Is Absolute Opposition to Bioengineered Food Overstated? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Absolute opposition (AO) to controversial food biotechnologies, i.e. an injunction held by certain consumers that make them insensitive to risk and benefit, is assumed to be a crucial barrier to addressing global food insecurity using genetically engineered (GE) foods. However, there is an ongoing debate as to what extent the theory of AO relative to the theory of risk-benefit perception can explain consumers’ acceptance/rejection of GE foods. In this study, we make a novel application of a choice-based approach to provide evidence on true AO while also predicting the gap between stated and true AO. Further, we provide first-time evidence on the likely role of AO in consumers’ acceptance/rejection of GE foods in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). First, our result shows that the stated AO is malleable and not robust to further validation. Second, sociodemographic and behavioural characteristics predict stated and true AO in differing ways. Third, AO is not likely to constitute a significant market resistance to mainstreaming GE foods in the food systems in SSA. We conclude that food policies targeting acceptance of controversial food biotechnologies can be wrongly designed if stated and true AO are not properly discriminated in empirical studies.