Factors Affecting Agricultural Graduate Students Social Risk Perception of Genetically Modified Crops

The main purpose of present study was to identify the social risk perception of agricultural students toward GM crops and factors affecting it. This study used a survey research to collect data from a sample of the population of biotechnology and plant breeding graduate students of public agricultural colleges of Iran (N = 429). Using a two-stage stratified random sampling 210 students were selected for the study. A questionnaire was used to collect data. The face validity and reliability of the questionnaire were confirmed by experts and calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Results revealed that respondents had moderate perception of GM crops' social risks. Using cluster analysis, respondents were divided to three groups, high, moderate, and low social risk perceivers. Regression analysis results showed that high-risk perceivers of GM crops had lower perceived benefits, more psychological risk, and had higher level of negative attitude toward the use of new technologies and believed in immorality of producing GM crops. Ordinal regression analysis revealed that 20 percent of variation in dependent variable was predicted by independent variables. Finally, some suggestions for promotion of GM crops were provided.