Biotech food labeling has become a contentious issue in the United States and between the United States and some of its trading partners. The Economic Research Service has released a technical bulletin, The Effects of Information on Consumer Demand for Biotech Foods: Evidence from Experimental Auctions, that provides new evidence on the power of science-based information to affect consumer response to agricultural biotechnology. Agricultural biotechnology is a collection of scientific techniques, including conventional hybridization that are used to modify or improve plants, animals, and microorganisms. Recently, the term “biotechnology” has been used to refer more specifically to products that have been genetically engineered (biochemical manipulation of genes or DNA). This is the meaning of the terms “biotech” and “genetically engineered” used in
this report.
