(PDF) Saving Seeds

S Safety Saving Seeds ▶ Food Animal Production, Ethics, and Quality Assurance Garrett Graddy-Lovelace School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, USA Salutogenesis ▶ Eating and Nutrition Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement ▶ Canada, US-EU Beef Hormone Dispute Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards ▶ Food Standards Sanitary Barriers ▶ Trade Policies and Animal Welfare Synonyms Brown-bagging; Heirloom seed saving; In situ agricultural biodiversity; Open-pollinated seed saving; Semi-subsistence cultivation Introduction Saving seeds is an ancient and universal practice that has both grounded and propelled agriculture for millennia. The widespread transition from “hunter-gatherer” to “agriculturalist” among humans – dated these days at 12,000 years ago – centered on the domestication of edible wild plants into cultivated crops: in short, the selecting and saving of seed with desired traits so as to replant later and/or elsewhere. The practice of saving seeds has always entailed complex social and cultural dimensions, as seeds have physical as well as metaphysical currency in many agrarian societies. The people in a community who held the responsibility of saving seeds – often women, often elders – were endowed with a critical social obligation and function. This is still the case in © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 D. M. Kaplan (ed.), Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1179-9 2178 traditionally agrarian communities across the continents. As agriculture became more industrialized in the twentieth century, the practice of seed saving receded in import; more growers turned to annually purchased seed stock (be it hybrid, or later, genetically modiﬁed). More recently, however, for a variety of reasons, the ethical dimensions of seed saving have reemerged, and these ethical dimensions have taken on an explicitly political framework. This brief introduction to the rich topic of seed saving begins with a biological overview of the practice. It then moves to an historical survey of major twentieth-century changes in agriculture, emphasizing in particular ethical issues regarding the evolution of intellectual property rights, the widespread decline in agricultural biodiversity, and the ex and in situ attempts to conserve this cultivated diversity. (Of note, this essay has a US focus, but the basic phenomenon are not unique to the United States.) The essay ends with a discussion of ethical debates regarding the politics of seeds and their saving. Biological Basics Seeds are mobile, self-sustaining packages; they carry all enzymes required for the embryo to convert the stored nutrients to tissue-building sustenance. They also carry all the genetic information of the plant, including genetic traits that were expressed in previous generations as well as genetic potential to express other traits in response to new abiotic contexts and pressures. This genetic blueprint is encoded in the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules, which determine the genetic traits therein and how and when they will be actualized. Botanically speaking, a seed is a ripened and fertilized ovule that contains the plant in embryonic form as well as nutrients for the embryo during its indeﬁnite dormancy. This embryo and stored nutrients are encased in a seed coat. Yet, many seed savers select, save, and sow parts of the plant that are technically fruits, though they act like seeds – such as corn kernels. All seeds contain one or more cotyledons or folded, rudimentary Saving Seeds leaves, which themselves contain stored fat, protein, and carbohydrates. The cotyledon(s) is partially wrapped around the tiny leaf bud. Next to the cotyledon(s) and tiny leaf bud rest both a rudimentary stem and a root tip, which – when the seed germinates – extends to become the plant’s ﬁrst root. If a seed contains two cotyledons, it is called a dicot; if one, a monocot. Squash, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, cabbage, and most other vegetables that bear seed are dicots and send forth two small seed leaves upon germination. Onions and garlic are monocots, and, once germinated, send forth a single spearlike blade of grass. Also, most grain crops in the grass family (Gramineae) – including corn, wheat, buckwheat, rye, amaranth, quinoa, rice, and other cereal crops – have one cotyledon and are thus monocots (Bubel 1988). In some seeds, the stored nutrients are not contained in the cotyledon, but in the endosperm, the layer of starchy seed ﬂesh that surrounds the embryo. For many major grain crops, the endosperm nourishes the embryo – but it also feeds the human or animal eating the seed as food, as in the case of corn, wheat, rye, buckwheat, and other cereal grains. Endosperm results from the fertilization of the plant: when a male gamete fuses with a pair of female nuclei in the embryo sac, endosperm is produced. It consists of three layers: the aleurone, which breaks down starch; the transfer layer, which absorbs nutrients for the plant itself; and the larger, internal layer, which provides the bulk of the starch. The act of saving seed depends upon the phenomenon of dormancy, during which the seed produces chemicals that inhibit germination. Seeds are self-sufﬁcient and self-protected during dormancy – which can last for days or millennia. The seed coat provides a water-resistant, impermeable physical protection to the seed embryo and nutrients inside. Seed coats also protect against parasites, minor injuries, and, to some degree, high or low temperatures. When dormant, the seed’s metabolic function operates slowly and efﬁciently, drawing nutrients from the cotyledon or endosperm at a signiﬁcantly lower rate than after germination. Dormancy culminates with the pivotal moment of germination, when a seed awakens to begin Saving Seeds taking root and sending forth cotyledon. The ﬁrst sign of germination is absorption of water, which activates an enzyme that speeds respiration and catalyzes plant cells to duplicate. This increases the size of the embryo, which ultimately must break out of its seed coat and unfurl itself. The root tip extends downward to anchor the growing plant. The mobile stage of the plant ends here, as it takes root and begins its place-bound life. Besides spatially ﬁxity and balance, the root tip serves to absorb water and nutrients from the soil, as that by now, the embryo needs more than what its seed content could provide. A seed germinates depending on surrounding conditions, from temperature to moisture, to light, to oxygen supply. A viable seed might not germinate if the conditions are unfavorable. Some seeds need to be coaxed out of their protective dormancy at times, such as lettuces; gardeners sometimes use ﬂuorescent plant lights to convince a lettuce seed to emerge into a lettuce plant. Some wildﬂower growers “scarify” the seed coats of certain wild legumes to encourage the seed to begin germination. Most wild plants and wildﬂowers require a period of dormancy before they will germinate, while cultivated garden ﬂowers usually do not. To test viability, growers run germination tests on their stored and saved seed; the percentage that sprouts indicate the overall viability rates of the seed. The grower can continue exchanging, storing, and/or sowing the seed. Once sown, the seed germinates and grows, developing into a plant that ﬂowers, becomes pollinated, and bears fruits – and more seeds. Whether self-pollinated or wind-, insect-, or hand-pollinated, the ﬂowering plant produces seed that can be saved. Annual seeds produce seed each year, while perennials do not necessarily, and so must be propagated through cuttings or plant division. Seed savers usually save from more than one plant, so as to avoid inbred stock and to maintain overall genetic diversity and vigor. In most plants, seeds are gathered at the end of the growing season to make sure the seed has developed a sufﬁciently mature embryo and endosperm. Timing is key, since growers must gather seed at the right stage of seed development and at the right temperature and moisture level: 2179 seeds that are too wet could mold. Fleshy fruits, such as melon, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, need to be slightly overripe before harvesting them for seed saving. If the fruit begins to rot, excessive heat from decomposition could damage the seed. Also, diseased vegetables often pass along pathogens to their offspring. Once harvested, some seeds (peas, snap beans, soybeans) need to be threshed to remove the pods. Saved seeds need a postharvest drying period to allow any accumulated moisture to evaporate (Ashworth and Whealy 2002). Genetic vigor is determined by parental lines and passed along genetic traits. Physiological vigor depends upon the conditions within which the seeds were formed: temperature, sunlight, moisture levels, and soil nutrient availability. The vigor of a seed cannot be improved with correct storage, but it can be hindered with poor storage. Seeds should be kept cool and dry, since heat and moisture activate premature internal embryonic metabolism. Also, cold and dry conditions inhibit growth of bacteria, fungus, mold, diseases, and insects. A note of caution given by seed savers far and wide is to avoid planting all of one seed variety at one planting. Saved seeds are valuable for their productive and reproductive capacity; they are saved for present and future plantings and are not all to be replanted in one season in case of crop failure. Agricultural Changes: Historical Politics of Seeds and Intellectual Property Rights S Throughout history, seed saving has served as a chief means of obtaining seed. Even growers with access to seed markets and networks would save the best seeds from their own ﬁelds to replant later and/or exchange with or sell to other growers. Yet, during the past century, the propensity toward seed saving has decreased in the Global North and even in the Global South, as formal seed markets have grown and as seed types – be they hybrid or transgenic – have prohibited their saving. This transition toward laboratory-based breeding drew in large part upon the early twentiethcentury applications of mid-nineteenth-century 2180 hereditary discoveries of Gregor Mendel. The scientiﬁc ﬁeld of genetics developed rapidly throughout the twentieth century, transforming agriculture in the process. In the USA, public and “land-grant” universities explored and developed hybrid varieties of corn and wheat – among other crops. These seeds were unusually productive during the ﬁrst generation (F1) after cross parent lines. But due to intensive inbreeding, these “high-yield” hybrids did not produce a productive – or even reliable – second generation of plants (F2). Therefore, biologically speaking, they were the ﬁrst single-season, annually