Abstract
New agrifood technologies are often difficult to grasp for the public, which may lead to resistance or even rejection. Insight into which technology features determine public acceptability of the technology could offer guidelines for responsible technology development. This paper systematically assesses the relative importance of specific technology features for consumer response in the agrifood domain in two consecutive studies. Prominent technology features were selected from expert judgment and literature. The effects of these features on consumer evaluation were tested in a consumer study (n = 745). Fictitious technologies were used to avoid any uncontrollable contextual influences that existing new technologies may evoke. Results show that technologies that were seen as more natural and newer were perceived less risky, more beneficial, and were evaluated more positively. Technologies applied to food were judged to be more beneficial, but also more risky than those applied to non-food. Technologies used in the production process were perceived to be less risky and evaluated more positively than those used in the product. Technologies owned by the market leader were perceived to be more beneficial, and evaluated more positively than those that were freely available. In a next study (n = 440), effects of the technology features on consumer response were tested for existing new agrifood technologies. This study replicated the results for perceived naturalness, perceived newness, and place in the production process where the technology is applied. However, in contrast to the first study, we did not find an effect of application area (food versus non-food) and technology ownership.
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Notes
Technology is the whole complex of knowledge, skills and equipment, often science-based, necessary to produce a product or service. New products or services that result from them—applications available for the user—are considered to be innovations (Carayannis et al. 2003). For example, gene technology is the technology from which genetically modified organisms emerge as the innovation. Technologies and innovations emerging from them are not always strictly separable, especially from a consumer point of view. In this paper, we will use the term ‘technology’ throughout as our focus is on technology features.
Independent samples t-tests revealed no differences for the two cities on the dependent variables in this study. We therefore pooled both samples in our analyses.
We checked whether the results for the other variables changed when leaving geographical distance out of the model as compared to when geographical distance was incorporated in the analyses. This was not the case.
All reported means (M) are estimated marginal means.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The funding body had no involvement in the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of the data; in writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The authors express their gratitude to Laurens Klerkx for his useful comments on earlier versions of the paper and Stefanie de Kool for her role in the research project.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Case Descriptions for Technology Feature Selection
Case | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Personalised nutrition | Growth-enhanced salmon | Nano crop protection | Field robots | Soilless crop cultivation | Mega stables | Food irradiation | ONVU-label (best-before) | In vitro meat | ||
Technology involved | Nutrigenomics | Genetic modification | Nano-technology | GPS, sensors | Open ground horticulture | Intensive animal husbandry | Ionising radiation | Nano-technology | Tissue culture | ||
Descriptive features (factual) | |||||||||||
Place in process | Production | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||
Product | x | x | x | x | x | ||||||
Product environment | x | ||||||||||
Otherwise | x | Cultivation appearance | |||||||||
Application area | Food | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | |
Non-food | x | x | x | ||||||||
Aim | Sustainability | x | x | x | x | x | |||||
Health | x | x | x | ||||||||
Product quality | x | x | x | x | |||||||
Profit | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||||
Initiating actor | Government | x | x | x | x | ||||||
Industry | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||||
University | x | x | x | x | |||||||
NGO | x | ||||||||||
Executive actor | Government | ||||||||||
Industry | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||
University | x | x | x | x | x | ||||||
NGO | |||||||||||
End user | Government | ||||||||||
Industry | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||
University | |||||||||||
NGO | |||||||||||
Consumer | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||
Newness | Scale 1–5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 | |
Societally relevant features (subjective) | |||||||||||
Freedom of choice | x | x | |||||||||
Ease of use | x | x | x | ||||||||
Complexity | x | ||||||||||
Measurable risks | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||
Measurable benefits | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||||
Physical appearance | x | x | x | ||||||||
Naturalness | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||
Naming | x | x | x | ||||||||
Price/costs | x | x | x | ||||||||
Beneficiaries | x | x | x | ||||||||
Appendix 2: Scenarios Describing the Fictitious Technologies (Study I)
One scenario consists of 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 or 1.4, followed by either 2.1a or 2.1b, and either 2.2a or 2.2b.
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1.
