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Author: Kyla Clouthier | Major: Agricultural Business | Semester: Fall 2024

I chose my topic, gene-editing technology, at the encouragement of my mentor, Dr. Nathan Kemper. As someone with an interest in agricultural policy, this hotly contested and revelent issue of gene-editing technology is something that will be debated in many legistaures across the glove in the coming years. I was fortunate to meet Dr. Kemper during my freshman year through a course he taught, and I am very thankful for his guidance and continued support.

I have learned that many people have strong opinions regarding the use of gene-edited technology, and they reported them in the comments of the survey. Some people threatened to use physical force against these technological tools, which surprised me. I think this shows an education deficit between the perceived implications of this technology and reality. I believe a future study regarding pre and post-surveys with gene-edited foods before and after education materials are utilized would shed more light on this secondary hypothesis.

Throughout this process, I have learned that I need to worke with Excel more. I am not the best with computers, and this semester my lack of understanding became a hindrance. Luckily, through help from my mentor and other students currently going through the thesis-writing process, I have been able to grow my skills and look forward to continuing on this path of improvement. I also went in from a position of experience that many of the survey respondents did not possess, which led me to wrongly assume the survey results would reflect my experience and opinions. Seeing how different people had different deeply held beliefs forced me to take a step back from being personally involved within my research and approach as an outsider. Removing the emotional involvement has been difficult for me, but each day I am improving. As someone who cares deeply about agricultural progress, I acknowledge my difficulty in separating others’ opinions from the worth of my research, and I am thankful to get the opportunity to work on this through this grant.

After receiving this generous grant, Dr. Kemper and I created a survey for Qualtrics. This survey was a ranked choice experiment for head-of-household shoppers over the age of eighteen. Otherwise, the 400 respondents varied greatly in their age, income, and state of residence. My mentor has played a vital role in this process. Without Dr. Kemper’s experience and guidance in the creation and implementation of the survey, I would not have been able to complete the data collection and scrubbing. Currently, I have developed a thesis committee who I will present my finished thesis to next semester. These individuals are fantastic faculty members whose expertise I look forward to learning from.

I am looking forward to traveling to the Southern Agricultural Economics Association yearly meeting in February to present a poster regarding my data findings. I was able to travel to this conference last year as a contributor on another student’s research project, and look forward to being able to build upon that experience this year as a presenter myself.

After graduation this spring, I am hoping to attend law school to pursue a career in Agricultural Law and Policy. This grant has allowed me to explore an everchanging and ever-important current issue within my planned career path, allowing me to get hands-on experience that will assist me in understanding and implementing different research throughout my career in hopes of maintaining America’s diverse and plentiful agricultural outputs.