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Table 4 Factors affecting farmers' preparedness to be involved in trials of GM crops

From: Tanzanian farmers' knowledge and attitudes to GM biotechnology and the potential use of GM crops to provide improved levels of food security. A Qualitative Study

Provision of information

Before any trial, farmers would want a chance to speak with those who developed the crops to enable them to learn more and to ask questions regarding GM crop production

 

All respondents believed they would be given enough information to make an informed, autonomous decision before any trial was undertaken, regardless of the body or organisation conducting the trial.

Previous exposure

Respondents were more receptive to becoming involved in a trial when they had had previous contact with scientists or developmental organisations across a number of disciplines, not solely agriculture.

 

Where respondents had had little or no contact with such initiatives, their receptivity to trialling GM crop varieties was markedly reduced.

Type of farming practice

All the farmers said that undertaking a trial using a new crop variety would mean sacrificing some land under current cultivation. All the farmers said that they currently farmed the maximum acreage possible given the labour available.

 

Where farmers were undertaking subsistence farming, producing just enough crops to provide adequate food, they were more reluctant to take the risk of sacrificing land to test a new crop variety because of the potential consequences of reduced yield if the trial was unsuccessful.

 

Those farmers who produced enough crops to allow surplus to be traded felt that potential benefits of testing a new GM crop variety outweighed the potential risk of reduced overall crop production.

Involvement of scientists in the trial process

In all cases farmers preferred that scientists should be involved in all stages of a trial, from planting to harvesting, processing and tasting.

Incentives

All farmers would trial a new GM crop variety if they were paid: their concern about land sacrifice associated with a trial would be countered by financial incentives.

 

Respondents would also be less concerned about close involvement of scientists in the trial process if given financial incentives.

 

Where farmers had excess land which was fallow, they would have no concerns in allowing scientists to cultivate their spare land in order to test a new GM crop variety in exchange for the final crop products.