Biotechnology is the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products, or "any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use" (UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Art. 2).

1. SURVEY ON BIOTECH
PRODUCT PERCEPTION
Questions
Survey
Interpretation

2. SURVEYEE
Raghib Ishraq Alvy
15236001
BSc in Biotechnology
BRAC University
Submitted to:
Kashmery Khan
Lecturer
Department of Mathematics and Natural Science
BRAC University
Course Name: GMOs and Biosafety (BTE402)
Survey Date: 21/03/2018
Submission Date: 25/03/2018
Spring 2018

3. Jahangirnagar University is a public university in Bangladesh, based
in Savar Upazila, Dhaka. It is the only fully residential university in
Bangladesh.
Place

5. What is biotech product?
Biotechnology is the use of living systems
and organisms to develop or make
products, or "any technological
application that uses biological systems,
living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to
make or modify products or processes for
specific use" (UN Convention on
Biological Diversity, Art. 2).
Why biotech products are made?
Biotechnology is the third wave in biological science and represents such
an interface of basic and applied sciences, where gradual and subtle
transformation of science into technology can be witnessed.
Biotechnology is defined as the application of scientific and engineering
principals to the processing of material by biological agents to provide
goods and services. Biotechnology comprises a number of technologies
based upon increasing understanding of biology at the cellular and
molecular level.
The application of biotechnology can result in new ways of producing
existing products with the use of new inputs, and new ways of producing
new products.
One of the best known applications of genetic engineering is that of the
creation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). There are
potentially momentous biotechnological applications of GM, for
example oral vaccines produced naturally in fruit, at very low cost. This
represents, however, a spread of genetic modification to medical
purposes and opens an ethical door to other uses of the technology to
directly modify human genomes. A genetically modified food is a food
product derived in whole or part from a genetically modified organism
(GMO) such as a crop plant, animal or microbe such as yeast.
Genetically modified foods have been available since the 1990s.

6. GENDER
From this chart we can determine that from 32 surveyors 6 were Female and
26 were Male.

7. Between 32 surveyors majority was from Microbiology
which is 28.1%, next majority from Biotechnology (18.7%).
Minority from Botany, Computer Science, Law, History and
Statistics (3.1%).
Around 20 surveyors from 32 were 1st to 2nd year
students, 7 were 2nd to 3rd year, 3 were 4th year
students. And rest of were from final year or working
on dissertation.
Graduation Subject Current Semester/Year

8. From this graph it can be said that in Jahngirnagar
University most of the student’s knowledge about
biotech product comes from Research Publications or
internet. They have not adequate materials on GMOs in
their course curriculum.
Most of the surveyor things that Communication to the
public regarding research and assessment of genetic
engineering has been lacking of biotech product, which is
31.3%. It reflects the present condition of Bangladesh on
biotech products.

9. Most of the surveyors said that they use Virus free
potato (Agro Base), Antibiotics (Pharmaceuticals) and
Energetic Beverage (Nutraceuticals). Though it also
reflects the lack of information on GMOs in Bangladesh,
which will be discussed in Discussion section.

10. Only 9.4% of surveyors have negative answer regarding the following question, majority (90.6%)
goes for Yes. Which indicates their interest on Biotech products.

11. In this section, it is seen that most of the surveyors go for Golden Rice (Agro Based) and
Personalized Medicine (Medical Biotech). The reason behind this type of response will be discussed.

12. Between 68.8% surveyors 34.4% thinks that Safety of consumer’s health/ side effects should be
ensured and 34.4% considers it is safe. Rest of the surveyors have mixed response.

15. The majority of the surveyors think that Ministry of Agriculture health and environment should have charge of
quality control in case of GMO production but 40.6% of surveyors thinks Separate Ministry for biotechnology
should be opened.

16. Surveyors characterized the GMO based work in Bangladesh is Research based but some surveyors think that it is
Balanced and well developed.

17. Around 62.5% of surveyors think that
Current GMO industry of Bangladesh is
Gradually getting deviated from
development and 25% think it is
Underdeveloped.

18. There are mixed response as it is seen in the
graph. But majority goes for neutral response.
Around 71.9% of Surveyors accepted the upcoming GMO crops
in Bangladesh which are Golden Rice and Pathogen Resistant
Potato. Which indicates the positive site of future development
of Biotech product in Bangladesh.

19. Discussion
The survey was based on the view of the students of different University from different background on the Biotech product of
Bangladesh and the future acceptance of the products among them. So this survey basically based on the view of students of
Jahangirnagar University.
As it is mentioned that there are no specific course curriculum regarding GMOs so they used to know about these products from
Research publications and Internet. But most of the students’ response for Virus free Potato as their daily use of biotech product,
they even have no information about BT Eggplant which is the first and most popular GMO in Bangladesh from 2014.
Again their saying is the Energetic Beverage what they are used to drink is biotech product, but the truth is there is no biotech
energetic beverage available in Bangladesh yet. May be they focus on the Energy Drinks which are available in the market of
Bangladesh, but those are not genetically modified or not so suitable for human health. So another reason indicates the lack of
information about biotech product.
At the question no 7.5 and 7.6, their response was for Golden rice and Personalized medicine. But Golden Rice and Personalized
medicine is not available in Bangladesh yet, and the main point is these products are not suitable for every single person. Especially
Golden rice is for the person who have deficiency of Vitamin A.
There were 8 questions (8.1-8.8) for getting the valuable opinion of surveyors on biotech product but the responses indicates a
neutral position of their opinion which means they can not properly agree or disagree on the questions they were asked, which is
also a scenario of information lacking.
But their acceptance on Golden rice and pathogen free potato was 71.9%, which is a better response on biotech product.
Overall, the survey make a semi clear view of the consumers on the biotech products and it also declares that some issues regarding
Labeling of the biotech product, promotion and public awareness should be taken, which will help to reduce the information
lacking problems and people can easily differentiate between the biotech product and chemical product, as biotech product always
for the well-being of human being.

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