From Field to Fork

Subtitled 'Food ethics for everyone', this must be the most comprehensive and accessible book on the topic by someone who is both highly informed and sympathetic to different approaches and philosophies. As he shows, our food choices are embedded in agricultural, social and economic systems with multiple ramifications related to food production, processing, distribution and consumption. He sees the overall context as one of constraints on conduct that nevertheless lead to certain identifiable consequences; this process also includes a learning cycle. The book covers the full spectrum of food ethics issues while also giving the reader an overall historical understanding. There are chapters on social injustice, diet and obesity, persistent hunger, livestock welfare and the ethics of producing meat, local food systems and environmental impact, green revolution through technology and the controversy over GMOs and herbicide resistance.

In discussing these last issues, I think the author rightly identifies a philosophical divide between conventional industrial agriculture, including biotechnology, and what he calls an agrarian and more organic perspective. For industry, food is just one more product, while agrarian systems focus on sustainability and interpersonal connections. In discussing obesity, the author draws out the complexities of various strands of argument and especially the focus on individual moral responsibility and choice, which the food industry uses in its favour. Obesogenic choices can arguably impose costs on other people. The question of ethical vegetarianism is raised at a number of junctures but also set within very different cultural contexts. The author conducts a very thorough analysis of the arguments for and against genetic biotechnology and its claim to be necessary for feeding the world. He looks at the case against in terms of precaution, social justice, naturalness and choice, and virtue ethics. Having been involved in various dimensions himself, he advocates a less confrontational and more cooperative approach. He looks at the writings of Vandana Shiva and the experiments of Seralini in a sympathetic but critical light, questioning some of their logic but recognising their legitimate concerns. Readers wishing to get to grips with the multiple aspects of food ethics will find this an excellent and accessible starting point.