Introduction - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 5

1.3 Structure of the topic

In Chap. 2 , we introduce the IFOAM Principles and their ethical foundation. We
provide an overview on the history of ethics in the organic movement starting in the
1920s (Part I, Chap. 2 ) and discuss the diverse streams of organic ethics that arose
until the 1990s.
The following ten invited chapters discuss and explore different dimensions of
organic ethics. These papers are presented in three parts. Each part includes a
summary discussion that provides overview comments and highlights the ethical
issues raised in the chapters. The parts are: Part II Standards and Certification
(Chaps. 3 , 4 , and 5 ) ; Part III Markets and Consumers (Chaps. 6 , 7 , and 8 ) ; Part
IV The Interplay of Conventional and Organic (Chaps. 9 , 10 , 11 , and 12 ) .
Our final Part V “Framework for Re-thinking Ethics in the Organic Movement,”
first raises questions about the current role of ethics based on a typology that is
sensitive to the different ethics that currently characterize the organic movement
(Chap. 13 ) . In doing so, we seek to shed light on the environment of organic that
influences the organic future and to review the challenges for an ethically driven
organic future. Chapter 14 summarizes and concludes our discussion and offers our
reflections on “Positioning Organic Ethics”.
The following provides a brief overview of contributed chapters.

Part I Overview and Foundations

Chapter 2 : The history of organic is not a homogeneous one, but is build on
a colorful development based on different thinkers and societal movements over
now approx. 100 years. Beginning with the current IFOAM Principles and their
ethical foundations, Bernhard Freyer, Jim Bingen and Milena Klimek summarize
and discuss the ethical foundations of the organic approach from their origins in the
1920s and follow the development of the different ethically/value driven streams
until the 1990s.
The IFOAM Principles Health, Ecology, Fairness and Care, developed in a
participatory process and with scientific support, serve as an ethical framework for
the IFOAM Standards and certification issues. They are based on a normative ethic,
grounded on an ecocentric/holistic approach, a moderate deontology and a virtue
approach to human-nature relationships. Current ethical thinking about organic
can trace its European origins to primarily in German-speaking countries and was
heavily influenced during the 1920s by the life reform movement and by and the
Philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Both introduced notions of a “circular agricultural
economy” and nineteenth century Christianity that were at the foundation of many
organic discussions. Since this time, organic has been characterized by diverse
trends, largely in the UK, the US, New Zealand, Australia before becoming more
“mainstream” through the establishment of IFOAM and its acceptance in more than
100 countries (see for details Chaps. 10 and 11 ) . However, over this time, organic
has been characterized by a remarkably consistent set of values that were embodied
in the first set of IFOAM Principles and Standards in 1972.