Over the past decades, the modernization of agriculture in the Western world has contributed not only to a rapid increase in food production but also to environmental and societal concerns over issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, soil quality and biodiversity loss. Many of these concerns, for example those related to animal welfare or labor conditions, are stuck in controversies and apparently deadlocked debates. As a result we observe a paradox in which a wide range of corporate social responsibility initiatives, (...) originally seeking to reconnect agriculture and society, frequently provoke debate, conflict, and protests. In order to make sense of this pattern, the present paper contends that Western agriculture is marked by moral complexity, i.e., the tendency of multiple legitimate moral standpoints to proliferate without the realistic prospect of a consensus. This contention is buttressed by a conceptual framework that draws inspiration the contemporary business ethics and systems-theoretic scholarship. From the systems-theoretic point of view, the evolution of moral complexity is traced back to the processes of agricultural modernization, specialization, and differentiation, each of which suppresses the responsiveness of the economic and legal institutions to the full range of societal and environmental concerns about agriculture. From the business ethics point of view, moral complexity is shown to prevent the transformation of the ethical responsibilities into the legal and economic responsibilities despite the ongoing institutionalization of CSR. Navigating moral complexity is shown to require moral judgments which are necessarily personal and contestable. These judgments are implicated in those CSR initiatives that require dealing with trade-offs among the different sustainability issues. (shrink)

The major normative recommendations in the literature on food risk communication can be summarized in the form of seven practical principles for such communication: (1) Be honest and open. (2) Disclose incentives and conflicts of interest. (3) Take all available relevant knowledge into consideration. (4) When possible, quantify risks. (5) Describe and explain uncertainties. (6) Take all the public's concerns into account. (7) Take the rights of individuals and groups seriously. We show that each of these proposed principles can be (...) justified both in terms of more fundamental ethical principles and instrumentally in terms of the communicating agent's selfinterest. The mechanisms of this concordance of justifications are discussed. It is argued that the concordance is specific for areas such as food risks in which agents such as companies and public authorities are highly dependent on the public's trust and confidence. The implications of these findings both for moral philosophy and for practical food risk communication are discussed. (shrink)

Opaque value chains as well as environmental, ethical and health issues and food scandals are decreasing consumer trust in conventional agriculture and the dominant food system. As a result, critical consumers are increasingly turning to community-supported agriculture (CSA) to reconnect with producers and food. CSA is often perceived as a more sustainable, localized mode of food production, providing transparent production or social interaction between consumers and producers. This enables consumers to observe where their food is coming from, which means CSA (...) is considered suitable for building trust in food (production). However, it remains unclear how exactly members’ trust in ‘their’ farmers is built. To determine the factors that predict members’ trust in CSA and its farmers, and the importance of these factors when compared to each other, we conducted a quantitative study among CSA members in Germany and applied a multiple regression model (n = 790). The analysis revealed that trust in CSA and its farmers is influenced by “reputation”, “supply of information”, “direct social interaction” and the “duration of CSA membership”. Other factors such as the “certification status of the CSA farm” and “attitudes toward organic certification” did not significantly predict trust. We conclude that producers’ willingness to be transparent already signals trustworthiness to CSA members and is more important to members than formal signals. Other actors within the food system could learn from CSA principles and foster a transition toward a more regionalized value-based food system to help restore agriculture’s integrity. (shrink)

Genome editing is revolutionising the field of genetics, which includes novel applications to food animals. Responsible research and innovation has been advocated as a way of ensuring that a wider-range of stakeholders and publics are able to engage with new and emerging technologies to inform decision making from their perspectives and values. We posit that genome editing is now proceeding at such a fast rate, and in so many different directions, such as to overwhelm attempts to achieving a more reflective (...) pace. An alternative location for reflection is during the much slower process of taking products from the lab to market. We suggest emphasising Responsible Innovation, putting the ‘I’ back into RRI, and encouraging companies to embrace an RRI approach. We review some previous attempts at developing industry-relevant frameworks for RRI. We then describe two examples of genome editing in livestock; hornless cattle and disease resistant pigs, and reflect on the sorts of questions that could be considered in these two genome editing examples. This paper seeks to take forward the discussion on RRI by extending it to bringing products to market in the context of genome edited livestock. (shrink)