purchased seed input. The hybrids generated high yields per hectare of commodity crops; they also generated considerable income for the private industries that took an increasingly share of research and development from public institutions. American Seed Trade Association, formed in 1883, lobbied, successfully, to end the US government’s decades-long practice of distributing free seed to growers so as to encourage their ﬁeld-breeding experimentation. By the 1930s, the private seed industry had established its market and begun a century of exponential consolidation and growth (Kloppenburg 1988). The “vigor” of hybrid seeds – along with their afﬁliated spate of irrigation, chemical fertilizer, and chemical pesticide inputs – led to unprecedented yield per hectare increases in commodity crops during the middle of the twentieth century. This “Green Revolution” produced massive harvests of cereal grains for the global market but heralded notorious ecological and social effects, ranging from massive biodiversity loss, soil erosion, and water pollution to consolidated land tenure and input companies. Where these profound agricultural changes took root, the practice of seed saving moved to the margins. All the while, seeds – and the genes therein – became subsumed within a growing network of intellectual property legislation. The 1930 US Plant Protection Act helped usher in this new era of seed breeding by establishing patent systems for asexually reproduced plants (be they grafted or cloned). European law followed suit with the Union internationale pour la protection des Saving Seeds obtentions végétales (UPOV) in 1961, which established plant breeders’ rights. The 1970 US Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) extended this framework by granting certiﬁcates of protection for sexually reproduced crops – those reproduced through seed. The 1970 PVPA clariﬁed that farmers would maintain the right to save seed, but this exemption was repealed by congress in 1994. The UPOV maintained a corresponding exemption provision – until 1991 – when it deferred the right to save seed to national discretion and dramatically increased plant breeders’ rights (Aoki 2008). Then, in 1980, the US Supreme Court decided the landmark case Diamond v. Chakrabarty, which held that people or companies could obtain utility patents on living organisms that they had genetically altered themselves. Subsequent lawsuits upheld this expansion of proprietary germplasm commodiﬁcation. All the while, advances in agribiotechnology allowed plant breeders to isolate, extricate, and modify speciﬁc gene sequences, creating transgenic seed varieties that were protected by extensive intellectual property policy. Unlike their hybrid counterparts, transgenic seeds reproduce their deﬁning hereditary traits and thus, biologically, can be saved. To protect their investment, plant-breeding industry has lobbied (successfully) to preclude seed saving through intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes. The logic here is that IPR provides incentives for research and innovation and serves as a means of recouping costly investment. According to US and European patent law, “naturally occurring products” cannot be patented, but if a person or company discovers an “isolated, puriﬁed, or altered form” of this naturally occurring product, they can claim a patent on it. Phenotypic and genotypic organism traits thus can be patented if proven to be (1) newly discovered or created, (2) distinct, (3) uniform, and (4) stable. These guidelines were then exported to other regions of the world through the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), a key component of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. TRIPS enshrined extensive plant breeders’ rights by requiring that all countries involved in the World Saving Seeds Trade Organization “harmonize” their intellectual property protections through either UPOV, US patent laws, or a corresponding sui generis system (Aoki 2008). This trajectory toward proprietary ownership of germplasm has escaped neither controversy nor contention. Seeds and the genes therein have existed as a worldwide commons for millennia. Global agricultural biodiversity unfolds as seeds travel from ﬁeld to ﬁeld, continent to continent, adapting anew with each season. This ﬂow has been appropriated at times for private gain: imperial enterprises sought to collect exotic seed stock from colonized outposts and capitalize upon its valuable new traits. Botanical gardens housed accessions of such exotic varieties, but, in general, germplasm remained commonly held and openly accessed. By the beginning of the twenty-ﬁrst century, however, over half of the global commercial seed market is controlled by three agribusiness conglomerates: Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta. This unprecedented level of private industry consolidation – accomplished through two decades of intense company mergers and acquisitions – reﬂects a global political economy of corporate consolidation, but the seed industry has come to embody this concentration – of revenue, resources, access, control, and political leverage. During the rise of agribiotechnologies such as genetically modiﬁed seeds, the price of seeds has increased considerably, Meanwhile, food prices spiked in 2008 and have risen subsequently. Moreover, both seed and food prices are subject to ﬁnancial volatility that has only increased as food has become a more prominent future commodity for ﬁnancial speculation. Accordingly, growers, advocates, and policy makers have begun to bring the issue of seeds – and seed control – to more mainstream debates. Agrobiodiversity Decline As agriculture became increasingly industrialized in the twentieth century and the monocultural mode of production expanded, overall levels of agricultural biodiversity declined. Growers and 2181 plant breeders alike noted the precipitous erosion of crop diversity. The crisis has unfolded across and between all major and minor crop species: during the twentieth century alone, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) chronicled a 75% global loss of agrobiodiversity. Tens of thousands of plant species growing in the world are edible, and humankind has cultivated several thousands throughout history for nourishment. Presently, however, only about 150 species are grown for food, according to FAO research, while 30 crops provide over 95% of human consumption, and only three of these (wheat, maize, rice) supply over 60% human foods. Concurrently, each of these three staple crops has become more genetically homogenous. At all known scales of reference, the variety and variability of domesticated foods and their wild relatives are diminishing (Fowler and Mooney 1990). Though it has not garnered the public attention of other environmental crises – with the lack of charismatic megafauna in the heirloom seed world – the larger ecological emergency of global climate change has brought its importance to the fore (or at least more to the fore than before). The standard international methods for addressing the problem of agrobiodiversity erosion are through ex situ (off-site) conservation and storage of seeds, especially through research centers, such as the mega-gene banks of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR began in 1971 as a means of connecting, streamlining, and strengthening the conservation and research capacities of individual International and National Agricultural Research Centers. Working with hundreds of government and civil society organizations around the world – as well as with private industries – this “strategic partnership of diverse donors” supports and coordinates the 15 international centers – 11 of which house mega-gene banks. These banks play an important role in facilitating agricultural researches on and for agricultural biodiversity conservation. Yet, growers, scholars, scientists, indigenous rights activists, and even international agencies have called for increased attention to and support for in situ (on-site) cultivation, such as in farmer ﬁelds and home gardens. S 2182 Despite lip service to small-scale growers and their farming skills, the politics of seeds and genetic conservation continue to favor ex situ strategies of collection and preservation. Moreover, increasingly such conservation measures serve and are subservient to certain sectors of agricultural research, such as those recently dominated by private (rather than public) plant breeding. Consequently, this research is usually funded by and oriented toward highly consolidated agribusiness corporations and expressly committed to “improving” seed stock through genetic modiﬁcations and subsequent de rigueur intellectual property rights. Subsequently, farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates have become more pointed in their analyses of the political ecology of agrobiodiversity loss and conservation through ex situ conservation; they argue that food security is itself fundamentally dependent on viable, resilient, sustainable agriculture, which is itself predicated upon a viable, resilient, and biodiverse crop base: in short, in situ agricultural biodiversity. Accordingly, increasing numbers of small-scale growers and agrarian activists, such as those in Via Campesina, have come to argue that food security entails food – and thus seed – “sovereignty” and that the crisis of agrobiodiversity erosion and the methods to address this problem are more than merely ecological. Though often framed dichotomously, the delineation between in and ex situ blurs somewhat upon closer inspection. After all, at times, cultivation partakes of both in and ex situ strategies. Community seed banks gather seed varieties so as to circulate them for wider cultivation in the local community, and home gardens can serve in situ needs of semi-subsistence along with ex situ objectives of “growing out” seeds for nearby community seed collectives. US-based Seed Savers Exchange serves as an ex situ hub for a wide network of in situ growers. Nevertheless, efforts that focus solely on ex situ means of conservation often belie a different understanding of agrobiodiversity, its conservation, and its value than that of initiatives focusing on in situ cultivation as the chief means of reversing, or at least mitigating, its decline. Saving Seeds These debates parallel a broader dispute regarding the commons of plant genetic resources: ex situ gene banks conserve this genetic treasury as a “common heritage of humankind,” even as the holdings are subsumed within growing networks of proprietary IPR. Global contestations on the asymmetrical ﬂow of genetic resources from the gene-rich South to the genepoor North – and the latter’s disproportionate ﬁnancial beneﬁt – spurred the 1983 International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, wherein