The Canadian Centre for Food Integrity recently released the results of a survey about the issues Canadians are discussing among themselves relating to food and nutrition. Apparently, a small number of ‘hot button’ issues are monopolizing the public debate about food just now…
The top topics revealed by the CCFI’s data-mining survey of Canadian
Social Media conversations about food from 2017-18.
Public Opinion: A Study of Canadian Conversations Online on Food and Farming looks at what Canadians have been discussing online (via social media) about the food they eat and their relationship with farmers, researchers and suppliers.
“This groundbreaking work captured and quantified actual discussion and real sentiment of over 254,000 Canadians talking about food and how it’s grown,” CCFI President Crystal Mackay told Food In Canada. “This kind of research is integral to truly addressing consumer demands and questions in an open and authentic manner.”
Much ado about just a few topics…
So… What Food-related issues are captivating average Canadians just now? The survey report says it comes down to just four contentious topics. Based on the survey sample, taken over the past two years, the CCFI calculates that:
- 10.5 million were concerned about the future of the NAFTA agreement and what it will mean for Food prices
- 8 million people were discussing cannabis
- 2.5 million were comparing notes on climate change as it relates to food production
- 2.1 million were debating the pros and cons of genetically modified foods (GMOs), and
- 2 million were talking about organic food and farming
Other relatively hot topics included Pesticides, Hormones and Antibiotics.
Different demographic groups agreed on the issues…
Different demograpic groups usually show different results in surveys like this one. But, for no known reason, all groups agreed closely with one another on the main hot button issues:
“Millennials’ opinions are typically contrasted against those of the baby boomers; food is often looked at through a gendered lens to measure differing perspectives men and women may hold towards key issues; and, race is occasionally anticipated to be a determining factor for outlook on key issues. However, in this study none of these factors attributed to significant differences in opinion:
- On all topics, all age groups were within 1-2% of each other
- Race similarly had no bearing on opinion, with all variability falling within the margin of error
- There were differences between genders on a few subjects (“GMOs and Hormones in food are bad”, as an example), but men and women were largely aligned on the issues.”
My take…
It’s nice to see Canadians from all walks of life and age groups agreeing on something for a change. And that’s not meant to be a comment on our perennial East-West and English-French divides, though the results did show marked differences in the opinions expressed by Quebecois posters, British Columbia social media participants and the rest of Canadians.
And I agree with the survey’s analysts that their results give the farming, processing and retail sectors a solid basis on which to gauge consumer feelings and preferences about what they eat. Not to mention a clear indication of where they have to do better in their communications with the public.
Let’s see what the industry stakeholders do in response to the new findings…
~ Maggie J.