UK: Social Science Research Unit, Food Standards Agency, United Kingdom.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 175 Document Number: C29999
Notes:
6 pages., Study conducted by Brook Lyndhurst Ltd for the Food Standards Agency. Findings revealed the UK public "wary, uneasy and uncertain about emerging food technologies" such as nanotechnologies, animal cloning and synthetic biology. Full report (89 pages) available at http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/emergingfoodtech.pdf
James F. Evans Collection, Research directors at American land-grant universities are optimistic regarding the future of agricultural biotechnology and expect the ongoing "biotechnology revolution" to benefit the public, including consumers and farmers. Unresolved public policy questions involving biotechnology do concern many of the research administrators who responded to an opinion poll, but the prevailing attitude appears to be on of confident expectation that solutions will in time emerge for all outstanding biotech problems. Asked about "biotechnology's ethical questions," a majority of the respondents that U.S. land-grant institutions are well equipped to deal with such questions. The respondents said biotechnology may pose environmental risks, but they did not expect biological catastrophes to occur. They said biotechnology could be used to foster low-input methods of agricultural production, and they were in favor of pursuing biotech research that might improve agriculture's sustainability. (original)
