Ethics of Food Production and Consumption - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 234

the good life that respects agriculture and food. A third criticism is also that commodi-
fication in the form of a huge reduction of labor in agriculture and time spent for cook-
ing and eating, implies outsourcing skills and capacities to maybe 1% of the labor force
and large processing industries (as is the case in one of the most intensive agricultural
countries, the Netherlands). These capacities are essential to bring humans into contact
with nature and the world. This lack of engagement with the living environment is a
common trait of radical commodification: It allows only passive consumption (Sunder
2012). A consequence is the enormous waste of food, because producers and consumers
don't respect food.
Economic policies premised on free global markets are held in some ethical systems
to run the risk that commodification of nature becomes a universal dogma. When, for
example, ecosystem services, like fresh water or carbon sequestration are monetized,
this imposes, first, that the biosphere is sliced into components or itemized, and then
these items get a price tag. Rich groups or nations can afford these prizes and, there-
fore, deplete these services. The ensuing disaggregating of nature's functions in the end
destroys them (O'Neill, Holland, and Light 2008). A last socioeconomic issue is the
drive of powerful nations and companies to buy arable land from governments, often
neglecting informal local rights, with the consequence that poor farmers have to live
elsewhere (Thaler, this volume). “Land grabbing,” as this is called by critics, implies pro-
ducing biofuel or animal feed for meat supply ( farmlandgrab.org ).
Sixth, food risks, zoonosis, or technological risks developing with new biotechnolo-
gies (like nanotechnology or genetic modification) are also often mentioned (Kaplan
2012). Food safety is a problem for many, although probably behind the fear of contami-
nation, residues, and pollution lurks the often unspoken distrust of the public toward a
food system that exercises immense but not controllable power. Governments, mostly
guardians of risk management, are often not trusted.
The relationship between science, technology, and society confronts consumers with
a seventh ethical problem. Many talk about the distorted relation between scientists and
consumers: Consumers fear that technologists go too far in denaturalizing food items
and in the use of recombinant DNA technology in transforming agricultural plants and
animals (Gaskell 2010). Science-based health claims connected with functional foods
are encountered with criticisms. Scientists bring in the so-called advantages of lower
farm cost determined by genetic modification, but they are replied with the arguments
about environmental costs of genetic pollution, food safety, and hazards (Thompson
2007). Moreover, according to many, the extension of intellectual property rights over
organisms both hinders bottom-up innovation and stimulates monopolies (Drahos
2010; Krikorian and Kapczynski 2010). Many politicians and scientists perceive con-
sumers' opinions, in particular with respect to genetically modified organisms (GM)
and additives as irrational and emotional. Alternatively, marketers and nutritional sci-
entists construct, in their textbooks, the consumer into a convenience shopper who no
longer wants to spend time in the kitchen; in leaving food preparation to the food indus-
try, she or he, in fact, entrusts the food industry to develop and sell ready-made food-
stuffs with additives and other chemicals. These different constructions of the consumer