countries gathered to safeguard the genetic commons. The Undertaking was not binding, though, and its commons framework was subsequently undermined by the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, which upheld national sovereignty of respective genetic resources. The international debates persisted and ultimately led to the 2001 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which, when implemented in 2004, instigated a Multilateral System of Access and Beneﬁt Sharing, such that (most) gene bank holdings could not be patented – at least not in the form received by the bank itself. Loopholes remain, but the Treaty did highlight and strengthen “Farmers’ Rights,” which formally recognized the critical contribution of farmers to past, present, and future plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Farmers’ Rights’ proponents advocated for: (1) the right of farmers to grow, breed, sell, and swap openpollinated and laboratory-bred seeds; (2) open access to seeds and genes kept in ex situ collections; (3) established systems of compensation to recompense and encourage in situ agricultural biodiversity cultivation; and (4) increased participation of farmers in decision-making policy forums. Ongoing Tensions: Rising Interest in Seed Saving, Amidst Increased IP After generations of systemic devaluation, there has been a resurgence of interest in the act of saving seed. This has emerged on the margins of conventional agriculture for a variety of reasons. Ecologically, seed saving revitalizes cultivated biodiversity and, often, crop wild relatives as Saving Seeds well. Open-pollinated seeds adapt to changing environments and thus constitute a means of cultivating climate-resilient food production. Seed saving usually occurs in gardens and small farms, where growers, over a few seasons, can acquire particularly strong, well-adapted, proliﬁc, high-quality desirable varieties. Seed-saving growers select for ecological resilience as well as for speciﬁc agronomic traits (early-germinating, frost-resistant, heat-tolerant varieties with deep roots that survive well on steeper slopes or sandy soil) or culinary attributes (taste, nutrition, storage capacity, cooking preference). Seed savers make the commitment to keep heirloom varieties alive and adapted for social reasons, ﬁnding cultural identity or continuity in a seed line or in the practice of seed saving itself. Seed savers also highlight the social bonds afforded through seed swaps, gardening networks, and agricultural communities. The seemingly innocuous act of seed saving has taken on explicitly political overtones among seed sovereignty initiatives throughout the Americas and the Asian, European, and African countries. Whether they identify their intentions as “seed sovereignty” or not, seed-saving initiatives and networks have emerged in urban and rural areas, across and throughout the continents of the Global South and North. These growers swap, keep, and breed landraces so as to extricate from an increasingly concentrated seed industry that has gained a striking level of political-economic control over germplasm during the last generation. In addition to political autonomy and cultural regeneration, some have (re)turned to seed saving for health and aesthetic/taste reasons, so as to assure themselves increased access to fresh produce. In urban and rural areas where fresh fruits and vegetables have become prohibitively expensive, growers with access to land might grow from saved seed as a form of bolstered food security. At the other end of the economic spectrum, growers and restaurateurs might opt to cultivate heirloom seeds due to their increased gourmet status. Rise of heirloom strains of vegetables, which can only be perpetuated through saving. Also a grower might decide to save seeds to assure herself seeds that have not been pretreated with herbicide or pesticides. 2183 Amidst these diverse reasons for and forms of seed-saving resurgence, political tensions around the act have only increased. In the USA, for instance, the 2013 Supreme Court case Vernon Bowman v. Monsanto brought the controversies of intellectual property and seeds to the highest judicial review. Bowman, a 75-year-old Indiana farmer, was sued by Monsanto for IP infringement; Bowman contested that all he did was purchase and plant soybean from a local grain elevator. The grain elevator was selling undifferentiated grain seed – some of which was trademarked Roundup Ready soy. Dozens of groups ﬁled amicus briefs on behalf of Bowman, alleging that the seed, under the doctrine of “patent exhaustion,” should be free of intellectual property, since Bowman himself did not sign a company technology contract with Monsanto (that would have legally prohibited the saving of the purchased seed). Meanwhile, numerous amicus briefs were ﬁled siding with Monsanto (including many by public and land-grant universities), alleging that self-replicating technologies need to be an exception to patent exhaustion, so as to assure ongoing agribiotechnology investments. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold indeﬁnite patents on genetically modiﬁed seeds. All the while, however, the growing national and international attention to such seed policy has helped bring the complicated and contested politics and ethics of seed saving to light. Summary S For a wide variety of reasons, the act of saving seed is reemerging as an important and powerful practice. People and communities have elected to begin, continue, or resume seed-saving networks for food security reasons, health and nutrition priorities environmental concerns, cultural identity, social interdependence, and political independence. Meanwhile, controversies have grown recently as intellectual property protection of new agribiotechnologies increases – and as corporate consolidation of the seed industry reaches unprecedented levels. Seed saving has become a political act – even for those who simply wish to 2184 grow a crop from existing seed stock. The ethical dimensions of seed saving encompass larger questions of the commons and its encroachment. The ethical aspects of seed saving also entail questions of food security – and what has come to be known as food and seed “sovereignty” or autonomy. All the while, the extensive knowledge and skills required for effective seed saving have been devalued for generations but, increasingly, are being re-recognized and revalued as critical for cultivating ecologically resilient, bountiful, and diverse agricultural systems. Scape School Food ▶ School Lunch and Gender School Food Movement ▶ Farm to School School Lunch and Gender Cross-References ▶ Biodiversity ▶ Biotechnology and Food Policy, Governance ▶ EU Regulatory Conﬂicts over GM Food ▶ GMO Food Labeling ▶ Home Gardening ▶ Intellectual Property and Food ▶ Intellectual Property Rights and Trade in the Food and Agricultural Sectors ▶ Islam and Food and Agricultural Ethics ▶ Transgenic Crops References Aoki, K. (2008). Seed wars: Controversies and cases on plant genetic resources and intellectual property. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Ashworth, S., & Whealy, K. (2002). Seed to seed: Seed saving and growing techniques for vegetable gardeners. Decorah: Seed Savers Exchange. Bubel, N. (1988). The new seed-starters handbook. Emmaus: Rodale Press. Fowler, C., & Mooney, P. (1990). Shattering: Food, politics, and the loss of genetic diversity. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Kloppenburg, J. (1988). First the seed: The political economy of plant biotechnology (pp. 1492–2000). New York: Cambridge University Press. Scape ▶ Food and Place Sarah A. Robert Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo (SUNY), Buffalo, NY, USA Synonyms Ancillary school services; Gender differences; School food Introduction School lunch and gender research examines whether, how, and why eating differs among girls and boys and whether or not women and men are differently involved in feeding students at school. It is a subﬁeld of school food research. The school food literature is concerned with understanding the underlying values and related behaviors associated with food in schools and with analyzing the goals and implementation of school food policy. This entry uses the terms school food, school lunch, and school meals interchangeably to refer to food or nutritional supplements available to students and the related policies governing the purchase, distribution, and consumption of food in and around schools. Publications delved into all possible scenarios for student eating: breakfast, lunch, snacks, supplemental nutrition, and take-home-from-school food staples for the poorest of students. The literature reﬂected on the experiences of children who School Lunch and Gender ate food prepared and served from the cafeteria, who received micronutrients distributed by transnational organizations, who brought lunch from home, and older students who left school during designated breaks. Gender was the most prevalent variable applied in school food research. The term gender was operationalized in two different manners. The most common way to deploy gender to understand the dynamics surrounding school meals was as a headcount of girls and boys in a sample size. Less prevalent in the research was the use of gender to signify socioculturally deﬁned difference that shaped patterns of eating; food choices; feelings toward the self, school, or school performance; and involvement in school meal administration (Robert and McEntarfer 2014). In other words, rather than counting girls and boys, researchers who applied the latter meaning of gender to their analysis examined why girls and boys selected different items to eat or why girls were sent to school when a lunch program was initiated. Paying attention to gender did not provide explanations for all patterns related to school lunch. Many researchers took account of other identity markers and societal factors in conjunction with gender. These included socioeconomic status (SES), which in the United States was equated with student’s access to free or reduced school meals but also was reﬂected in who brought lunch to school or was able to purchase food during lunchtime. Race and/or ethnicity also was identiﬁed in research studies and linked to SES and gender to understand student choices and the physiological impacts of particular feeding programs. School lunch and gender research grew exponentially over the ﬁrst decade of the twenty-ﬁrst century due to four overlapping concerns for the health and well-being of children. The ﬁrst concern was with rising rates of childhood obesity and type II diabetes. The second concern was with interrogating the purpose of feeding students at school. The third was a concern for understanding the qualitative impact of eating at school on students’ well-being