Meaning of Ambiguity: A Japanese Survey on Synthetic Biology and Genome Editing

How can the unnaturalness of cellular agricultural products be familiarized?: Modeling public attitudes toward cultured meats in Japan

Introduction

This study aims to clarify how the unnaturalness of cellular agricultural products can be familiarized to society, using the case of the Japanese public's receptivity to cultured meats. Perceived unnaturalness is a key factor in the rejection of emerging technologies. While past studies have examined the explanatory factors involved in the public acceptance of cultured meats, the relationships among multiple factors have not been fully examined. Cultured meats and cellular agricultural products have been positively evaluated because they can contribute to future food sustainability, so the trade-off between perceived unnaturalness and sustainability is a significant issue for the public.

Method

This study uses a questionnaire survey with 2,000 Japanese respondents, which was conducted in 2019. Using a categorical data analysis approach, the strongest explanatory factors for receptivity were comprehensively searched among attitudes toward cultured meats, eating habits, demographics, and so on.

Results and discussion

The results indicated that perceived unnaturalness showed a strong explanatory power for the rejection of cultured meats, but awareness of world famine problems increased acceptance of cultured meat, if the degree of the respondents' concern for unnaturalness was moderate. The perceived animacy of non-human life forms is also associated with acceptance of cultured meat, which may reflect Japanese cultural values. These results suggest multiple pathways to overcoming the disgust of new food technologies in the social implementation process.

Towards social acceptability of genome-edited plants in industrialised countries? Emerging evidence from Europe, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan

The agricultural biotechnology world has been divided into two blocks; countries adopting GM crops for commercial cultivation (adopters) and others without any or without relevant cultivation of such crops (non-adopters). Meanwhile, an increasing number of adopter countries have exempted certain genome-edited (GE) crops from legal GMO pre-market approval and labelling requirements. Among them are major exporters of agricultural commodities such as United States, Canada, and Australia. Due to the relaxed legislation more GE plants are expected to enter the market soon. Many countries in the non-adopter group, however, depend on import of large volumes of agricultural commodities from adopter countries. Unlike first generation GM, certain GE crops cannot be identified as unambiguously originating from genome editing using available techniques. Consequently, pressure is mounting on non-adopter jurisdictions to reconsider their policies and legislations. Against this backdrop, the paper explores recent developments relevant for social acceptability in selected non-adopters, Japan, New Zealand, the EU, Norway, and Switzerland in contrast to United States, Canada, and Australia. While Japan is already opening-up and Norway and Switzerland are discussing revisions of their policies, the EU and New Zealand are struggling with challenges resulting from high court decisions. In an attempt to take a closer look into the inner dynamics of these developments, the concept of social acceptability proposed by Wüstenhagen et al. (Energy Policy, 2007, 35(5), 2683-2691) is employed. This aids the understanding of developments in the jurisdictions considered and identifies specific or cross-cutting challenges.