Attitudes and acceptance of South African urban consumers towards genetically modified white maize

Hester Vermeulen, Johann Kirsten, Ockert T. Doyer and H.C. Schonfeldt

Agrekon, 2005, vol. 44, issue 01, 20

Abstract: The introduction of genetically modified (GM) food products to food markets around the world, has led to considerable controversy. In many cases consumer attitudes and perceptions of GM food products were revealed as fears, concern for, and avoidance of the new technology. The importance of GM foods in South Africa is increasing, even though the GM Food debate lags behind many other (often more developed) parts of the world. This paper investigates the knowledge, attitudes and acceptance of urban South African white-grain maize consumers regarding GM maize. Conjoint- and cluster analysis were used to develop clusters/market segments among the urban consumers of white maize. A range of additional questions was used to develop profiles of the identified market segments. These aspects covered demographics, GM knowledge aspects as well as GM attitude aspects. Four distinct clusters/market segments were identified with specific characteristics: "Anti-GM, Brand aware" cluster (35% of valid responses), "Brand unaware, Farmer sympathetic" cluster (20%), "GM consumer benefit, Brand aware" cluster (25%) and the "Brand aware, Pro-GM" cluster (20%). The most significant differences between the clusters were based on the consumers' attitudes towards GM food products.

Keywords: Consumer/Household; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/31714/files/44010118.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:agreko:31714

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.31714

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Agrekon from Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().