ISU rural sociologists win research award on public perceptions of gene-edited foods.

The Rural Sociological Society awarded Sonja Lindberg (PhD ’23 rural sociology, currently at Grinnell College), David Peters (professor of rural sociology), and Christopher Cummings (North Carolina State U.) the 2024 Frederick H. Buttel Outstanding Scholarly Achievement Award at their annual meeting in late July in Madison, Wisconsin. The award recognizes their research on how adoption of gene-edited foods (GEFs) is based on the public’s trust in the institutions developing and regulating these foods. Using a nationally representative sample, they found that 29 percent of Americans who are likely to adopt GEFs highly trust government food regulators and the biotech industry. A nearly equal share of likely non-adopters distrust current regulatory systems and instead trust consumer and environmental advocacy groups. However, most Americans (41 percent) are uncertain about GEF adoption and whom to trust. Although 75 percent of Americans want GEFs labeled, few trust government agencies who have authority to issue labels. The authors conclude that public trust in GEFs and labels can only be obtained by tripartite oversight by universities, advocacy groups, and government food regulators. The article can be found at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ruso.12480