or attitudes toward schooling. The fourth is the smallest group of studies and 2185 explores how research on school lunch and gender was constructed. The rest of this entry elaborates these four concerns attending to the analytic schema laid out by Sandler (2011) to critically examine school food or school food research: “who feeds whom, what, how, and for what purpose” (p. 25). Suggestions for further research are included at the end of each subsection. Health Impacts Researchers from across academic disciplines are concerned with halting the worldwide epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes in children. The underlying physiological patterns of consumption or who eats (and does not eat) what and with what health outcome are the concern of these investigations. Rates of obesity and type II diabetes continue to increase worldwide across socioeconomic groups. Researchers concerned with understanding why the diseases were on the rise aimed to determine what was eaten at school that may contribute to the epidemics. Most studies observed what girls and boys consumed or recorded in food journals. Caine-Bish and Scheule (2009) examined food preferences of girls and boys across grades to determine what foods might be incorporated into school lunches to improve healthy eating at school. Their study is of importance to this entry because of the ﬁndings: girls and boys have different food preferences, and those preferences change across elementary, middle, and high school. Further studies also measured body mass index (BMI) to ascertain who eats what and with what physiological outcomes. However, as Galloway (2007) showed in her examination of rural Canadian girls and boys, overweight and obesity measures were not statistically signiﬁcant over a 24-h period of recall but differences in energy and nutrient intake could not be ignored. Lopez-Frias et al. (2005) similarly found boys in southern Spain consumed more calories than girls when lunch was consumed at home though not statistically signiﬁcant. “It is clear that there is a pattern of dietary intake in this sample that produces greater energy and micronutrient intake in boys” (p. 783). Galloway S 2186 hypothesized that sociocultural assumptions that favor boys when decisions were made about health-care access, quality of food consumed, and amount of food served may have shaped the differences and urged further research. Studies also examined what parents sent in packed lunches and noted differences between what was sent for girls and boys. Boys were sent more food in general, perhaps reﬂecting the cultural assumption that boys require more overall calories without regard for the items consumed (Jones et al. 1999). The same study found that fat content of bag lunches (lunches brought from home) correlated with ethnicity and gender but not with socioeconomic status (SES). Future research needs to consider how gender and ethnicity shape what is eaten at school whether brought from home or selected at school. Girls were found to consume more fruits and vegetables than boys, a marker of healthy eating habits (Reynolds et al. 1999). Girls also were found to have more fruits and vegetables sent in packed lunches from home (Brennan et al. 2010). Few studies critiqued why girls and boys consumed different items, leaving many questions about eating behaviors that have an impact on health and the values that shape girls’/boys’ choices for future researchers to answer. While not addressing ethical questions, many of the studies that related to school lunch health impacts laid the foundation for future studies to do so. Why Eat at School? Whether or not students should be fed at school is not a debated issue: governments around the world will feed students if funds are available (Bundy et al. 2009). In developing or high poverty contexts, school lunch draws boys and girls to school. Pertinent to this study, serving food at school encourages poor families to send their daughters and keeps them coming back. Why students were being fed, what, and for what purpose can be a driving force behind differences in school access. Studies also compared lunches eaten at home with meals available at school. For example, Lopez-Frias et al. (2005) found School Lunch and Gender students consumed more nutritious foods at school than at home where, they postulated, children inﬂuenced what was served more than at school. In particular they found boys ate more food of lower nutritional value than girls at home. Nichols et al. (2009) found that when urban middle school (grades six through eight) girls and boys did not eat lunch at school, both groups engaged in problem behaviors ranging from marijuana use (boys) to smoking cigarettes (girls). Governmental directives aimed at meeting caloric and nutritional needs of children were credited with improving calcium intake among girls (Weible 2013) and fruit and vegetable consumption among all children, particularly US minority populations in different regions (Reynolds et al. 1999). The majority of the studies in this literature grouping found positive correlations could be created between governmentsponsored food policies and girls’/boys’ improved lunchtime eating whether related to nutrient and caloric intake or offering lunch and keeping students in school for it. Future studies will continue to build on these ﬁndings, interrogating school food policies at national and subnational levels. The Qualitative Impact of Eating at School A third force behind school food research is to understand what qualitative impact eating at school has on school performance and satisfaction with learning. The concern is whether or not eating at school (and what is eaten) improves the school experience. Ask et al. (2009) probed whether weight and academic performance might be affected by a healthier in-school lunch. They found that girls dropped weight and were more satisﬁed with school performance. This type of study conducted in Norway, a developed nation, and with a group of students whose SES was not identiﬁed, should not be confused with research and programming from the ﬁeld of development that aimed to increase nutrient intake for the poorest of the world’s school-aged children. Studies probed emotional outcomes of eating at School Lunch and Gender school in relation to academic achievement or body image (Zullig et al. 2006). Research revealed links between school lunch and the learning of a variety of social behaviors such as healthy eating habits or the consumption of fruits and vegetables. When lunch was consumed at school, drug/alcohol use decreased (Nichols et al. 2009). Zullig et al. (2006), however, found that offering free breakfast did not mean high school students ate. In this case, every group except one (African American young women) cited dissatisfaction with their bodies and practiced unhealthy eating practices including skipping breakfast. Thus eating and eating at school, speciﬁcally, was a giveand-take proposition impacted by how adolescents “digested” broader sociocultural messages about gender-body type/image. More studies are needed related to this concern; particularly absent was the impact of advertising and branding of food and food products in schools. Constructing Research for Validity and for Gender Research design was a fourth concern identiﬁed in extant literature. Many studies on school meal consumption were identiﬁed in preparation for writing this entry. However, the variable of gender (signifying girls and boys by N sample size) was left to the wayside as the research and/or write-up was completed. That is, the number of girls and boys was identiﬁed as a variable in the abstract and ﬁrst tables or graphs only to be ignored in the discussion of ﬁndings and conclusions. A small number of studies critiqued methodological designs (though none addressed the problematic noted above). They are important to acknowledge because of their potential impact on what is known about the relationship of school lunch and gender. The vast majority of school food studies relied on student recall, or memory of what was consumed, to measure food preferences, eating behaviors, and nutritional intake. Lyng et al. (2013) questioned the accuracy of qualitative recall measures among girls and boys. Their ﬁndings, that girls more accurately reported what was brought from home for lunch 2187 and what was consumed, suggest a need for concern about how school food is measured in future research. These types of studies are a testament to the growth and necessity of well-crafted school lunch and gender research. Summary The need to take account of who is involved in school lunches, how, when, from where, with what physical and/or emotional outcomes, and why is crucial to support healthy eating practices and development in all children. Such research also encourages the equitable distribution of resources to meet the needs of student populations, supporting education for all. This entry explained school food scenarios analyzed in the literature. Also described were the differing ways that gender is applied in studies as either means of sorting girls and boys/women and men or as varied patterns that shape the school lunch dynamic. The literature addressed four concerns: rising obesity and type II diabetes among all students, critiquing the purpose of feeding at school, understanding the qualitative impact of eating at school, and, ﬁnally, how to improve school lunch and gender research. Cross-References ▶ Body Image, Gender, and Food ▶ Child Nutrition Guidelines and Gender ▶ Feeding Children ▶ Food and Choice ▶ Food-Body Relationship ▶ Food, Class Identity, and Gender ▶ Food’s Purposes ▶ Gender and Dieting ▶ Gender Norms and Food Behavior ▶ Gender, Obesity, and Stigmatization References Ask, A. S., Hernes, S., Aaroek, I., Vik, F., Brodahl, C., & Haugen, M. (2009). Serving a free school lunch to secondary-school pupils – A pilot study with health implications. Public Health Nutrition, 13(2), 238–244. S 2188 Brennan, L., Miles, C. L., Mitchell, S., & Matthews, J. (2010). Changes in the content of children’s school lunches across the school week. