Perceptions and Attitudes of University Students of Five Mexican Public Institutions on the Labeling of Products Made with Genetically Modified Organisms

Introduction: To know the perceptions and attitudes about the labeling of products made with genetically modified organisms (GMO), of students from five universities in central Mexico, in the following areas of knowledge: natural sciences, health sciences, chemical sciences, economic and administrative sciences and biological and agricultural sciences. Methodological design and approach: In the study, 2923 students answered a questionnaire with Likert scale of five questions. It is important to mention that the original questionnaire has 64 variables and 11 factors to measure the perceptions, attitudes, benefits and risks on the production and consumption of GMO. Results: Of the total sample 16.60% always read the labels, 85.70% agree that the label should show the characteristics of the product. 82.90% said that when making promotions should be reported on the label the characteristics of the product and finally 82.90% answered that the Mexican government should legislate a legal framework to regulate the mandatory labeling of products made with GMOs. Discussion or Conclusion. The sample only cover 5 Mexican universities. The relevant contribution of this research provides an empirical knowledge about the perceptions and attitudes regarding the labeling of products with GMOs content from a sample of the population of five public universities in central Mexico. This study is an important contribution for Mexican society, because there is no legal framework to regulate the labeling of products with GMO content and that it is essential to strengthen the training of university students with scientific information in this field. The labeling of products made with GMOs is generating relevant controversies worldwide, so it is important to know and spread the perceptions and attitudes of the sample considered in this study.


Introduction
The labeling of products for human consumption is widely used throughout the world, which covers a wide range of attributes with relevant information for producers, government institutions, wholesalers, retailers and the final consumer.
It is relevant to point out that in 2015 a research was carried out in Mexico, at a national level, to know the perceptions and attitudes towards GMOs financed by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), with a sample of 14720 participants from the Mexican urban population, with people in a range of age between 18 to 65 years, in this study all 64 items of the questionnaire were dichotomous (Montesinos-López, et al., 2016). From the results of this survey these authors published a paper about the attitudes toward labeling of genetically modified products (Montesinos-López, et al., 2017), were they reported that 63.25% of the participants has the habit of reading the labels of the products that they consume. Also, they reported that 93.69% participants said that when companies advertise these types of products, they must show on the label the characteristics of the content, 93.59% want that products made with GMO show the characteristics of the content on the label and finally 93.23% agree that the Mexican government must legislate the corresponding legal framework, to force companies to label products with GMO content (Montesinos-López, et al., 2017).
For this reason, in this paper the main goal is to study the perceptions and attitudes of university students of five Mexican public institutions on the labeling of products made with genetically modified organisms.

Instrument and Sample of Participants
The instrument used for this research was of four questions with Likert scale (nothing, rarely, sometimes, frequently and always), with the following items: 1. Do you have the habit of reading the labels of the products your family consumes in the diet, before buying them?
2. Do you consider that transgenic products must show, on their label, the corresponding information?
3. Do you consider that in the promotion of transgenic products it is important to inform the consumer about its content? 4. Do you consider that the Mexican government should generate laws to regulate the labeling of transgenic products?
In addition to this four items we also asked to the students the following aspects: area of knowledge of their professional career, semester, age, gender, among other sociodemographic variables. The questionnaire used have four variables and it was applied to a non-probabilistic sample of 2923 students of five public universities of central Mexico.
The four variables (items) that were measured in relation to the labeling for this article, are part of the original questionnaire with 64 variables and 11 factors latent, which was designed to measure perceptions, attitudes, benefits and risks on the production and consumption of GMOs of university students of 5 Mexican public universities of central México.    Montesinos-López, et al., (2016) (93.59%), they propose that the label shows the characteristics of the product with GMO content. While, in the sample of university students (92.20%) in relation to the urban sample (93.69%) they propose that when promoting in any medium, a product with GMO content, the characteristics of the products should be made known to the individuals and finally, in the university students sample (92.50%), while in the urban sample (92.23%) agree that the Mexican government must legislate the corresponding legal framework to force the labeling of products with GMO content (Montesinos-López, et al., 2017). The above findings are consistent with studies conducted with students in Russia (Delmond et al., 2018), Kuwait (Nedaa & Al, 2018) and in India ( Kajale & Becker, 2013).

Conclusions
Regarding the habit of reading the labels before buying the products that the family consumes daily, the following is concluded: 6.40% of the students surveyed mentioned that they never read the information that is shown on the labels, 22.20% said that they rarely read the information on them, 29.80% occasionally read the information on the labels, 25.00% mentioned that they often read the information on the labels, and finally 16.60% said that they always read labels of the products their family consume in the daily diet. The students surveyed are from the following careers: medicine, nursing, nutrition, agronomy, veterinary, chemistry and business, and these results means that these students need to be informed and trained in this topic since in the near future they will be responsible for human health and the production of food with plants and animals for human consumption.
Also, we found that 85.70% of the sample that integrated the investigation answered that they want that the products produced with GMO, always show the characteristics of the content on the label. Regarding the promotion of transgenic products, the object of study considered that it is transcendental to inform the final consumer about its content of the products consumed by his family, since 82.90% revealed that the final consumer should always be informed about the content of the product they consume in his daily diet, by using different means of advertising to promote this type of product.
Finally, respondents concluded in relation to the importance of the Mexican government should generate laws to regulate the labeling of transgenic products, was observed that 82.90% agree that the Mexican government should legislate a legal framework to regulate the labeling of products made with GMOs, in such a way that the final consumer can made its decision on whether or not to buy the products with GMO that consumes daily.