Consumers, agriculture, food quality and food safety : an analysis of consumer questions and of the answers put forward

Abstract

This article analyses the worries and the criticisms concerning modern agriculture and food often expressed today on the one hand, and, on the other, the answers put forward by the actors concerned. First, the consumer risk perceptions of food quality and of food safety are studied using the results from numerous recent surveys and polls. The article then presents some underlying explanatory factors motivating consumer questions about current agriculture and food. On this basis, the appropriateness of the answers proposed to the risks denounced and to this confidence crisis is examinated. In fact, the answers often appear to be relatively technical, whereas the points of concern are not limited to technical matters.