Autonomy,Values, and Food Choice

In most areas of our lives, legal protections are in place to ensure that we have autonomous control over what happens in and to our bodies. However, there are fewer protections in place for autonomous choice when it comes to the food we purchase and consume. In fact, the current trend in US legislation is pushing us away from autonomous food choice. In this paper, I discuss two examples of this trend: corporate resistance to GM labeling laws and farm protection laws (often called “ag-gag” laws). These examples are quite different from a legislative point of view. In one case, laws that would promote autonomous choice are actively resisted, whereas in the other case, laws that undermine autonomy are enacted. The common core of the two examples is the effect: in both cases, we are unable to determine whether the food we purchase and consume is consistent with our values. In both cases, then, autonomous choice about the food we purchase and put into our bodies is undermined.     

Ethics and Action: A Relational Perspective on Consumer Choice in the European Politics of Food

The lack of consistency between people’s engagement in ethical issues and their food choices has received considerable attention. Consumption as “choice” dominates this discourse, understood as decision-making at the point of purchase. But ideas concentrating on individual choice are problematic when trying to understand how social and ethical issues emerge and are dealt with in the practices of buying and eating food. I argue in this paper that “consumer choice” is better understood as a political ideology addressing a particular way in which everyday practices can be directed so as to solve social problems. It is a way that makes questions of power particularly challenging. Some assume consumer sovereignty, emphasizing consumer choice as a reflection of neoliberal deregulation and commercialization. Others worry that ongoing changes increase consumers’ powerlessness. None of these seem to capture that there is active regulation, where public as well as commercial and civil actors are making strong efforts to make people do the right thing—voluntarily. Labeling is the key measure. In practice, the individualized and rationalized model of responsibility depends not only on market opportunities, but even political and social expectations and trust. People may lack concrete capabilities and power to follow up on moral calls, but they may also have a different understanding of who is responsible and what is a “good deed,” or their actions may, in a Foucauldian sense, represent resistance. The paper will, with examples from European empirical studies, discuss how mobilization as well as inertia and disinterest emerge within specific political constellations and practical contexts.     

Food: From Commodity to Commons

Our food and farming system is not socially, economically or ecologically sustainable. Many of the ills are a result of market competition driving specialization and linear production models, externalizing costs for environmental, social and cultural degradation. Some propose that market mechanisms should be used to correct this; improved consumer choice, internalization of costs and compensation to farmers for public goods. What we eat is determined by the path taken by our ancestors, by commercialization and fierce competition, fossil fuels and demographic development. Based on those, governments and the food industry are the choice architects who determine what we eat; consumer choice plays a marginal role. Using market mechanisms to internalize cost and compensate farmers for public goods has been proposed for decades but little progress has been made. There are also many practical, ethical and theoretical objections to such a system. The market is not a good master for a sustainable food system. Instead we need to find new ways of managing the food system based on food as a right and farming as a management system of the planet Earth. The solutions should be based on relocalization of food production and de-commodification of food and our symbionts, the plants and animals we eat.     

Consumer Autonomy and Availability of Genetically Modified Food

The European Union’s policies regarding genetically modified food (GMF hereafter) are based on the precautionary principle and the requirement of respecting consumers’ autonomy. We ask whether the requirement of respecting consumers’ autonomy regarding GMF implies that both GMF and non-GMF products should be available in the market. According to one line of thought, consumers’ choices may be autonomous even when the both types of products are not available. A food market with only GMF or only non-GMF products does not strictly speaking compel people to buy the type of products available, and a possibility to refuse to buy is enough for consumers’ choice to be autonomous. According to another line of thought, the unavailability of GMF or non-GMF products restricts the autonomy of those consumers who are unwilling to use the only type of products (GMF or non-GMF) available in the market. From the point of view of autonomy, a food market with only GMF or only non-GMF products does not offer enough alternatives for consumers. Moreover, the whole point of the European Union’s requirement of respecting consumers’ autonomy is to enable an autonomous choice between GMF and non-GMF—not just to give a possibility to refrain from buying. However, this does not imply that producers, processors, wholesalers, retailers, or public authorities have a moral duty to see that there are both GMF and non-GMF products available in the market. The requirement to respect autonomy is prima facie in nature, and in the context of GMF, other prima facie requirements are often stronger and override it. Not only the consumers’ autonomy of choice but also environmental values, other people’s well-being, and the autonomous choice of farmers, retailers, and other relevant parties should be respected. Thus, according to the both lines of thought, the requirement to respect consumers’ autonomy of choice does not imply that there should be both GMF and non-GMF products available in the market.     

