South Korea Remains Skeptical of GMO Foods but Trending Towards Wider Acceptance

The percentage of twentysomething South Korean congresspeople that understand GMOs and their impact on food safety and the environment is 37.2% in 2019 up less than 1% compared to 36.6% in 2018. 44.8% of these congresspeople think GMO foods pose a risk to human health and the environment. 44.4% of the young congresspeople preferred non-gmo foods The survey results indicate that there is a great deal of uncertainty around GMOs and passing legislation amenable to the development of the GMO food sector will be difficult in the short term.

As reported by Food News on Oct. 14th, Consumers Union of Korea (CUK) surveyed the recognition level and attitudes on GMO labeling among 299 twentysomething national assembly members in July. Here’re more details.

Survey Analysis

The survey found that 44% of these young national assembly members approved of enlarging the scope of GMO labeling (7% less compared to last year). 24.7% of them approved of maintaining the current GMO labeling system, an increase of 9.8% compared to last year showcasing the conservative attitude of South Korean congresspeople towards GMOs.

	Survey Items	2018	2019
1	Maintain the current GMO labeling system (Implement GMO labeling on food when the unintentional mixing ratio of GM material is over 3%; but for products like sugar, soy sauce, edible oil and starch, no need to implement GMO labeling when there’s no GMO protein residue in the products)	14.9%	24.7%
2	Implement GMO labeling on processed products that are manufactured by GM dairy products but do not contain GMO protein	7.5%	10.8%
3	Implement GMO labeling on dairy and aquatic products when animals are fed by GM feed.	11.0%	13.0%
4	Implement GMO labeling when the unintentional mixing ratio is above 3%, regardless of whether there is GMO protein residue or not.	15.8%	9.4%
5	Implement GMO labeling when the unintentional mixing ratio is above 0.9%, whether there’s GMO protein residue or not.	16.7%	10.8%
6	Have no idea	34.2%	31.4%

Attitudes Towards GM Crops and Foods

During the investigation about their food purchasing preference, 20% of them were willing to buy GM foods. Potato chips and edible oil are the two most acceptable products.
44.4% of them prefer Non-GMO foods because most of them believe GMO foods are not safe or are still doubtful about the safety of GMO foods. And 46.6% of them were not sure about the decision.

49.8% of the 299 congresspeople thought the government should offer more preferential policies to support the development of GMO foods and educate the public on GMOs. 64.6% of them thought it’s necessary to provide information to the public about GMO food safety and environmental safety, an increase of 11.0% compared to 2015.

Compared to the survey results of the past few years, this year’s survey indicates that there is still an overriding sense of conservatism when it comes to GMOs but that attitudes are becoming more open. Although there's a lot of work that still needs to be done on education and perception management, there are obvious trends towards acceptance of GMOs as evidenced by the jump of 23.6% acceptance in 2014 to almost 50% in 2019.

Year	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Interviewees approved of GMO foods (%)	23.6	33.8	37.8	41.6	56.2	49.8