The approach of responsible research and innovation has been proposed to support the introduction of technologies that touch upon socially sensitive issues. RRI is intended to help designers and manufacturers of new technologies identify and accommodate public concerns when developing a new technology by engaging with a wide range of relevant actors in an interactive, transparent process. However what this approach amounts to exactly remains elusive as of yet, i.e. it is unclear what its contribution to the societal embedding of (...) new technologies should consists of exactly. The transition to a sustainable bio-economy that uses biomass as its main resource is a complicated trajectory involving many actors and touching upon societally sensitive issues such as the use of genetic modification. In this paper we pose the question in what way RRI can stimulate the development and diffusion of a sustainable bio-economy in The Netherlands and Europe. We claim that for the further development and diffusion of the bio-economy, trust among actors in the relevant value-chain is a prerequisite. RRI can play a pivotal part in the bio-economy by providing conditions for trustworthiness of actors and by enhancing trusting relationships. This can be achieved through instruments such as personal relationships, third person guarantors, institutions and the communication of values. From the application of RRI to the context of the bio-economy, lessons can be drawn for other socially intricate technological trajectories. (shrink)

Persistent public distrust of food additives is often explained in terms of safety and health issues. The broad variety of ethical, aesthetic, and cultural concerns tends to be structurally ignored by food engineers and occasionally even by consumers themselves. The public controversy of food additives—commonly known as “E-numbers”—in the Netherlands is a case in point. Two discursive mechanisms prevent these concerns from becoming legitimate public issues: irrationalization and privatization. But these consumer concerns may not be as unreasonable as they seem, (...) and they may even turn out to be not that private. As long as ethical, aesthetic and cultural concerns are not recognized by food engineers as legitimate issues, the controversy of food additives is not likely to find closure. Moreover, this lack of recognition blocks the opportunity for meaningful dialogue and trust building between food technology developers, policy makers, citizens and consumers. (shrink)

As the issue of food safety became one of the important public agenda, consumer concern for food safety became the general public concern. The Korea U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) completion allowing import of U.S. beef to Korea has turned into a massive public uproar and a series of demonstrations, revealing widespread concerns on the part of Korean producers and consumers about government food safety regulations and mishandling of the beef trade requirement. The mishandling of public concerns for BSE (...) on U.S. beef import by the administrators led to a breakdown of the relationship between the public and the government and a loss of consumer confidence in Korea’s food safety system. The KORUS FTA beef crisis raised the issues of government accountability and the importance of understanding moral and ethical aspects of food safety management that pose perceived risk for BSE by the Korean citizen. The aim of this paper is to address the importance of understanding consumer concerns, food ethics and of appropriate risk communication in dealing with politically and publically sensitive food safety issues. This is achieved by assessing the factors that contributed to the conflict between the Korean government and the Korean public over the KORUS FTA beef agreement. (shrink)

Credibility is particularly important in organic food systems because there are only marginal visual and sensorial differences between organic and conventionally produced products, requiring consumers to trust in producers’ quality claims. In this article I explore what challenges the credibility of organic food systems and I explore how credibility of organic food systems can be maintained, using the Danish organic food system as a case study. The question is increasingly relevant as the sale of organic food is growing in Denmark (...) as well as globally, and consumers’ expectations of organics continuously evolve. The inquiry is threefold, first I outline a conceptual framework for understanding trust and credibility in the food system, secondly I explore the developments in Danish organic food systems and thirdly discuss the challenges and opportunities for maintaining trust in the Danish organic food system. In the analysis I indicate eight key challenges: unrealistic expectations, blind trust and little motivation for extending their knowledge, consumers assess the overall credibility of organic products, ambitious ethical principles, new consumer groups introduce new expectations, frozen requirements in a changing world, growing imports and labelling and multiple versions of organics and the diversity is growing, as well as four aspects which may maintain the credibility of organics if implemented: coordinate expectations, communicate requested information, institutional reform and open communication of pros and cons of organic production. (shrink)