From Food Justice to a Tool of the Status Quo: Three Sub-movements Within Local Food

The local food movement has been touted by some as a profoundly effective way to make our food system become more healthy, just, and sustainable. Others have criticized the movement as being less a challenge to the status quo and more an easily co-opted support offering just another set of choices for affluent consumers. In this paper, we analyze three distinct sub-movements within the local food movement, the individual-focused sub-movement, the systems-focused sub-movement, and the community-focused sub-movement. These movements can be combined within any particular campaign or within the goals of any particular organization or individual activist, but they are nevertheless quite different from each other, and come out of different conceptualizations of what food, people, and locality are. We argue that most of the critiques leveled against local food are actually directed against the individual-focused sub-movement, which is most compatible with the current industrial food system, and perhaps not surprisingly receives the most mainstream attention. Further, we argue that while each movement has its own strengths and weaknesses, it is the community-focused sub-movement that has the most potential to radically transform the global food system.     

From Trust to Trustworthiness: Why Information is not Enough in the Food Sector

The many well-publicized food scandals in recent years have resulted in a general state of vulnerable trust. As a result, building consumer trust has become an important goal in agri-food policy. In their efforts to protect trust in the agricultural and food sector, governments and industries have tended to consider the problem of trust as merely a matter of informing consumers on risks. In this article, we argue that the food sector better addresses the problem of trust from the perspective of the trustworthiness of the food sector itself. This broad idea for changing the focus of trust is the assumption that if you want to be trusted, you should be trustworthy. To provide a clear understanding of what being trustworthy means within the food sector, we elaborate on both the concept of trust and of responsibility. In this way we show that policy focused on enhancing transparency and providing information to consumers is crucial, but not sufficient for dealing with the problem of consumer trust in the current agri-food context.     

Does Autonomy Count in Favor of Labeling Genetically Modified Food?

In this paper I argue that consumerautonomy does not count in favor of thelabeling of genetically modified foods (GMfoods) more than for the labeling of non-GMfoods. Further, reasonable considerationssupport the view that it is non-GM foods ratherthan GM foods that should be labeled.     

Animal Rights: Autonomy and Redundancy

Even if animal liberation were to be adopted, would rights for animals be redundant – or even deleterious? Such an objection, most prominently voiced by L. W. Sumner and Paul W. Taylor, is misguided, risks an anthropocentric and anthropomorphic conception of autonomy and freedom, overly agent-centered rights conceptions, and an overlooking of the likely harmful consequences of positing rights for humans but not for nonhuman animals. The objection in question also stems from an overly pessimistic construal of autonomy-infringements thought to result from extending rights to animals, and also, of confusions that supposedly may ensue from ascribing animal rights. Whether or not a case for animal liberation and/or animal rights can cogently be made, the redundancy-or-worse objection to animal rights need pose no barrier.     

Constrained Choice and Ethical Dilemmas in Land Management: Environmental Quality and Food Safety in California Agriculture

As environmental and conservation efforts increasingly turn towards agricultural landscapes, it is important to understand how land management decisions are made by agricultural producers. While previous studies have explored producer decision-making, many fail to recognize the importance of external structural influences. This paper uses a case study to explore how consolidated markets and increasing corporate power in the food system can constrain producer choice and create ethical dilemmas over land management. Crop growers in the Central Coast region of California face conflicting demands regarding environmental quality and industry imposed food safety standards. A mail survey and personal interviews were used to explore growers’ perceptions and actions regarding these demands. Results indicate that in many cases growers face serious ethical dilemmas and feel pressured by large processing and retail firms to adopt measures they find environmentally destructive and unethical. Future strategies to address environmental issues on agricultural landscapes should consider the economic constraints producers face and the role of large firms in creating production standards.     

Monitoring the Response of Butterfly Communities to Prescribed Fire

Federal land managers in the western United States are interested in the potential of prescribed fire as a tool to decrease fuel loads, increase vegetational heterogeneity, and increase faunal diversity in various ecosystems. I tested whether implementation of a prescribed fire program by the US Forest Service in a watershed in the central Great Basin had significant effects on butterfly species richness and composition. I monitored butterfly communities during the first two years after implementation in five to seven burn units and controls in the watershed. To estimate baseline spatial and temporal variation in butterfly communities in the greater ecosystem, I also monitored butterflies in five untreated canyons outside the project area. Butterfly species richness and butterfly species composition (measured as community similarity) did not differ significantly between burn units and controls. Geographic location had statistically significant effects on species richness. Butterfly species composition of individual locations varied over time, as did the magnitude of that variation. These results emphasize that standardized, repeatable monitoring protocols are vital for evaluating the effects of experimental management treatments and for predicting and assessing the effects of future management strategies and environmental changes.     

从被动治理到综合防治 从局部好转到整体提升——“十一五”蚌埠市环保事业创出新业绩

“十一五”是蚌埠市经济社会快速发展的重要时期,也是环境保护受到社会各方面关注,环保工作得到迅速发展的重要时期。在市委、市政府的高度重视和正确领导下,社会各界给予关心与支持,全系统上下提振信心、凝神聚气、攻坚克难、奋力争先,克服“流域限批”带来的种种不利局面,坚持以实施污染防治为抓手,以提高环境综合防治水平为目标,以解决突出环境问题为重点,全面提升环境监督管理水平,