Do Household Attitudes about Food Defense and Food Safety Change Following Highly Visible National Food Recalls

Americans eat from the safest food supply in the world, but that food supply may not be as safe as once was thought. Recently, there have been several sobering reminders that the food we eat is not completely safe, and that naturally occurring pathogens have not been completely eliminated from our food supply. Well-publicized national recalls of spinach and peanut butter and more localized recalls of bagged lettuce and ground beef have increased public awareness of food safety issues. The spring 2007 pet food recall added further to public concerns about food safety, particularly imported food. We are also now aware that food-related risks to the public health extend beyond those posed by naturally occurring organisms or chemical residues left from production or pro cessing. The September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks brought home the realization that America's food supply could be a terrorist target. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Thompson highlighted that concern in December 2004 resignation when he was quoted in the New York Times noting, "For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terror ists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do." Hardening the food sup ply chain against potential terrorist attacks has moved higher on our list of national priorities, and the food industry has been encouraged to tighten security in its production facilities. Determining the appropriate level of re sources for a society to devote to food defense is not easy, and trusting market incentives to shape private sector decisions will not be suffi cient. The public goods nature of food defense activities-the fact that any national program that reduces the probability that one consumes food tampered with by terrorists also automat ically reduces the probability that the food oth ers eat will be contaminated-breaks the link between payment and receipt of goods needed for market-based incentives to work. Without that link, the possibility of being a free (or re duced fare) rider leads consumers to under state the benefits that they receive from food defense activities. The result is that market based solutions will allocate insufficient re sources to protect the nation's food system from terrorism. Services such as food defense, which are to everyone's benefit but are no one's specific responsibility, must be supported by the public sector if the appropriate level of protection is to be provided. Agreement on the level of food defense activity and the amount to be paid for that level of protection is reached through budget negotiations among our elected rep resentatives. As part of those negotiations, the benefits of preventing food terrorism are weighed against the prospective monetary and nonmonetary costs of preventing such an attack. Those budget and policy discussions are hin dered by a lack of empirical information on demand for food defense. Because there is no well-established body of literature on this topic, policy makers often must rely on per sonal impressions and anecdotal evidence of public demand for food defense programs. Ex periences with food safety can be drawn on, but there are important differences in public atti tudes about food defense and food safety, and Thomas Stinson is professor, Koel Ghosh research associate, Jean Kinsey professor, and Dennis Degeneffe research fellow in the Department of Applied Economics at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Home land Security (Grant No. N-00014-04-1-0659), through a grant awarded to the National Center for Food Protection and Defense