| Genetically modified foods were widely grown and consumed across the world since it's commercialized in 1996.A record of 179.7 million hectares of GM crops was grown globally in 2015,which is 100 times larger than the area in 1996.With such rapid development,there also exists intense debate about it.Supporters stated that a number of benefits from GM foods have been identified,including lower price and better food quality for consumers;higher productivity and lower pesticide costs for farmers;less environmental pollution from pesticide and herbicide.Those against this technology claimed that GM foods could bring potential risks to human health and the environment and evoke the ethic concern.In China's2006-2020 Long and Medium Term Scientific and Technological Development Plan,developing new GM crops is one of the major national programs.However,according to the data from The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications(ISAAA),the area of GM crops grown in China has decrease from 4.2 million hectares in 2013 to 3.9million hectares in 2014,and then decrease to 3.7 million hectares in 2015.Chinese government only authorized the commercialized of GM cotton and papaya,there has no GM major grain been commercialized yet.The biosafety certificates issued by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture for Bt rice lines will be expired.Under this circumstance,there confront uncertainty for the further development and expansion for GM foods in China.Since consumers play an indispensable role in the food system,their attitude and behavior are important determinants of long-term production and commercialization of GM food.Meanwhile,consumers are anxious about the food safety situation with the increasing outbreak of food scandals,and then make consumers worried more about the safety of this controversial technology.How about consumers' attitude towards GM foods nowadays? Are they familiar with the risks and benefits of GM foods? Are they willing to buy GM foods?What' the maximum amount of money are they willing to pay for them? Are they actually purchase GM foods as they stated so? Those are the major research questions for this dissertation.Therefore,we analyze consumers' consumption behavior for GM foods based on the literatures about consumption behavior for GM foods,the theory of consumer behavior,asymmetric information theory,theory of products attributes and the theory of perceived riskby using questionnaires,descriptive study and econometrics analysis.Firstly,we build the theoretical foundation for this dissertation according to the related theory.Secondly,we explore consumers' concern for food safety,consumers' perceived risk and perceived benefit for GM foods based on the survey data,and then using structural equation model to analysis the relationship between consumers' perceived risk and perceived benefit and the influencing factors for them.Thirdly,we explore consumers' purchase intention for GM food and the influencing factors.Meanwhile,we analysis consumers' willingness to pay for GM foods and the impact factors by taking GM cooking oil as an example.Fourthly,we study the discrepancy between consumers' stated preference and revealed preference for GM cooking oil and the impact factors.Finally,according to the conclusion of this dissertation,we propose policy recommendation to the government department.Main research conclusions for this dissertation are as follows:(1)Although most of the respondents(90.27%)have heard of GM foods,only 18.30% of the respondents are accept it,pest resistance GM fruits and vegetables are with the highest acceptance level.Furthermore,33.07% of the respondents consider that it is necessary to develop GM foods,21.26% of the respondents support the development of GM foods.Meanwhile,only 15.47% of the respondents are agreed the commercialized of GM foods,only 11.73% of the respondents are agreed the importation of GM foods.53.98% of the respondents have no idea of the labeling policy for GM foods in our country.(2)The analysis of consumers' perceived risk and perceived benefit showed that the percentage of respondents who believed it is possible that GM food might threat the human health and environment is much higher than the respondents who believed not so.Meanwhile,the percentages of respondents who believe that GM food could bring benefits to human health and environment are quite low.A large portion of respondents are not clear about the risks and benefits of GM foods.The regression result of structural equation model indicated that the factors that have impact on consumers' perceived risk about GM food are gender,income,family number and have family member needs for special care.The factors have impact on consumers' perceived benefit are gender,education and GM knowledge.(3)The analysis of consumers' purchase intention showed that 70.86% of the respondents in our survey are not willing to buy GM foods,29.14% of the respondents are willing to buy GM foods.The regression result shows that female,younger consumers,those with low income and those who have no family member needs for special care were more willing to buy GM food than their counterpart.Consumers' GM knowledge has a positive influence on their purchase intention.Consumers' perceived risk and perceived benefit has a negative and positive influence on their purchase intention towards GM food respectively.(4)We take GM cooking oil as an example to analysis consumers' willingness to pay for GM foods.The result indicated that the majority of the respondents are not willing to pay a premium for GM cooking oil,they are only willing to consume GM foods only if it offers significant cost saving over non-GM foods.We take 5 liter/ barrel GM rapeseed cooking oil as an example to analyze consumers' WTP for it.The result showed that respondents' average WTP is only around 20% of the market price.Younger consumers,those with lower education level,have no family member needs for special care,have lower perceived risk and higher perceived benefit for GM foods are willing to pay a higher price for GM cooking oil.(5)Consumers' stated preference and revealed preference are divided into four categories,that is,those who are willing to buy and buy GM foods actually,those who are willing to buy but not buy GM foods actually,those who are not willing to buy but buy GM foods actually,those who are not willing to buy and not buy GM foods actually.The survey data showed that the consistency between consumers' stated and revealed preference is 62.88%,53.49% of the respondents are not willing to buy and not buy GM foods actually,9.39% of the respondents are willing to buy and buy GM foods actually.Taking the respondents who are not willing to buy and not buy GM foods as the base category,the regression result of non-ordered multinomial logistic model showed that consumers' gender,education,income,GM knowledge and perceived risk are the factors that have impact on those who are willing to buy and actually buy GM foods.The factors that have impact on those respondents whose stated preference and revealed preference are inconsistent are gender,age,GM knowledge and perceived risk.In conclusion,stated preference and revealed preference for GM cooking oil is consistent for female,those who with high education,those who with more GM knowledge and those with higher perceived risk. |
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