Food Ethics: The Basics

Ronald L. Sandler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781135045463
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Food Ethics: The Basics is a concise yet comprehensive introduction to the ethical dimensions of the production and consumption of food. It offers an impartial exploration of the most prominent ethical questions relating to food and agriculture including:

• Should we eat animals?

• Are locally produced foods ethically superior to globally sourced foods?

• Do people in affluent nations have a responsibility to help reduce global hunger?

• Should we embrace bioengineered foods?

• What should be the role of government in promoting food safety and public health?

Using extensive data and real world examples, as well as providing suggestions for further reading, Food Ethics: The Basics is an ideal introduction for anyone interested in the ethics of food.

1

FOOD SYSTEMS

Quite a lot of food issues emerge where our personal preferences, choices and practices intersect with broader social and ecological considerations, such as sustainability, biodiversity, human rights, global justice and animal welfare. What connects individual choices to the broader issues are the food systems in which we participate. Food system refers to the complex network of processes, infrastructures and actors that produce the food we eat and deliver it to where we eat it. Most of the food movements that we hear about—slow foods, local foods, organic foods and food justice—have emerged as a response to ethical concerns regarding the increasingly dominant food system often referred to as the global food system. This chapter presents the discourse around the global food system and the alternatives to it that have been proposed: local and regional systems. Not only are the controversies regarding food systems important in their own right, they also form the crucial backdrop against which other prominent ethical issues regarding food and agriculture play out.

WHAT IS THE GLOBAL FOOD SYSTEM?

Every food system involves agricultural production (e.g. crops and livestock) or capture (e.g. fishing), processing (e.g. slaughtering, refining, pressing and freezing), preparation (e.g. in manufacturing facilities, restaurants and homes), consumption and waste disposal. They all involve transportation, distribution, agricultural and processing supplies, technology, and exchange (or trade). What is distinctive about the global food system is that the food production and delivery networks are transnational and industrial. The global food system is decentralized and dynamic. There is no organized planning process, and the networks, actors, processes, policies and infrastructures that constitute it are constantly changing in response to numerous factors, such as technological innovation, consumer demand, economic conditions, weather patterns, regulations and geopolitical events. However, the transnational and industrial character of the system, which prioritizes efficiency, cost minimization and market success, favors the following features, several of which are central to the ethical discourse surrounding it. These features are not unique to the global food system, but are common across global industrial production and delivery systems.

• Global sourcing—Materials, labor and processing are sourced wherever they are least expensive.

• Economies of scale—Consolidation, vertical integration and large-scale production (at all levels—e.g. agriculture, processing and manufacturing) are favored because they increase coordination and reduce cost per unit of production.

• Large actors—The primary (or most influential) actors involved are corporations, international institutions and national governments due to their economic significance and ability to act globally and influence or set policy.

• Mechanization and innovation—Mechanization and novel technologies and processes are readily adopted if they can increase efficiency and lower cost.

• Standardization—Standardization of inputs (e.g. commodities and animals) and processes (e.g. manufacturing and preparation) along the supply chain increases production efficiency and allows for ready substitution (e.g. sourcing from different locations and replacing workers).

• Commodification—All elements of the system are valued (primarily or exclusively) in terms of their economic usefulness and are treated as fungible (able to be traded for money or another commodity) and substitutable.

• Cost externalization—Reducing consumer price and increasing profits incentivizes trying to pass on the costs (e.g. ecological, social or public health) of production processes to others or to society as a whole.

• High-input needs (and capital costs)—Intensive, large-scale production and global distribution require high levels of material inputs—e.g. fertilizer for agriculture, machinery for processing, and fossil fuels for transportation.

The quintessential illustration of the global industrial food system and the complexity of the global food chain is the fast food restaurant cheeseburger. It is inexpensive, sold around the world by large corporations, the same at every location, thoroughly processed, immediately available, anonymously produced and globally sourced. The fast food cheeseburger may be among the more industrial and global food items, but it is by no means an exception. Particularly for those of us in affluent nations, the food in our restaurants, on the shelves in our grocery stores, and in our homes is increasingly global, processed and ready for consumption.

