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March 14, 2003

Study: Americans don't
trust foreign-grown foods

U.S. residents trust the steadily vanishing American small-farm owner, but don’t favor corporate, non-family farms or trust genetically modified or foreign-grown food. And the 9/11 attacks made many nervous about our food supply’s safety.

Those are a few of the preliminary results of a sweeping survey on public attitudes about globalization and our food’s sources, production and safety.

Dr. Ronald Wimberley, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Sociology in N.C. State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, coordinated the survey. He collaborated with researchers from 12 U.S. universities, including Dr. Godfrey Ejimakor, an agricultural economist at N.C. A&T State University.

An extensive report on the survey "The Globalization of Food: How Americans Feel About Food Sources, Who They Trust, Food Security, Genetic Modification, Food Labeling and the Environment" is due for release soon at http://sa.ncsu.edu/global-food, he says. The Southern Rural Development Center at http://srdc.msstate.edu will also release a summary soon in Southern Perspectives magazine.

A 2002 book, The Social Risks of Agriculture, of which Wimberley is principal editor, summarizes the results of similar, related studies in 1986 and 1992.

"Overall," Wimberley says, "the survey looks at such food, farming and environmental questions as how globalization affects the food Americans eat, the communities where we live and our quality of life. We’re also doing a broader view of what we see in some of the local consumer concerns."

Although researchers have released some conclusions, he says, the team’s sociologists and economists are still analyzing the results.

To date, Wimberley notes, results indicate people in the United States are concerned about the global sources of their food, want their food produced under safe environmental conditions, whether domestically or globally, and would pay more for food labeled with assurances that it was produced under such conditions.

"In addition," he says, "nearly 92 percent want labels on genetically modified foods. Only 1 percent does not, and only 7 percent are undecided on genetically modified labeling."

Seventy-seven percent of those polled agreed that government policies should favor family, owner-operated farms as opposed to those run by corporations, and 53 percent prefer to

buy food they know has been grown on small rather than large farms.

Here are a few more survey findings:
A solid majority (74 percent) wouldn’t relinquish food production to other countries even if that resulted in cheaper food.
Seventy-four percent and 76 percent, respectively, says it is of some or great importance for the food they buy to be grown and processed in the U.S.
Two-thirds (68 percent) would pay more for food grown in the U.S. rather than abroad. More than 70 percent would spend more for locally produced food.
Eighty percent think U.S.-grown food is fresher than imported food, and 79 percent think it safer than imported food. About half say U.S.-produced food is more nutritious and tastes better than imported food. And 51 percent perceive that U.S.-grown food costs less.
Ninety-two percent would eat U.S.-produced meat, 21 percent would eat South American meat; 14 percent would eat British-produced meat; 10 percent would eat meat from other European countries. But nearly half say "no" to South American-produced meat; the majority reject meat from England or other European countries.
Eighty-eight percent believe listing contents on food labels is important; 87 percent say their food’s nutritional value is important.

Respondents aren’t sure about eating foods grown using biotechnological techniques, with nearly half undecided about the safety of foods from genetically modified plants and animals. Those who take a stand on biotech and genetic modification are about evenly divided, with a sizable majority seeing genetically modified animal products as unsafe.

Also:
Half of the respondents split between agreeing (26 percent) and disagreeing (23 percent) on whether they would eat foods grown with new biotechnological techniques. The other 51 percent are undecided.
Forty-seven percent aren’t sure if they consider genetically modified plants unsafe; 28 percent say genetic modification does make plants unsafe; 25 percent believe they’re safe.
Forty-three percent aren’t sure if genetically modified foods from animals are unsafe; 39 percent see them as unsafe; 17 percent say they are safe.

Respondents appear wary about the sources of their information on the safety of U.S. farming practices.
For knowledge about the safety of the foods they eat, 70 percent trust farmers; 57 percent trust university professors; 20 percent trust elected officials; 12 percent, celebrities; and 11 percent, business executives. Elected officials, celebrities and business executives actually are mistrusted by about two-thirds of the respondents.
The three federal food-related agencies the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency claim the trustworthiness of at least 75 percent of respondents. USDA, 82 percent; FDA, 75 percent; EPA, 72 percent.
Only 13 percent trust foreign governments for information about food safety; 67 percent don’t. This is in line with the mistrust of meat grown in countries outside the U.S.

Farmers enjoy the benefit of the public’s doubt on environmental issues and are generally not blamed for major damage. But in some cases, respondents were indecisive about how much farmers harm our environment, Wimberley says. For example:
Almost two-thirds (65 percent) think most farmers take good care of the soil; almost half (48percent) agree that most farmers safely use pesticides and other chemicals on food crops. But 20 percent think farming is a major source of U.S. pollution and 61 percent worry some or a great deal about environmental problems caused by U.S. farming methods. However, 74 percent claim to worry some or a lot about farming’s impact on the environments of other countries.
While 45 percent are undecided if present farming methods pollute our water supplies, 34 percent think they do; 21 percent disagree.
Forty-three percent are undecided if American farmers use more chemicals than needed to produce food; but another 43 percent think farmers do use more chemicals than necessary.

Regardless of what respondents think about farmers’ care of the environment, most believe farmers should be good stewards of the environment in which food is produced.
A 57 percent majority say they worry about health problems due to U.S. farming methods. But 80 percent worry about health problems due to farming methods in other countries.
Ninety-four percent agreed that landowners are responsible for protecting soil resources for future generations; 56 percent believe farmers who don’t adopt needed soil conservation practices should be financially penalized.
Seventy-one percent would pay more for food produced so as to protect the environment. Another 60 percent would pay more for food produced without using chemicals; 81 percent would pay more if it were grown on farms using good environmental practices.
A sleeper question: Seventy-six percent agree that the U.S. should do what it takes to reduce global warming.

"It appears that Americans value the importance of a good farming environment and would spend more to protect it," Wimberley says, "but they are either uncertain or don’t perceive that farmers are doing major environmental damage."

Events in the world the study examines unexpectedly encroached on its polling process, he notes.

"When we launched the survey in July 2001," Wimberley says, "food safety was an interest, but became a much larger interest after the Sept. 11 attacks. About 46 percent of respondents say they had thought some or a lot about our food supply’s security prior to 9/11, and 91 percent were somewhat or very concerned after the attack."

Also, 85 percent agreed that our food supply could be a possible way terrorists might attack us, he says.

Researchers obtained a sample of 819 randomly selected U.S. respondents. They adjusted mailed survey responses using 2000 U.S. Census data on age, race, sex, income, education and region to help make findings more nationally representative, Wimberley says.

--A. Latham

NOTE: These researchers also participated in the project: Ejimakor, ejimakor@ncat.edu, N.C. A&T State; Gerald Wheelock, aamgcw01@aamu.edu, Alabama A&M University; Conner Bailey, cbailey@acesag.auburn.edu and Joe Molnar, jmolnar@acesag.auburn.edu, Auburn University; Brenda Vander Mey, vanmey@clemson.edu and Ed McLean, emclean@clemson.edu, Clemson University; Betty Wells, bwells@iastate.edu, Iowa State University; Larry Burmeister, lburm@pop.uky.edu, University of Kentucky; George Ohlendorf, soohle@lsu.edu, Louisiana State University; Craig Harris, craig.harris@ssc.msu.edu, Michigan State University; Terry Tomazic, tomazictj@slu.edu, St. Louis University; and Marlene Lee, malee@facstaff.wisc.edu, University of Wisconsin.