Communicating about plant breeding and genome editing in plants: Assessment of European stakeholders, sources, channels and content

Genome editing helps to develop plant varieties that address future agricultural
challenges such as climate change adaptation, resource efficiency and sustainable
productivity. Nevertheless, associated aspects relating, besides others, to
the regulation of genome editing, intellectual property rights and potential
environmental and health aspects lead to fierce discussions within the European
Union. In these discussions, values and moral aspects play a decisive role. To
support and set the stage for an open-minded
dialogue, the communication
behaviour and needs of specific stakeholder groups has been analysed by means
of two online surveys. The surveys considered sources and channels used for
information sourcing and dissemination, conveyed content and relevant target
audiences. In addition, the degree of trust of stakeholders in different information
sources was assessed. Stakeholders included representatives from academia, civil
society organisations (including environmental and consumer organisations),
journalists, the farming community, the seed and plant breeding sector and
policymakers across Europe. Our analysis suggests that, in general, a high level
of trust is associated with representatives from academia, and that safety-related
aspects, transparency and sustainability are considered very important topics
across the different stakeholder groups. In addition, social media seem to play a
subordinate role for inter-stakeholder
communication but is of higher relevance
for reaching out to the public.