Public Perceptions of Risks and Benefits of Gene-edited Food Crops: An International Comparative Study between the US, Japan, and Germany

Abstract

This study statistically explored public perceptions of the risks and benefits of the agricultural application of gene editing to food crops using online surveys in the US ( n = 2,050), Japan ( n = 1,842), and Germany ( n = 1,962). The American participants exhibited the most positive attitudes toward this emerging technology. Japanese participants demonstrated similar attitudes to German participants regarding risk perceptions and demonstrated closer attitudes to American participants regarding benefit perceptions. Further, the American participants did not highly differentiate between gene-edited and conventionally bred foods when compared to German and Japanese participants. Presentation of information using either animal or plant illustrations did not have any impact on risk perceptions toward gene-edited crops in the three countries, but the German and Japanese people who were given information with plant illustrations showed higher perceptions of benefit than those who were given the same information but with animal illustrations. The study results empirically indicate that despite receiving the same information under the same experimental conditions, perceptions can vary among countries. Our survey and provision of contrasting information illustrations, as well as including participants from an Asian country—Japan—in addition to Americans and Germans broadens the framework of civic epistemology.