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 21, 196–201. Bundy, D., Burbano, C., Grosh, M., Gelli, A., Jukes, M., & Drake, L. (2009). Rethinking school feeding social safety nets, child development, and the education sector. Washington, DC: World Bank. Caine-Bish, N. L., & Scheule, B. (2009). Gender differences in food preferences of school-aged children and adolescents. Journal of School Health, 79(11), 532–540. Galloway, T. (2007). Gender differences in growth and nutrition in a sample of rural Ontario schoolchildren. American Journal of Human Biology, 19(6), 774–788. Jones, L. R., Sallis, J. F., Conway, T. L., Marshall, S. J., & Pelletier, R. L. (1999). Ethnic and gender differences in request for and use of low/non-fat foods in bag lunches. Journal of School Health, 69(8), 332–336. Lopez-Frias, M., Nestares, T., Ianez, I., de la Higuera, M., Mataix, J., & Llopis, J. (2005). Nutrient intake adequacy in schoolchildren from a Mediterranean area (southern Spain). Inﬂuence of the use of the school canteen. International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research, 075(05), 0312–0319. Lyng, N., Fagt, S., Davidsen, M., Hoppe, C., Holstein, B., & Tetens, I. (2013). Reporting accuracy of packed lunch consumption among Danish 11-year-olds differ by gender. Food & Nutrition Research, 57. http://www. foodandnutritionresearch.net/index.php/fnr/article/view/ 19621. Nichols, T. R., Birnbaum, A. S., Bryant, K., & Botvin, G. J. (2009). Lunchtime practices and problem behaviors among multiethnic urban youth. Health Education & Behavior, 36(3), 570–582. Reynolds, K. D., Baranowski, T., Bishop, D. B., Farris, R. P., Binkley, D., Nicklas, T. A., & Elmer, P. J. (1999). Patterns in child and adolescent consumption of fruit and vegetables: Effects of gender and ethnicity across four sites. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 18(3), 248–254. Robert, S. A., & McEntarfer, H.K. (2014). Teachers’ work, food policies, and gender in Argentina. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 45(3), 260–275. Sandler, J. (2011). Reframing the politics of urban feeding in U.S. public schools: Parents, programs, activists, and the state. In S. A. Robert & M. B. Weaver-Hightower (Eds.), School food politics: The complex ecology of hunger and feeding in schools around the world (pp. 25–45). New York: Peter Lang. Weible, D. (2013). Gender-driven food choice: Explaining school milk consumption of boys and girls. Journal of Consumer Policy, 36(4), 403–423. Zullig, K., Ubbes, V. A., Pyle, J., & Valois, R. F. (2006). Self-reported weight perceptions, dieting behavior, and breakfast eating among high school adolescents. Journal of School Health, 76(3), 87–92. Schools Schools ▶ Food Security and Rural Education Scientific Knowledge ▶ Farmer-Scientist Knowledge Exchange Scientizing Food ▶ Functional Foods, Marketing of Seed Banking, Seed Saving, and Cultivating Local Varieties Shayna Cohen South Kingstown, RI, USA Synonyms Ex situ plant genetic resource conservation; Gene banking; Seed saving Introduction A seed bank is an organization or facility used to store and preserve plant seeds, in particular varieties that are rare, have fallen out of commercial use, and/or may have unique desirable genetic characteristics. Over the course of the twentieth century, each year, farmers worldwide grew fewer varieties of any given crop, instead choosing from a small pool of varieties that could ensure crop uniformity that contributes to efﬁciency and mechanization of harvest, transport, and commodity exchange. While this resulted in unprecedented agricultural yields, the focus on a few highly productive Seed Banking, Seed Saving, and Cultivating Local Varieties varieties also led to decreased genetic diversity in any given farm ﬁeld and thus increased vulnerability-absent genetic diversity, a single pathogen or pest can obliterate entire harvests. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 75% of the world’s food product diversity has been lost since 1900 (Anonymous 1999). In response to this trend, since the 1940s, governments, coalitions of governments, and nongovernmental entities have actively saved and banked seeds as a means of preserving the genetic foundation of agro-biodiversity. The world’s estimated 1500 public and private seed banks – also commonly called gene banks – store an estimated six million seed accessions (not including tubers, cuttings, or seedlings which are protected in other kinds of institutions) (Brush 1999). These seed banks are widely regarded as insurance policies against global food insecurity in the face of disasters such as drought, climate change, famine, political instability, or war. Banked biodiversity is, in essence, a genetic arsenal poised to protect humanity against future unknowns. And in preserving that diversity, scientists, governments, and others preserve potential for future medical and agricultural developments. Over generations, climates and landscapes change, and seeds adapt. As a result, seeds hold genetic resources that are suited and speciﬁc to a given place. Seed genetic diversity is also a record of farmers’ experiences and decisions over the course of centuries, as they saved seeds from plants that exhibited the most desirable traits: frost resistance, high yields, pest resistance, strong nutritional proﬁle, excellent ﬂavor, or hardiness on marginal cropland. These locally adapted varieties are also called landraces and make up a portion of what seed banks preserve, in addition to (for e.g.) crop wild relatives, such as the wild wheat grasses from which cultivated wheat has been selected and bred. Agricultural systems, genetic science, factors inﬂuencing food supply chains, and international politics governing natural resources preservation are irreducibly complex. The promotion and protection of crop genetic resources including local seed varieties can be sensitive, nuanced work that 2189 engages the ﬁelds and issues of biotechnology, corporate consolidation, trade relations, agricultural policy, cultural memory, gender differentiation in agricultural systems, heritage, and intellectual property rights. In Situ Versus Ex Situ Agro-biodiversity Preservation The successful preservation of seed genetic diversity through seed banking is predicated on successful long-term storage under optimal, controlled conditions, including steady cold temperatures and minimal humidity. Seed banks tend to be infrastructure-heavy, with seed-drying machines, seed germination incubators, mediumand long-term cold storage facilities, test ﬁelds, and sufﬁcient staff (primarily scientists and technicians) to store the seeds themselves as well as information about those seeds (in databases), to conduct germination tests, and to grow out the collection when necessary to resave seed in order to regenerate and grow the bank’s collection. When stored in banks, seeds do not last forever, and each year fewer and fewer stored seeds will germinate (or sprout). Without dependable cold storage, regular germination tests, and regeneration efforts, a seed bank can become a tomb. Funding is thin for agro-biodiversity preservation efforts around the globe, and thus maintenance of seed bank infrastructure is challenging for most regions and countries. It is particularly a struggle for those countries that ride an economic line, those that are categorized as “more developed” but in actuality, lack the resources to fund their own work and infrastructure (such as Greece, a country in a region of disproportionately high biodiversity, yet with limited national, European Union, or international resources to devote to agro-biodiversity). Media attention to seed banking spiked in 2008 with the creation of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built into a mountainside in the permafrost on a Norwegian island between the mainland of Norway and the North Pole. The Vault is considered a “backup” seed bank, invulnerable to man- S 2190 made disasters (such as political instability that would lead to seed banks being looted for seed for cultivation and for food) or natural disasters (even in a power outage the permafrost exterior of the Vault would keep the collection frozen). Seed banks that send backups of their accessions to the Vault retain ownership of those accessions, much like a traditional ﬁnancial banking institution. The Svalbard facility is unmanned and, unlike traditional seed banks, its accessions are not shared with breeders, researchers, or farmers. As a complement and counterpoint to ex situ (off-site) seed banking conservation efforts are in situ, on-site, methods. In situ methods for agrobiodiversity conservation take place on farm and depend on well-trained farmers to cultivate, regenerate, and save seeds. Some see in in situ conservation programs the potential to improve farmers’ livelihood through increased market opportunity, by empowering farmers as the stewards and curators of both seed genetic diversity and of the knowledge base it takes to cultivate those varieties. In in situ preservation methods, farmers stand to beneﬁt from the process of conservation, particularly when farmers are given access to gene bank materials and are well-trained in cultivation for seed saving and in seed storage techniques and when investments are made in local agricultural infrastructure to bring agricultural yields to market (Brush 1999). In comparison with banked seed, seed conserved in situ is in a constant state of change, adapting to weather, soil, and pest conditions. Farmers’ priorities and preferences in seed selection also inﬂuence the pace and kind of change seen in seeds over plant generations. While most conservationists agree that both ex situ and in situ methods have a place in a broad agro-biodiversity strategy, advocates of ex situ conservation note that certain plant characteristics and gene expressions are lost in in situ approaches (through continued seed adaptation and farmer selection), while in situ advocates note that in ex situ approaches, seed genetics remain too static and unresponsive to the conditions in which they might someday be called upon to grow. Participatory plant breeding (PPB) has emerged as a collaborative model that engages Seed Banking, Seed Saving, and Cultivating Local Varieties producers as plant breeders, enabling farmers to set the goals and target outcomes of the breeding process and deﬁne the characteristics they need, granting them control over plant genetic resources, building their technical expertise, and often resulting in new products, markets, or supply chains. It is a response to the lack of agency many farmers experience in the mainstream seed marketplace, in which approximately ﬁve companies control an estimated 75% of the global vegetable seed market. PPB commonly brings together seed bankers, plant breeders, consumers, policy makers, and players across food supply chains (distributors, processors, marketing experts). This approach is most often implemented in and is most impactful in agricultural systems that are heterogeneous, smaller scale, and operating on marginal lands/soils or otherwise high-risk farming systems (Brush 1999). Community Seed Banking, Gender, Knowledge, and Memory In addition to national, multinational, and university research stations and breeding programs, there are numerous NGOs internationally that store and catalogue seeds; cultural organizations that celebrate and promote agricultural products and practices surrounding local varieties; and grassroots networks of farmers and their advocates who actively preserve, save, and distribute traditional seed