Team:SDU-Denmark/Tour50

Policy and practices

Policy and practices has been a major part of our project. Edible coli opens up for many ethical discussions and we wanted to emphasize the GMO legislation, as well as get a better knowledge about the general opinion of eating bacteria. To obtain this, we spend much time on outreach, by making a questionnaire, presenting our project at relevant events, publishing an article in the university newspaper and arranging a Microorganism Quiz night.
To get an even deeper and completely comprehensive discussion, one of our team members traveled to Ghana and interviewed two scientists with expert knowledge about nutrition in Ghana. Additionally, we made a business plan, with which we present a possible final product idea. And last but not least we made a video adventure that is both entertaining and educational. Try it out, and learn more about bacteria and GMOs here.

Questionaire

In the mid summer we created a questionnaire, which was accessible for 2 months. It was meant to be answered only by people connected to a University, as we think that those people have an educational background that allows them to rule on various issues.
The questionnaire was supposed to give us a better idea of how much people know about GMO and what their opinion is about these organisms, as well as to get to know if people see any problems by eating bacteria.
The questionnaire was answered by 271 people from Denmark, United Kingdom, Ghana, Singapore and Argentina. Most of the surveyed were between 19-25 years old and most of them had a natural science or health science as field of study.
To see all received data, click here. To see the questionnaire, click here.

Denmark

We received 152 answers from people living in Denmark.

The data shown above show that more than 82 % of the surveyed have heard about GMO before, and would eat bacteria if it would be nourishing to them. The data show a tendency towards that people in Denmark are open-minded against GMO as a food source.
We received very different answers to the question: Could GMO help reduce malnutrition in your country? Many of the surveyed pointed out, that they don’t think, that there is a problem with malnourishment in Denmark, which might explain, why the answers Maybe and I don’t think so were mostly chosen.

United Kingdom

We received 22 answers from people living in United Kingdom.

All surveyed people from United Kingdom had heard about GMO before. Please note that the survey was filled out during an iGEM Meet-up, which means that all surveyed have connection to synthetic biology. 72.7% would eat bacteria, when it is nourishing, but only 22.7% think it could help reduce malnutrition in the United Kingdom. We wonder if many of the surveyed don’t see a problem with malnourishment in UK, like the surveyed from Denmark, as 27.3% answered I don’t think so, and 9.1% answered no.

Ghana

We received 36 answers from people living in Ghana.

As in Denmark and UK, most of the surveyed have heard about GMO before, and most of them would eat bacteria, if it would be nourishing. But the percentages of people who answered yes to both questions is clearly lower, compared with Denmark and UK. On the other hand, 27.8% of the surveyed from Ghana answered yes to the question: Could GMO help reduce malnutrition in your country?, compared with 14.4% in Denmark, and 22.7% in UK. Furthermore, 41.7% answered Maybe, which tends to that people in Ghana are very open-minded towards GMO against malnutrition.

Argentina

We received 49 answers from people living in Argentina.

44.9% of the surveyed from Argentina had heard about GMO before. This is the lowest percentage of the answer yes of all. In contrast 83.7% would eat a nourishing bacteria, which certainly would be a GMO. We wonder if the surveyed were aware of this.
The surveyed from Argentina also reached the highest percentage of yes to the question, if GMO could help reduce malnutrition in Argentina. 26.5% answered yes, and 44.9% answered maybe. Only 4.1% answered no, compared with respectively 10.5%, 9.1% and 11.1% in Denmark, United Kingdom and Ghana. The data tend to that people in Argentina are very open-minded against GMO as a help to reduce malnutrition.

Conclusion

The questionnaire showed us that most people, contrary to our expectations, are very open-minded against GMO as a food source and to the use of GMO against malnourishment. Furthermore the data showed us, that most people with connection to a university have heard about GMO before, but a higher percentage in Europe compared with Africa and Latin America. We have thought about that this is due to, that people in Europe are accustomed to be critical against all unknown and unidentified.
Regarding to the question: Would you eat a bacteria, that could provide the optimal quantity of nutrition you need?, we wondered if all surveyed were aware of the fact that a nourishing bacteria does not exist, and it requires genetically modification to create one.
Unfortunately we received no clear tendency with the question: Could GMO help reduce malnutrition in your country? The answers of the individual surveyed were very different, but we could conclude that more people from Ghana and Argentina see a potential of GMO as a help against malnourishment in their countries. But as mentioned above, some surveyed pointed out, that they don’t see any problem with malnourishment in Denmark, which is why they answered no to the question above.