Consumer Response to Genetically Modified Food Products in Japan Strengths Over the years, consumers' willingness to accept genetic modifications in food production has shown a significant increase from 1995 to 1998. Attitudes shown by consumers toward biotechnology have changed since the Hoban study, as more information has been provided to the public primarily through the media. Since the 2000 survey, 97% of respondents reported being familiar with the term “biotechnology,” implying that awareness of biotechnology has increased significantly among the Japanese public. Estimation results show that variables representing food safety and environmental attitudes, self-reported knowledge in biotechnology, self-reported information on risks related to GM foods, income, and increase WTA compensation (willingness to accept) for choosing GM foods (i.e., education significantly increased the requested discount). An improvement for future work in assessing consumer preferences for GM foods in Japan should include offering respondents much larger discounts, possibly even offering to pay a segment of respondents to consume GM foods (i.e., one discount greater than 100%). Weaknesses Since these studies were conducted, recent events in Japan may have affected consumer confidence. They now have a distorted view of genetically modified foods in a way that doesn't do justice to the positive attributes that genetically modified foods could bring. Many external factors such as economic recession, government scandals and the mad cow disease hype in Japan may have affected consumer trust in government reassurances about genetically modified foods. Studies investigating the correlation between consumer characteristics and food safety concerns have found that members...... focus of paper ......either consume it but oppose it overall.ConclusionThe experience of the market segment that purchased and consumed GM products would subsequently convince a greater percentage of consumers of the safety of GMOs and the equivalence of products containing GMOs with conventional products. The safety and equivalence factor would rather become characteristics of the experience than the characteristics of belief. If this were to happen, the threshold issue would become irrelevant in the long term. This argues in favor of a rather vague standard for what can be considered GMO-free, which is not very expensive to meet. Manufacturers' differing views on what percentage of GM components in their products should be labeled as GM products may have caused a misleading perception. of consumers about the products they consume and their personal preferences regarding genetically modified products in the long term.