ARGUMENTS FOR THE GLOBAL FOOD SYSTEM

The global food system is the result of globalization and industrialization applied to food and agriculture. Economic, technological and sociological factors have encouraged its development. These factors include the capacity to store and transport foodstuffs, the ability to communicate quickly and easily over long distances, the migration of people (and their culinary preferences and practices), and the development of international commodities markets. However, it was not inevitable that food systems would evolve in this way. There have been national and international policies to encourage it—e.g. free trade agreements to facilitate the movement of goods and services across borders, agricultural subsidies to dramatically increase production of commodity crops (e.g. corn and soybeans), patent laws that empower large actors (e.g. transnational agricultural supply companies), and concerted efforts (e.g. by international lenders and colonial powers) to move nations toward global commodity agriculture and away from locally consumed polyculture. (Polyculture refers to the practice of growing a large variety of edible plants; commodity monoculture refers to the practice of growing large amounts of one type of crop for market sale.) Several arguments have been made in support of promoting a global industrial food system.

ARGUMENT FROM FEEDING THE WORLD

One of the primary arguments offered in support of the global food system is that we need it to meet the challenge of feeding everyone in the world. There are currently 7.2 billion people on the planet, and global population is expected to continue to increase in the coming decades. How many people there will be depends upon future fertility rates, which are measured in terms of the number of children born per woman. It is not possible to know precisely what those rates will be, so future population must be discussed in terms of scenarios. According to United Nations projections, if by the middle of this century the fertility rate drops to 2.24 children/woman, global population will be approximately 9.6 billion in 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100. If the fertility rate is 2.74 children/woman, the projected population is 10.9 billion in 2050 and 16.6 billion in 2100. If the rate plummets to 1.74 children/woman, the population is projected to be only 8.3 billion by mid-century and 6.8 billion by 2100 (UN, 2013a).

There are good reasons to believe that the medium (or lower) fertility variant can be accomplished. Rates have been dropping all over the world, and there are policies that can effectively reduce them further. (These will be discussed in the next chapter.) Still, feeding a population of 7.2 billion people and growing is an enormous challenge. There are currently 842 million undernourished people in the world, and it is estimated that global crop demand will increase between 60% and 120% by 2050, depending on factors such as population growth, economic growth and shifts in diets (Cassidy et al., 2013; Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012).

Feeding the world is a challenge that we must meet with finite natural resources. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), approximately 38% of the Earth’s surface is already used in food production (crop and pasture) (FAOSTAT, 2014a). India uses 60% of its land for agriculture, while the United States uses 45% (World Bank, 2014a). These rates have been relatively steady over many years, even as population has increased. The reason for this is that most land well suited to agriculture and not vital for other purposes is already under some form of agricultural use. (The only substantial areas for potential increase are forested regions in parts of Africa and South America.) Because the amount of land used in agriculture has remained steady, while population has increased, the amount of agricultural land used per person has been steadily dropping. Moreover, recent research suggests that there is an overall planetary limit to how much plant matter can grow in a year, crop or otherwise, based on such things as land availability, solar radiation and precipitation (Running, 2012). Thus, any additional plant resources we use for ourselves will diminish what is available for other species. It is already estimated that humans appropriate approximately 25% of biospheric or net primary plant production (Haberl et al., 2007; Krausmann et al., 2013). The situation is similar with respect to the oceans. Less than 13% of global fisheries are currently under-exploited. The rest are fully exploited (approximately 57%) or overexploited (approximately 30%). There is not much more production to be gotten from the sea, particularly if we are to leave sufficient resources for other species (FAO, 2012a).

Given that the amount of agricultural land in use per person has been declining, one might expect that the amount of calories produced and available per person has also been dropping. However, this is not the case: “In recent decades, the productivity potential of global agriculture has exceeded population growth, resulting in a steady, albeit slow, increase in average per capita food availability. For the world as a whole, per capita food supply rose from about 2,200 kcal/day in the early 1960s to more than 2,800 kcal/day by 2009… Protein and fat supplies, measured in grams per person per day, have also increased over the past ten years, with fat supply outpacing proteins” (FAOSTAT, 2013, p. 126). Globally, and in every major region, including Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania, more calories, fat and protein are produced and available in the food supply per capita today than in 1960, 1990 or 2000 (FAOSTAT, 2013; FAO, 2013c). Proponents of the global food system argue that this is the result of technological innovation and industrial efficiency, which have been spreading through the agriculture and food sectors over that time. The way to get more calories out of less land is to intensify production, to innovate and adopt new agricultural technologies, to add inputs (e.g. synthetic nitrogen fertilizer) as needed, to specialize production to what is best suited for a region (and then trade globally), to reduce crop loss (e.g. to pests and spoilage), to eliminate waste in the supply chain, and to deliver food when and where it is needed all over the world.

