A team of scientists from several universities that surveyed a representative sample of U.S. consumers and conducted focus groups to better understand American consumers' attitudes about GM food and agriculture.
About half of the 1,050 people who responded to the survey had positive attitudes toward GM science, the researchers found. Nearly 37 percent of the consumers surveyed felt neutral about GM science and 14 percent had negative perceptions of it. Most of the people who were receptive to GM science were white males who were millennials or younger, the data indicated. They were highly educated—most held a bachelor's degree or higher—and affluent, with annual incomes of $75,000 or greater. Women, on the other hand, constituted 64 percent of the group with negative feelings about GM science. Baby boomers and older adults were nearly twice as likely to fall into this group. People in this group also were less educated—about half reported some college but no degree.