diff --git a/package/multimedia/gstreamer/Config.in b/package/multimedia/gstreamer/Config.in
index 7de904c8c9..4d279b8b1c 100644
--- a/package/multimedia/gstreamer/Config.in
+++ b/package/multimedia/gstreamer/Config.in
@@ -7,5 +7,14 @@ config BR2_PACKAGE_GSTREAMER
 
 	  http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
 
+config BR2_PACKAGE_GSTREAMER_GST_DEBUG
+	bool "enable gst-debug trace support"
+	default y
+	depends on BR2_PACKAGE_GSTREAMER
+	help
+	  Enable support for the gst-debug tracing functionality
+	  in gstreamer. This has limited CPU overhead, but does
+	  increase the rootfs size somewhat.
+
 comment "gstreamer requires a toolchain with WCHAR support"
 	depends on !BR2_USE_WCHAR
diff --git a/package/multimedia/gstreamer/gstreamer.mk b/package/multimedia/gstreamer/gstreamer.mk
index db5ccaf650..ffc8745559 100644
--- a/package/multimedia/gstreamer/gstreamer.mk
+++ b/package/multimedia/gstreamer/gstreamer.mk
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+
 #############################################################
 #
 # gstreamer
@@ -19,7 +20,8 @@ GSTREAMER_CONF_OPT = \
 		--disable-examples \
 		--disable-tests \
 		--disable-failing-tests \
-		--disable-loadsave
+		--disable-loadsave \
+		$(if $(BR2_PACKAGE_GSTREAMER_GST_DEBUG),,--disable-gst-debug)
 
 GSTREAMER_DEPENDENCIES = libglib2 host-pkg-config