varieties. Though these groups’ motivations and strategies may vary, they share the goal of preserving agro-biodiversity for its known and unknown future potential uses. Community seed banking is a broad term that covers a range of seed saving/banking organizational typologies, including those described above. Community seed banking, seed saving, or seed library initiatives are a complement and a counterpoint to formal seed banks, the infrastructure and accessions of which are not open to or available to the public at large. Researchers and agro-biodiversity advocates describe the concept of formal versus informal seed systems as a framework for understanding seed-saving networks, approaches, and impacts. Seed Banking, Seed Saving, and Cultivating Local Varieties A “seed system,” whether formal or informal, includes all stakeholders involved in a variety of functions related to seeds, including breeding, processing, storage, packing, quality assurance, marketing, research, distribution, certiﬁcation, cataloguing, growing, and regeneration. These complex systems also encompass the technology, policy, organizational structures, logistics, infrastructure, and regulations that deﬁne seeds, from development to sale to use (Mgonja 2011). Social scientists who study seed systems (particularly those of developing nations) have noted that formal seed systems include formal organizations, agencies, entities, and infrastructures (in the sectors of education, government, business, and science). These formal systems are described as predominantly men’s domain and tend to disproportionately beneﬁt men. Conversely, women are seen operating primarily in informal or traditional seed systems that function primarily at the community or household level: globally, in family farming operations, the labor shifts that have followed increased farm mechanization have often resulted in a shift of seed selection, saving, and management responsibilities to women. Recent research has shown that many women-operated informal seed systems (Sperling et al. 2006) in less developed countries are transforming into small-scale seed businesses that are increasingly resulting in high-quality, consistent seed. These differences are signiﬁcant for reasons of access, economics, agency, and power; they are also signiﬁcant drivers of seed variety selection and, thus, which plant genetic resources are conserved. Farmer seed selection preferences as well as the kind of knowledge retained about those varieties/selections are differentiated by gender and other demographic factors (including age, socioeconomic proﬁle, religion, and ethnicity). For example, a multi-sited study in Africa and Asia conducted by the United National Food and Agriculture Organization revealed that men tend to select for varieties that mature early, form strong seed heads, and other characteristics that better serve commercial marketplaces. Women on the other hand selected based on characteristics more relevant to family food security than 2191 markets, including how plants performed and adapted to climate conditions, nutritional qualities, taste, and high yields (Mgonja 2011). Since the 1980s, there has existed a movement advocating for cultural memory banking alongside seed banking, to acknowledge and record (often through oral history and interview processes) the intimate connections people and communities have with their crops and crop practices. A memory bank includes detailed information on a community’s agricultural methods, planting, harvesting, postharvest technologies, seed variety characteristics, tools, storage methods, soil types, and uses of speciﬁc crops (Nazarea 2006). This movement is particularly signiﬁcant as most seed banks lack sufﬁcient resources to adequately collect and database ethnographic information about seeds. As a result, banks often know little about the characteristics of their collection, how those seeds perform when planted, or whether multiple accessions might be genetically identical yet referred to by different names in different regions. When seed banks collaborate with farmers on in situ or participatory plant breeding initiatives, this lack of information effectively means that farmers themselves must absorb the ﬁnancial risk and invest the time in learning the behaviors of seed varieties that, in comparison with modern improved plant varieties commonly sold by seed companies, are likely to require more farmer labor. Ethics and Rights in Seed Breeding and Banking A geopolitical reality is that crop biodiversity is not distributed evenly across the globe; rather, it is concentrated in what the early twentieth-century Russian scientist Nikolai Vavilov identiﬁed as centers of biodiversity (Nabhan 2011). In terms of plant genetic resources (PGR), regions that are rich in ﬁnancial or infrastructural resources tend to be “gene poor,” and vice versa. As a result of this imbalance, there has been a long history of thought and policy related to whether and how maintainers of plant genetic resources ought to be compensated for their work and their contribution S 2192 to PGR management (Fowler and Mooney 1990; Cummings 2009). These market-based approaches to compensation however are complicated by the fact that most of the beneﬁts that PGR maintainers’ work confers are public, whereas the seed and genetic resource industry is deeply concentrated and driven by intellectual property and patent law that favors “improvement” over preservation (Fowler and Mooney 1990). Fundamental to American property rights law (and shared by the laws of many more developed nations) is the argument that it is labor applied to resources, not the resources themselves, that creates value. Within that conceptual framework, compensation would not be due to farmers who protect and maintain raw plant genetic resources that end up as accessions to seed banks. But once breeders access that raw material and develop newly bred strains with it, the material is considered improved and thus valuable. Of course, in the case of PGR, landraces are the result of not just generations of adaptation to nature but also generations of farmer labor and selection. These legal structures limit not just compensation potential for PGR maintenance but also farmers’ access to seeds and genetic materials themselves. Several policy-related highlights from the United States and global history of the ﬂow of rights to plant genetic resources follow. In 1930, the United States passed the Plant Patent Act, which for the ﬁrst time gave plant breeders patent control over newly bred varieties of plants that asexually reproduce. In 1970, the Plant Variety Protection Act passed in the United States. This intellectual property statute granted plant breeders 25 years of control over plant varieties that sexually reproduce, based on the breeders’ ability to prove ability to prove that the variety was novel, uniform, and stabile. Perhaps the most signiﬁcant exemption written into this Act granted farmers the right to save their own seed from these bred varieties and even to sell seeds to each other. As a result of these exemptions, in the United States, there were high rates of farmer seed saving, even among farmers of commodity crops, through the early 1980s (Kloppenburg 2005). Seed Banking, Seed Saving, and Cultivating Local Varieties Around the same time, in 1971, on an international scale as part of the Green Revolution, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) was created with support from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. Headquartered in Rome but operating autonomously, the CGIAR built 15 research centers around the world, centralized in Vavilov’s centers of biodiversity and, thus, concentrated in the global geopolitical south. CGIAR was and is devoted to increasing global food security through management of natural resources, especially plant genetic resources. While advances at CGIAR research stations have been much celebrated (including breeding programs that improved yields and in some cases nutritional proﬁles of a range of crops), the organization has also been criticized for institutionalizing the ﬂow of plant genetic resources, power over those resources, and access to the value of those resources from less to more developed countries (Kloppenburg 2005). In 1983, under pressure from the developing world, the United Nations FAO drafted an International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture that included a clause that identiﬁed plant genetic resources as the “common heritage of mankind.” In practice, this clause was a strike against efforts for compensation to producers and maintainers, as plant genetic resources found within one nation’s borders or one community’s property lines could not necessarily be considered privately owned (Fowler and Mooney 1990). Meanwhile in the United States, in 1985, the ﬁrst utility patent (a patent structure that exists outside of the Plant Patent Act) was granted on a plant: corn. This was signiﬁcant because utility patents cover not just the plant variety itself but all the component parts of that variety and because, unlike the Plant Patent Act, utility patents do not include exemptions for farmer seed saving. The farmer seed saving exemption was then removed from the Plant Variety Protection Act in 1994, severely limiting US farmers’ right to select and save seed and paving the way for the patent-based and litigation-heavy system that has deﬁned the implementation of biotechnology and Seed Banking, Seed Saving, and Cultivating Local Varieties plant genetic modiﬁcation (as opposed to traditional seed breeding methodology which has been the subject of this article) (Kloppenburg 2005). In 1989, a UN FAO resolution made landrace maintenance worthy of compensation, and an international fund was created to fund that compensation. However, contributions to that fund were voluntary and never signiﬁcant. In 1992, the International Convention on Biodiversity was drafted without inclusion of provisions for farmers’ rights (seed saving rights, speciﬁcally), a move that some historians have noted effectively ended the international discussion on “common heritage” and compensation. The UN FAO’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, entered into law in 2004, sought to harmonize and update the 1983 International Undertaking for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture with the Convention on Biodiversity. The treaty includes stronger language on farmers’ rights than the undertaking that preceded it, as well as a mandate on proﬁt sharing for cultivar developed from genetic materials borrowed from gene or seed banks. However, it does not cover all key food and forage crops (Cummings 2009). Marketing Landrace Seeds and the Foods They Yield Internationally, the seed trade is a very tightly controlled and standardized industry in order to