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In this first decade of the 21st century, more than 854 million people in the world are starving, while industrial nations are debating about obesity, generating energy from food plants, and a myriad of other topics many African and south Asian nations could only fathom. In this great discord, there have arisen many interdisciplinary discussions about problems in the field of applied Ethics, with regards to food, that are crossing a considerably wide spectrum of disciplines, such as: obesity, traceability, agro-food biotechnology, dairy industry, transgenic plants, novel food, bio fuels, world-trade system, etc.
This book presents international discussions and information concerning food ethics in its current state. It presents a variety of important aspects in the field of food ethics with respect to positions, instruments and applications of issues surrounding nutrition. A great deal of the book will concern itself with discussing different ethical positions and problems of current interests, as explained by experts of the "food-ethics-community". The articles will focus on the reality of global food problems through two main issues:
- current questions of nutrition in the specific contexts of field and experience,
- ethical tools, ideas and suggestions concerning long-term steps for solutions.
The appendix presents a collection of current declarations and political statements - visions, proposals and goals in a worth living world in general and concerning specific problems - water, healthy food, the human right to food, sustainability and food sovereignty.
List of contents
Introduction: Food Ethics in a Globalized World - Reality and Utopia.- Food, Consumers & Policy.- The Ethical Matrix as a Tool in Policy Interventions: The Obesity Crisis.- Ethical Traceability for Improved Transparency in the Food Chain.- GM-Food Production.- Ethics and Genetically Modified Foods.- Responsible Agro-Food Biotechnology: Precaution as Public Reflexivity and Ongoing Engagement in the Service of Sustainable Development.- Precautionary Approaches to Genetically Modified Organisms and the Need for Biosafety Research.- Biotechnology, Battery Farming and Animal Dignity.- Food, Globalizaton & Water.- Agricultural Trade and the Human Right to Food: The Case of Small Rice Producers in Ghana, Honduras, and Indonesia.- Hunger, Poverty, and Climate Change: Institutional Approaches, a New Business Alliance, and Civil Courage to Live Up to Ethical Standards.- Food Versus Fuel: Governance Potential for Water Rivalry.- Whose Nature - Whose Water? Some Remarks About the History of Ideas, Property and Democracy of Water.- Towards a New Architecture of Agricultural Trade in the World Market.- Epilogue: The Schweisfurth Foundation - A German Food-Ethics-Platform.
About the author
Franz-Theo Gottwald studierte Katholische Theologie, Philosophie, Sozialwissenschaften und Indologie. Er ist Vorstand der Schweisfurth-Stiftung, München, und Honorarprofessor für Agrar- und Umweltethik an der Humboldt-Universität in Berlin sowie Lehrbeauftragter für Politische Ökologie an der Hochschule für Politik in München.
Summary
In this first decade of the 21st century, more than 854 million people in the world are starving, while industrial nations are debating about obesity, generating energy from food plants, and a myriad of other topics many African and south Asian nations could only fathom. In this great discord, there have arisen many interdisciplinary discussions about problems in the field of applied Ethics, with regards to food, that are crossing a considerably wide spectrum of disciplines, such as: obesity, traceability, agro-food biotechnology, dairy industry, transgenic plants, novel food, bio fuels, world-trade system, etc.
This book presents international discussions and information concerning food ethics in its current state. It presents a variety of important aspects in the field of food ethics with respect to positions, instruments and applications of issues surrounding nutrition. A great deal of the book will concern itself with discussing different ethical positions and problems of current interests, as explained by experts of the "food-ethics-community". The articles will focus on the reality of global food problems through two main issues:
- current questions of nutrition in the specific contexts of field and experience,
- ethical tools, ideas and suggestions concerning long-term steps for solutions.
The appendix presents a collection of current declarations and political statements – visions, proposals and goals in a worth living world in general and concerning specific problems - water, healthy food, the human right to food, sustainability and food sovereignty.
