Biotech Updates

Experts Reveal Challenges in Communicating Agri-biotech

October 15, 2014

Genome Prairie conducted a survey of 103 communication experts in Canada about their understanding and opinions on issues such as public perceptions of agriculture and science, communication strategies, and accessing agriculture-based information and resources.

The respondents expressed concerns about the public image of agricultural biotechnology. The majority (61%) indicated that the public perceptions were either negative or getting worse, while 35% said that they were neutral, and 4% said that public perceptions were improving. Respondents indicated that a lot of misinformation on agri-biotech was circulating, especially via social media networks. They also emphasized that there was a lack of proactive communication strategies on the issue. The other problems mentioned were the reliability of sources, budget and time constraints, and lack of coordinated efforts across industry.

Read more about the study at http://www.genomeprairie.ca/files/8214/1265/1492/GP_SCI_COMM_Final_Web.pdf.