Consumer willingness to pay for genetically modified vegetable oil and salmon in the United States and Norway

Abstract

Consumer resistance against GM crops is still substantial in the United States and Europe. We conducted an internet survey in the United States and Norway with more than 1,000 respondents in each country to estimate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for GM soybean oil, farmed salmon fed with GM soy, and GM salmon. The differences in WTP for the conventional as compared with the GM alternatives are relatively small. Only between 7 and 13% of the respondents indicated that they were willing to pay more than a 20% premium for each of the conventional alternatives as compared to the corresponding GM alternatives. The average WTP premiums range from 7.5 to 9.2%. This suggests a large similarity in WTP in Norway and the United States and across the three products.