Increased production through industrialization is applied to animal agriculture as much as to crop agriculture. For example, in the United States, per cow milk production increased from 9,700 pounds/year to over 21,700 pounds/year between 1970 and 2012 due to improvements in milking technologies, feeds, breeds and hormones, as well as concentrated specialization (USDA-NASS, 2014; USDA, 2012b).

One core argument for the global food system, then, is that innovation, globalization, industrialization and specialization have dramatically increased food production levels over several decades. The only way that we can meet the challenge of feeding a population of over 7 billion people and growing is to continue to innovate, to use science and technology to help make production, processing and distribution even more efficient. Proponents of this argument will often add the corollary that the more efficient we make food production—the more that we can produce per unit of land—the more space and resources we can leave to other species. So there are ecological and biodiversity benefits to maximizing agricultural efficiency and intensity.

RESPONSES TO THE ARGUMENT FROM FEEDING THE WORLD

Several critiques of the argument from feeding the world have been developed. In what follows, I discuss the most influential of them.

IS INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE REALLY HIGHER YIELDING?

Claims about the productivity of organic vs. industrial agriculture and of monoculture vs. polyculture are highly contested. Industrial agriculture (also often referred to as conventional agriculture) refers to commodity monoculture that uses chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. It is also associated with the use of genetically modified crops (GM crops) and corporate control, the latter being effected through such things as seed patents and consolidated farm ownership. Organic agriculture is characterized by a rejection of the use of GM crops and chemical inputs. It employs non-synthetic fertilizers (such as manure), crop diversity and rotation, and integrated pest management. It is also historically associated with smaller independent farms, lower ecological impacts, and local or regional distribution systems. However, it should be noted that growing consumer demand for organics in affluent nations has led to a dramatic increase in what might be called industrial organic production—otherwise conventional agriculture that does not use GM crops or chemical inputs.

Which approach to agriculture results in higher yields is largely an empirical question that good research and data should help resolve. However, in this debate the science itself is contested, and each position has research and cases that they cite in support of their view. Nevertheless, some recent surveys of the literature are beginning to converge on the following picture. There appears to be a yield gap (as much as 25%) between organic and conventional agriculture for commodity grains grown in highly industrialized nations—e.g. corn grown in the United States and Brazil. However, the gap is much smaller (only around 5%), even in industrialized nations, for many other crops (e.g. legumes). Moreover, in less industrialized nations, where most food insecurity exists, organic and traditional farming sometimes match or exceed industrial yields. (These are sometimes referred to as uncertified organics.) Furthermore, several studies have found that there is room for significantly increasing yields in both types of agriculture—e.g. by increased nitrogen availability in organic agriculture and by increased crop diversity and improved use of crop residues in conventional agriculture (Seufert et al., 2012; De Schutter, 2011; Pretty and Hine, 2001; Pretty et al., 2003). So while it appears that there are yield differences between organic and conventional agriculture, what those differences are varies based on crop type and eco-social contexts.

WHAT COUNTS AS HIGHER YIELD?

Several prominent critics of the global industrial food system—e.g. Michael Pollan, Frances Moore Lappé and Vandana Shiva—argue that even when there are “increases” in yield associated with industrial agriculture, they are only apparent increases. One reason for this is that calculations of industrial monoculture’s greater production over traditional polyculture fail to account for all the types of food plants grown in polycultural practice. For example, Shiva reports that in smallholder Indian agriculture, women cultivate 150 different species of plants for food and other uses, including health care, that in Sub-Saharan Africa women cultivate up to 120 species, and that in Thailand women cultivate as many as 230 species. As a result, studies that focus only on primary crops like soy or corn may systematically underreport polyculture’s production levels.

Another criticism is that claims about industrial agriculture’s “higher” yields are misleading because they do not incorporate the full costs associated with them. Even if industrial agriculture can produce more calories in a defined area in a growing season, one must also consider the impacts outside the system—e.g. that high water usage means less water available elsewhere (or in the future), that fertilizer runoff or animal waste disposal could harm local drinking water supplies and reduce riparian or ocean productivity, or that large amounts of inputs into the system are required. Critics argue that once all the external agricultural costs a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Food systems
• 2 Food security and the ethics of assistance
• 3 Should we eat animals?
• 4 Bioengineering
• 5 Food and health
• 6 Food and culture
• Bibliography
• Index