Food, Food Safety and Environment

Abstract

The theme of Governing Food, Food Safety and Environment is of interest for several reasons. Food links the purchasing decisions of the individual consumer to the political, social and economic forces that shape the food production system worldwide. In contrast to most other consumer products, food leaves the individual no choice but to participate in this system. There are few acts more basic than eating. Still, the sense of control in regard to the dynamics that govern food production and supply is limited, among consumers and primary producers alike. During the 1990s, the regulation of food was suddenly and dramatically politicized, particularly in Western Europe, from the perspective of food safety and animal welfare. The most critical events were tied to the crisis over Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or Mad Cow Disease) in cattle, and outbreaks of classical swine fever (CSF) and the birds plague. The crises over food safety triggered a rise in public concern and a rapid loss of legitimacy in the institutions that inform and regulate food production. Simultaneously, in the 1990s, a rising awareness of the detrimental effects on the environment of standing food production and consumption practices, as well as concerns about their own legitimacy, induced a variety of those institutions (among them national governments and research institutes) to critically reflect on established regulatory and production practices, and on their own role vis-à-vis emerging threats in an increasingly transnational agro-industrial business. Both types of dynamics have set in motion a process of rethinking and remaking the institutional arrangements for addressing food safety and the environmental aspects of food production. Now that a decade or so has passed, it is of interest to reflect on the dynamics set in motion from various angles, to see whether we can detect emerging patterns in new approaches to the governance of food, food safety and its environmental aspects, and how these may contribute to setting the agenda for future research and reflection.

Title	Details
Food Safety and Dislocation of the Hegemonic Food Discourse in Britain	View Paper Details
Public Participation and Ecological Agriculture	View Paper Details
'Food for Thought': A Comparative Study of Institutional Innovations and Restoring Trust in Food Safety after the BSE Crisis in Western Europe	View Paper Details
Undoing the 'bisection' of democracy. The case of the Dutch programme on Novel Protein Foods	View Paper Details
Linking Food Safety and Environmental Issues. The German Media and Policy Discourse on BSE	View Paper Details
'Co-existence' as a Deliberative Metaphor in the Agbiotech Controversy	View Paper Details
The Dramaturgy of 'Re-location': Restoring Trust in Food Safety after the BSE Crisis	View Paper Details
Changing Discourse of Food Safety in Turkey: From Hygiene to GMO's and Monster Tomatoes	View Paper Details
Food Safety and Dislocation of the Hegemonic Food Discourse in Britain. The case of salmonella in eggs	View Paper Details