This edited volume presents ethical and economic analyses of agrifood competition. By systematically examining fairness and openness in agricultural markets, it seeks to answer the question of whether there is adequate competition in the agrifood industry and whether the system is fair to all participants. It outlines ethical and economic principles important for understanding agrifood competition, presents arguments for and against consolidation, globalization and the integration of agrifood industries, and looks at the implications of globalization on the nature of competition in specific agricultural contexts.

The introduction of new technologies can be controversial, especially when they create ethical tensions as well as winners and losers among stakeholders and interest groups. While ethical tensions resulting from the genetic modification of crops and plants and their supportive gene technologies have been apparent for decades, persistent challenges remain. This book explores the contemporary nature, type, extent and implications of ethical tensions resulting from agricultural biotechnology specifically and technology generally. There are four main arenas of ethical tensions: public opinion, policy and regulation, technology as solutions to problems, and older versus new technologies. Contributions focus on one or more of these arenas by identifying the ethical tensions technology creates and articulating emerging fault lines and, where possible, viable solutions. Key features include focusing on contemporary challenges created by new and emerging technologies, especially agricultural biotechnology. Identifying a unique perspective by considering the problem of ethical tensions created or enhanced by new technologies. Providing an interdisciplinary perspective by including perspectives from sociologists, economists, philosophers and other social scientists. This book will be of interest to academics in agricultural economics, sociology and philosophy and policymakers concerned with introducing new technology into agriculture.

This Encyclopedia offers a definitive source on issues pertaining to the full range of topics in the important new area of food and agricultural ethics. It includes summaries of historical approaches, current scholarship, social movements, and new trends from the standpoint of the ethical notions that have shaped them. It combines detailed analyses of specific topics such as the role of antibiotics in animal production, the Green Revolution, and alternative methods of organic farming, with longer entries that summarize general areas of scholarship and explore ways that they are related. Renewed debate, discussion and inquiry into food and agricultural topics have become a hallmark of the turn toward more sustainable policies and lifestyles in the 21st century. Attention has turned to the goals and ethical rationale behind production, distribution and consumption of food, as well as to non-food uses of cultivated biomass and the products of animal husbandry. These wide-ranging debates encompass questions in human nutrition, animal rights and the environmental impacts of aquaculture and agricultural production. Each of these and related topics is both technically complex and involves an – often implicit – ethical dimension. Other topics include methods for integrating ethics into scientific and technical research programs or development projects, the role of intensive agriculture and biotechnology in addressing persistent world hunger and the role of crops, forests and engineered organisms in making a transition to renewable, carbon-neutral sources of energy. The Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics proves an indispensible reference point for future research and writing on topics in agriculture and food ethics for decades to come.

Food Ethics addresses such issues as food safety, the welfare of animals, sustenance of the land, and the use of biotechnology in food production.

The Ethics of Agricultural Intensification: An Interdisciplinary and International Conversation Paul B. Thompson and John Otieno Ouko* Global agriculture faces a number of challenges as the world approaches the second decade of the third millennium. Predictions unilaterally indicate dramatic increases in world population between 2010 and 2030, and a trend in developing countries toward greater consumption of animal products could multiply the need for prod- tion of basic grains even further. Although global food production in 2000 was estimated to be adequate for the existing population, hunger and malnutrition are persistent problems that have led decision makers to recognize that increasing food production in specific regions may be the most effective way to address food se- rity for impoverished peoples. At the same time, there will need to be policy adju- ments that improve poor people’s access to current food supplies without simultaneously undercutting the ability of local producers to obtain needed cash income. What is more, the uncertain effects of global climate change on agricultural ecosystems complicate planning for this process, while poorly understood processes of globa- zation create additional unknowns from the side of social systems. In short, despite surpluses in many parts of the developed world, finding ways to increase food p- duction on both selected regional and a total global basis remains a priority for many farmers, policy makers and agricultural researchers.