients would be adversely affected if labeled as such, according to a report released on April 22, by the USDA Economic Research Service, titled "The Effects of Information on Consumer Demand for Biotech Foods: Evidence from Experimental Auctions," by Abebayehu Tegene, Wally Huffman, Matthew Rousu, and Jason Shogren, Technical Bulletin No. (TB1903), 32 pages -

In releasing the report, ERS notes that " ... Consumers' willingness to pay for food products decreases when the food label indicates that a food product is produced with the aid of modern biotechnology. This bulletin presents empirical evidence on consumers' willingness to pay for biotech foods based on the presence or absence of labels advising that the food was prepared with the aid of biotechnology. The authors designed and conducted an experimental auction to elicit consumers' willingness to pay for 'genetically modified' (GM)-labeled and standard-labeled foods under different information regimes.

The evidence gathered for vegetable oil, tortilla chips, and potatoes shows that labels matter. In particular, under all information treatments, consumers discounted food items labeled 'GM' by an average of 14 percent. While gender, income, and other demographic characteristics appeared to have only a slight impact on consumers' willingness to pay for biotech foods, information from interested parties and third-party (independent) sources was found to have a strong impact ..." -

The ERS April 22 announcement is posted at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/tb1903/
from which electronic access to the complete report is available at http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/tb1903/tb1903.pdf

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