Consumers Would Pay More for Some Modified Foods, Studies Show

A couple of studies done by an Iowa State University economist show that consumers would be willing to pay premium prices for foods that are genetically modified to enhance health benefits.

Wallace Huffman conducted the two studies, one for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a second for a private industry group. The latter study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Huffman’s 2011 study focused on what is called the “intragenic” process, which uses modifications within a plant species. This is in contrast to “transgenic” processes, which modify a plant’s protein with genes from another species — such as Bt, a soil-based bacteria.

The study showed consumers would pay up to 25 percent more for foods such as potatoes if they were modified by the intragenic method to have more antioxidants and vitamins than a plain potato or a transgenic version.

Read more here: http://qctimes.com/news/local/consumers-would-pay-more-for-some-modified-foods-studies-show/article_2cd90848-4cbf-11e2-afd1-0019bb2963f4.html

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