Research Report Awareness, acceptance of and willingness to buy genetically modified foods in Urban China Jikun Huang a, * , Huanguang Qiu a , Junfei Bai a , Carl Pray b a Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resource Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Jia 11, Datun Road, Beijing 100101, China b Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Rutgers University, 55 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8520, USA Received 20 April 2005; received in revised form 18 October 2005; accepted 15 November 2005 Abstract There is concern about the extent to which consumers will accept genetically modified (GM) foods if they are commercialized in China. The evidence from the existing literature is mixed and sometimes confusing. The objective of this study is to conduct a large in-depth face-to-face in- house survey that examines the consumers’ awareness, acceptance of and willingness to buy GM foods in China. To achieve this objective, a well- designed consumer survey was conducted in 11 cities of five provinces in Eastern China in 2002 and 2003. The results indicate that despite much less information on GM foods available publicly in China, more than two thirds of consumers in urban areas have heard of GM foods. But their knowledge on biotechnology was limited. Chinese consumers’ acceptance of and willingness to buy GM foods was much higher than in other countries. Chinese consumers also demonstrated great variance in their acceptance of different GM foods. Information and prices of GM foods were two important factors affecting consumers’ attitudes toward GM foods. Based on the findings of this study and given that our sample is in the more developed eastern Urban China, we conclude that the commercialization of GM foods is not likely to receive great resistance from the consumers in China. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Genetically modified foods; Awareness; Acceptance; China Introduction Worldwide studies showed that consumers’ concerns about genetically modified (GM) foods are rising and acceptance of GM foods varies among countries (Bredahl, 1999; Curtis, McCluskey, & Wahl, 2004; Gaskell, Bauer, Durant, & Allum, 1999). Many consumers in European countries and Japan have difficulty accepting GM foods (Hoban, 1997; Macer & Ng, 2000; Magnusson & Hursti, 2002; McCliskey & Wahl, 2003; Verdurme, Gellynck, & Viaene, 2001). However, the results of other studies show that the consumers are much less worried about GM foods in the US and many developing countries (Aerni, 2001; Gaskell et al., 1999; Hallman, Hebden, Auino, Cuite, & Lang, 2003). Consumers’ acceptance of GM food in US ranged from 59 (IFIC, 2004) to 50% (Hallman et al., 2003) but has declined slightly over time (Hallman, Hebden, Cuite, Auino, & Lang, 2004). The findings from several recent consumer surveys in China are mixed. On one extreme, a study in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing by Greenpeace (2004) claimed that GM foods were generally not accepted by Chinese consumers. On the other extreme, Li, Curtis, McCluskey, and Wahl (2003) and Zhang (2002) showed that Chinese consumers were willing to pay a premium for GM foods. Zhang (2002) showed that the majority of consumers in Tianjin city were willing to pay up to 20% extra. A survey in Beijing concluded that consumers, on average, were willing to pay a 38% premium for GM rice over non-GM rice (Li et al., 2003). There are also a number of recent surveys in different locations of China showing a large variation of consumer’s acceptance of GM foods ranging from about half in Tianjin (Wang, 2003) and Nanjing (Zhong, Marchant, Ding, & Lu, 2003) to about 80% in Beijing (Zhou & Tian, 2003). The uncertainty about Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward GM foods contributes to uncertainty for policy makers on how China should proceed with its future biotechnology policies in general and GM foods in particular. For example, although China has invested substantially in GM rice research and GM rice has been ready for commercialization since 2000 (Huang, Appetite 46 (2006) 144–151 www.elsevier.com/locate/appet 0195-6663/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2005.11.005 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: jkhuang.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cn (J. Huang).