Between-subjects factor combinations (application area and place in production process)
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1.1
Food and production: [1] Technology development plays an important role in agriculture. A new technology in the area of agriculture and food is KB6 technology. [2] KB6 technology can reduce the costs of producing vegetables such as tomato, cucumber and sweet pepper. [3] With KB6 technology, each individual plant’s needs for nutrients and crop protection can be closely monitored, so that a plant never receives too much or too little of it. [4] It also enables the precise measurement of each individual fruit’s ripeness, so that each crop can be harvested at exactly the right moment. [5] The products themselves do not change. [6] It only increases production efficiency, making it possible to reduce these vegetables’ price in the shop.
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1.2
Food and product: [1] see 1.1. [2] see 1.1. [3] With KB6 technology, the growth and ripening of each individual fruit can be closely monitored. [4] This way each individual fruit can be given the nutrients and crop protection it needs. As a result, the growth and ripening of the fruits can be strongly accelerated which increases the yield per plant. [5] The production process itself does not change. [6] Only the fruits grow and ripen faster, making it possible to reduce these vegetables’ price in the shop.
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1.3
Non-food and production: [1] see 1.1. [2] KB6 technology can reduce the costs of producing cut flowers such as roses, chrysanthemum and carnations. [3] see 1.1. [4] It also enables the precise measurement of each individual flower’s bloom, so that each flower can be harvested at exactly the right moment. [5] see 1.1. [6] It only increases production efficiency, making it possible to reduce these flowers’ price in the shop.
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1.4
Non-food and product: [1] see 1.1 [2] see 1.3. [3] With KB6 technology, the growth and bloom of each individual flower can be closely monitored. This way each individual flower can be given the nutrients and crop protection it needs. As a result, the growth and bloom of the flowers can be strongly accelerated which increases the yield per plant. [5] see 1.2 [6] Only the flowers grow and bloom faster, making it possible to reduce these flowers’ price in the shop.
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1.1
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2.
Within-subjects factors (owner and geographical distance)
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2.1
Owner.
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(a)
KB6 technology is only available to the market leader in tomatoes/flowers.
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(b)
KB6 technology is freely available to all actors in the vegetable/cut flowers sector.
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(a)
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2.2
Geographical distance.
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(a)
Experiments with this technology will take place on test plots in your region.
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(b)
Experiments with this technology will take place on test plots in southern Spain.
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(a)
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2.1
Appendix 3: Example Scenarios Describing the Real-Life Technologies (Study II)
Variation between the scenarios follows the same logic as applied in Study I, keeping the phrasing identical as much as possible. The complete text of all scenarios are available on request from the corresponding author.
Between-subjects factor combinations (application area, place in production process and technology ownership)
1 | Production (soilless crop cultivation) | Food (lettuce) | Owned by market leader |
2 | Production (soilless crop cultivation) | Food (lettuce) | Freely available |
3 | Production (soilless crop cultivation) | Non-food (flowers) | Owned by market leader |
4 | Production (soilless crop cultivation) | Non-food (flowers) | Freely available |
5 | Product (genetic modification) | Food (potato) | Owned by market leader |
6 | Product (genetic modification) | Food (potato) | Freely available |
7 | Product (genetic modification) | Non-food (cotton) | Owned by market leader |
8 | Product (genetic modification) | Non-food (cotton) | Freely available |
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1: A recent technological development in the area of agriculture and food is ‘Soilless cultivation of outdoor crops’. The goal of this technology is to develop cost-effective cultivation systems for lettuce that meet European legislation on water quality. Currently, a major problem is that harmful residues from lettuce cultivation diminish water quality. By cultivating lettuce free from the soil, on water, washing out of chemical manure and pesticides can be reduced. Also, higher production and better product quality could be achieved.
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The underlying technology is owned by the market leader in lettuce, and is not freely available to all actors in the sector.
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8: A recent technological development in the area of agriculture and food is ‘Genetic modification of plants’. The goal of this technology is to make agriculture more sustainable by reducing the need for pesticides. Currently, the cotton moth is one of the most common plagues in cotton cultivation. Wild cotton species are unsusceptible to this moth. Using genetic modification, genes from wild cotton species can be inserted in existing varieties. These become immune to the cotton moth, decreasing the need for pesticides considerably. Also, higher production and better product quality could be achieved.
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The underlying technology is freely available to all actors in the sector.
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Ronteltap, A., Reinders, M.J., van Dijk, S.M. et al. How Technology Features Influence Public Response to New Agrifood Technologies. J Agric Environ Ethics 29, 643–672 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-016-9625-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-016-9625-8