guarantee farmers and seed buyers a uniform, consistent, reliable, and predictable product. Since the 1970s, the European Union, for example, has overseen the marketing and dissemination of seeds in its member countries through its Common Catalogue. Each member country produces a national catalogue of seeds that has passed rigorous uniformity standards, and these national catalogues are then compiled into the Common Catalogue. Seed that does not pass these rigorous standards and does not appear in the Common Catalogue cannot be sold. Though landrace seeds possess characteristics that plant scientists, farmers, and consumers celebrate (such as 2193 drought resistance, ability to perform well in marginal soils, or unique tastes, shapes, or colors), few perform in a uniform or predictable way. Thus trade of landrace seed itself – and opportunities to employ market-based solutions to increase trade of landrace seed – is limited and at times illegal (Cohen 2011). Absent international political or ﬁnancial structures to compensate maintainers of plant genetic resources or to develop strong markets for landrace seed, several market-based solutions have arisen to promote the foods these seeds yield, the most notable of which is geographic indication (GI) standards and labeling. Country by country, there are different legal structures under which GI is practiced. Ultimately, a geographic indication scheme is a legally deﬁned set of standards for food and beverage products, the goal of which is to enable producers (farmers and producers of value-added products) to differentiate their products in the marketplace based on place, origin, heritage, production processes, and tradition, rather than making them compete on traditional market criteria of volume, marketing, or pricing. For consumers, the purpose of a GI label is to guarantee a link between a product’s origin; that place of origin’s natural resources, culture, processes, and practices; and overall product quality. While landrace conservation, plant genetic resource maintenance, and agro-biodiversity are not explicit objectives of GI, some economic research has drawn links between genetic resource conversation and the creation of strong GI-based value chains. GI schemes have been found to support agro-biodiversity by making crop varieties and the unique food products they contribute to be economically viable, and when those varieties are economically viable, farmer’s plant and preserve them. There have also been documented instances where GIs have resulted in negative impacts for plant genetic resources, for example, by highlighting products that specialize in certain landraces to the exclusion of others (Larson 2007). Still, successfully marketed GIs can result in recovery and reinvigoration of endangered plant genetic resources themselves and markets for products utilizing those resources, in particular, when genetic and crop management is a close S 2194 cross-sector collaboration between the producer, a gene bank, food supply chain stakeholders, and regional agricultural research institutions. Summary The world’s estimated 1500 seed banks hold millions of accessions representing the plant genetic resources that form the foundation of plant breeding and cultivar development for agriculture’s future. In light of the dearth of international resources devoted to maintaining seed bank infrastructure and shifting climate patterns that impact agricultural performance and seed variety choice, formal seed banking alone is essential but insufﬁcient. In combination with participatory plant breeding, in situ preservation methods, informal seed saving and distribution networks (and international policy that supports farmers’ right to engage in seed saving and trade), memory banking of agricultural ethnographic and plant physiology data, and strong value chain development for the foods these banked varieties can yield, seed banks are the crucial foundation of an integrated plant genetic resources preservation strategy. Cross-References ▶ Biodiversity and Global Development ▶ Climate Change, Ethics, and Food Production ▶ Farmer-Scientist Knowledge Exchange ▶ Food and Place ▶ Intellectual Property Rights and Trade in the Food and Agricultural Sectors ▶ Political Consumerism: Consumer Choice, Information, and Labeling ▶ Saving Seeds Seed Crops Brush, S. B. (Ed.). (1999). Genes in the ﬁeld: On-farm conservation of crop diversity. Boca Raton: Lewis Publishers with Bioversity International. Cohen, S. (2011). Greece: A portrait in seeds. Gastronomica, 11(4), 66–73. Cummings, C. H. (2009). Uncertain peril: Genetic engineering and the future of seeds. Boston: Beacon Press. Fowler, C., & Mooney, P. (1990). Shattering: Food, politics and the loss of genetic diversity. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Kloppenburg, J. R. (2005). First the seed: The political economy of plant biotechnology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Larson, J. (2007). Relevance of geographical indications and designations of origin for the sustainable use of genetic resources. Rome: Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species. Mgonja, M. (2011). Seeds without borders. Policy brief series (Issue I, Vol. XI). Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Network. http://www.fanrpan.org/ documents/d01228/Policy_Brief_Series_Issue1_Marc h_2011.pdf. Accessed 12 Oct 2013. Nabhan, G. P. (2011). Where our food comes from: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov’s quest to end famine. Washington, DC: Island Press. Nazarea, V. (2006). Cultural memory and biodiversity. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Sperling, L., Remington, T., & Haugen, J. M. (2006). Seed aid for seed security: Advice for practitioners. Practice briefs 1–10. Rome: International Center for Tropical Agriculture and Catholic Relief Services. http://www. fsnnetwork.org/resource-library/agriculture/seed-aidseed-security-advice-security-practitioners. Accessed 12 Oct 2013. Seed Crops ▶ Hybridity in Agriculture Seed Saving ▶ Seed Banking, Seed Saving, and Cultivating Local Varieties References Anonymous. (1999). Women – Users, preservers and managers of agrobiodiversity. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. http://www.fao.org/sd/ nrm/Women%20-%20Users.pdf. Accessed 1 Oct 2013. Self-Determination and Food Policy ▶ Food Sovereignty and the Global South Short Food Supply Chains Self-Sufficiency ▶ Homesteading ▶ Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics ▶ Subsistence Orientation and Food 2195 Sharing Economy in Food and Agriculture ▶ New Economy, Food, and Agriculture Sharing Food Semi-subsistence Cultivation ▶ Food Altruism ▶ Saving Seeds Sharing Food in Public Space Senses ▶ Food Not Bombs ▶ Taste, Distaste, and Food Shechita/Ritual Slaughter Servers ▶ Restaurant Workers ▶ Food Preparation, Cooking, and Ritual in Judaism Sex Shehitah ˙˙ ▶ Literature, Food, and Gender ▶ Judaism and Food Sex and Food Shifting Cultivation ▶ Food Worlds, Film, and Gender ▶ Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Sexuality Shmeat ▶ Literature, Food, and Gender ▶ Synthetic Meat Shared Use of Farm Assets Short Food Supply Chains ▶ Equipment Sharing in Agriculture ▶ Alternative Food Networks S 2196 Simplicity ▶ Homesteading Sky Farming ▶ Vertical Farms in Horticulture Skyscraper Farming ▶ Vertical Farms in Horticulture Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Jacques Pollini Responsive Forest Governance Initiative, Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy, Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA Synonyms Shifting cultivation; Swidden cultivation Introduction Slash-and-burn agriculture (Peters and Neuenschwander 1988; Palm et al. 2005), also called swidden (Mertz et al. 2009) or shifting agriculture or cultivation (Nye and Greenland 1960; Robison and McKean 1992; Aweto 2013), typically refers to land uses where a cropping period is rotated with a fallow period that is long enough to enable the growing of dense, woody vegetation and where the biomass is eliminated from the plot by cutting, slashing, and burning it, prior to the next cultivation cycle. It is generally considered an Simplicity extensive land use, maintained through time by expansion over uncultivated land following population growth (extensiﬁcation), in contrast with more intensive land uses, where the biomass is incorporated to the soil through plowing or other practices. It encompasses a great variety of systems (Schlippe 1956; Conklin 1957; Miracle 1968; Rappaport 1984; Dove 1985; Fresco 1986; Ramakrishnan 1992; Schmidt-Vogt 1999; Denevan 2001; Shaoting and Fiskesjo 2001; Whitmore and Turner 2001; Palm et al. 2005; Pollini 2007; Cairns 2007; Saxena et al. 2007; Mertz et al. 2009; Tr^an et al. 2009; Cairns 2014) that differ by the ecosystems being cleared, the landscapes being produced, the duration of cultivation and fallow periods, the management of fallow land, the crops being cultivated, and the techniques being used. The terms slash-and-burn, swidden, and shifting cultivation are often used interchangeably, although they outline different aspects of the system. Slash-and-burn refers to the way the biomass is eliminated after clearing: by setting it aﬁre, in contrast with slash-and-mulch systems (Thurston 1997), usually practiced in areas with no dry season, where the biomass is left to decompose. The term “swidden” refers to the act of burning a biomass in order to cultivate it. It is the closest synonym to slash-and-burn and is often preferred to this term, because it does not outline the acts of “slashing” and “burning,” which would be conducive to negative prejudices. But it is rarely used in cases of slash-and-burn systems with short fallow. Shifting cultivation evokes the idea that ﬁelds are shifted from one location to another and that the land is not permanently cultivated. It encompasses both slash-andburn and slash-and-mulch systems but, like for swidden cultivation, is rarely employed in case of systems with short fallow, where cultivation is close to permanent. It is also misguiding as it suggests that the land is abandoned and idle after a few years of cultivation, which is generally not the case. In this entry, the term slash-and-burn agriculture is adopted in order to encompass systems with long or short, herbaceous or woody fallow, where the biomass is actually being slashed and burnt. Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Characterization Slash-and-burn agriculture is a widely adopted and sometimes inescapable strategy to practice agriculture in forested landscapes. Most staple annual crops require full exposure to the sun in order to grow; hence areas of forest need to be cleared to establish new ﬁelds. This offers great sanitary conditions to crops because their main competitors (weeds) and threats (pests and diseases) are destroyed, except for wild animals if some forest remains around the ﬁeld. Burning the biomass further provides nutrients that deposit on the soil in the form of ashes. After one to a few years of cultivation, weeds, pests, and diseases start to appear and nutrients are washed away or have been utilized by the crop. The ﬁeld is then temporarily left to fallow, but will be cleared and cultivated again once a secondary forest or sufﬁcient biomass will have regrown. The fallow period usually lasts 3–25 years, depending on climate and edaphic conditions and the techniques being used. Its purpose is to reconstitute a stock of biomass that can be mobilized again through burning and to eliminate weeds, pests, and diseases. A longer period is technically unnecessary and would result in additional burdens for cutting larger trees. A shorter period is usually conducive to disappearance of woody vegetation, which triggers a fertility crisis or signiﬁcant technical changes. When the vegetation is dominated by grasses, the use of ﬁre is abandoned or a slow burning is practiced in order to reduce nutrient and carbon losses. Vegetation is peeled off the land together with its root mat, stacked into heaps, sometimes covered with soil, and charred. This technique, called “paring and burning,” differs from slash-and-burn and is not considered in this entry. Crops cultivated in slash-and-burn agriculture systems vary greatly. Several crops are associated, which gives to the ﬁeld a messy appearance, with stumps, incompletely burnt logs, and spared canopy trees littering the ﬁeld. But there is order in this heterogeneous environment. Farmers adapt to the heterogeneity of their ﬁelds by varying crop associations and spacing. They can plant 2197 shade-tolerant species (bananas, plantain, taro) under remaining trees, pumpkins and other vegetable on the most fertile spots, and cereals (corn, sorghum) and legumes in open areas. Perennial woody crops can also be planted, in which case they continue to grow during the fallow period. Useful natural trees are also favored, by being spared during the clearing and weeding, given some care during the fallow period, and sometimes actively planted. There is thus no straight line separating slash-and-burn agriculture from more intensive cultivation systems. Perennial crops like cocoa or coffee can be associated with annual crops after clearing. They succeed to these crops in the same way as would the fallow vegetation otherwise, until the aging plantation, which often takes the form of a forest with a closed canopy, is rejuvenated by starting a new cycle or remains as a permanent agricultural system called agroforest. In spite of its suitability to forest environments, slash-and-burn agriculture is rarely practiced alone. Most farmers combine it with other land uses like home gardens, irrigated ﬁelds, or permanent ﬁelds of perennial crops. Slash-and-burn farmers also typically practice hunting, gathering, and ﬁshing, activities whose importance is proportional to remaining forest cover. Economic Rationality Slash-and-burn agriculture is practiced all over the world in forest land with wet climates and low population density. This is not a coincidence. It is often the most rational land use in these conditions, and it can be maintained in spite of population growth as long as forest land remains, through extensiﬁcation. When population density is low, land is abundant while labor is usually a strong limiting factor to put more land into production. Like other economic agents, slash-and-burn agriculture farmers search for the maximization of output for a given level of input of the scarce resource, labor in their case. Slash-and-burn agriculture enables maximizing labor productivity for three main reasons: S 2198 • First, slash-and-burn agriculture with long fallow does not require much work once the crops have been sown. Clearing the forest requires heavy work but is done by men, who do not have to carry signiﬁcant domestic tasks, and is not constrained by tight deadline as it is done off season, during the dry period. Once the biomass has been burnt, crops are typically sown by men and women, the latter being often in charge of most maintenance operations until harvest, at least in African countries. Slash-and-burn agriculture with long fallows limits weed invasion because weeds typically grow less abundantly in primary or old secondary forests. This is probably the main advantage of the system and the main cause of its high labor productivity. This advantage is progressively lost with the reduction of the fallow period. The reason for abandoning the ﬁeld after a few years of cultivation is often weed invasion, rather than or as well as decreasing soil chemical fertility. Weeds may thus be the key constraint to adopting permanent cultivation, because of the labor required for weeding. • Second, slash-and-burn agriculture does not imply plowing the land, an operation that requires a lot of work if done manually. Crop roots do not need to penetrate deep into the soil as nutrients are concentrated close to the surface after the burning. Plowing would anyway be impossible or excessively burdensome because of the dense root mat and the many stumps that cover the soil. • Third, even though yield (output per acre) maximization is not the purpose, slash-andburn systems usually have quite high yield at least when practiced with long fallow. Fertility depends on the amount of biomass that can be burnt, as much as on the soil’s chemical properties. Even soils reputed to be infertile like ferralsols can yield high if a long fallow can be practiced. The Limits of the System Slash-and-burn agriculture is generally regarded as a sustainable land use when long fallow can be Slash-and-Burn Agriculture practiced, that is, when the initial fertility can be reconstituted after the cultivation cycle. This is generally possible with a population density below 35 inhabitants per square kilometer (Mazoyer and Roudart 2006), although it greatly depends on ecological conditions. When population density increases, which can be caused by high birth rate and/or migration, the fallow period typically decreases. Fewer nutrients accumulate in the biomass and are returned to the soil in the form of ash. With a very short fallow (1–3 years), the vegetation is dominated by herbaceous plants whose roots do not penetrate deep into the soil. This root mat can slow down leaching by capturing nutrients, but it does not bring additional nutrients to the soil, as do trees whose roots access the bedrock where mineralization occurs. A shorter fallow period also favors weed invasion, pests, and diseases. The addition of these effects can trigger a fertility and/or a labor crisis. Yield per acre decreases, while labor requirement to cultivate the same surface increases. Beyond a certain threshold, the system cannot be sustained. It does not produce enough food to provide the caloric intake required for the work of the next growing season, unless technical changes occur. The system must evolve. New techniques and strategies are thus required, and created or adopted, to escape the dead end. The Evolution of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Systems Slash-and-burn agriculture is probably one of the oldest agricultural land uses. It has been practiced worldwide, from the tropics to temperate regions, and is still practiced widely in the tropics. But in many regions, it has been abandoned, sometimes for centuries or millennia, and alternative land uses developed (Boserup 1965; Angelsen and Kaimowitz 2001; Brookﬁeld 2001; Mazoyer and Roudart 2006; Cairns 2007). Looking at history and ongoing changes enables us to anticipate future land-use changes in areas where slashand-burn agriculture is still practiced. Two main strategies are adopted by farmers when they face the limits of slash-and-burn Slash-and-Burn Agriculture systems. They combine slash-and-burn agriculture with other land uses and activities, and they progressively transform the slash-and-burn system itself. They usually combine these two strategies, which we will detail separately here. The Combination of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture with Other Land Uses and Activities Slash-and-burn systems provide staple plus a broad range of other products. But they are often practiced alongside other land uses and activities, even in the absence of crisis. Fruit trees are frequently planted in proximity to dwellings, while permanent gardens of vegetable and sometimes staple crops are established on the most fertile soils. Slash-and-burn farmers typically practice hunting, ﬁshing, and gathering and raise animals. Livestock substitutes to wild animals when hunting success is low, that is, when higher population density increases. Women (or, in some groups, men) make and sell various crafts like baskets or woven mats, an activity that requires a lot of work but not a lot of energy as it is done at home. The search for seasonal jobs and temporary or permanent outmigration are also common practices. When the fallow period reduces and slash-andburn agricultural ﬁelds do not produce enough, all these activities, except hunting, ﬁshing, and gathering who decrease when forest resources decline, can become the most important sources of food and income. A frequent pattern is that when the crisis occurs, farmers move down to cultivate bottom land. Slash-and-burn agriculture is mostly practiced on hillsides because this type of land drains better, which is an asset in wet climates. Bottom land, to the contrary, is often avoided because of ﬂooding risk and heavy wet soils. But when erosion occurs, nutrients are lost on slopes and accumulate on bottom land, which becomes increasingly attractive. To cultivate bottom land typically requires heavy labor investment, though, in order to drain the excess water or to irrigate the land, in order to escape dependence on rain and avoid ﬂooding risk. But cultivation can then be 2199 done during the dry season, which spreads the labor burden more evenly over the year. A second frequent pattern, which often combines with the ﬁrst, is the establishment of perennial crops on eroded slopes not suitable anymore for slash-and-burn agriculture. Perennial crops are often cash crops like cocoa, coffee, palm oil trees, rubber trees, cloves, and cinnamon. This strategy is often associated with the development of infrastructure and better connection to markets. The Progressive Transformation of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Systems Alongside this diversiﬁcation, reduced fallow periods can trigger, or contribute to trigger, a deep transformation of the slash-and-burn systems themselves. Under a certain threshold, the fallow is too short to enable the development of woody perennials. The stumps of large trees rot progressively, and the root mat becomes less dense. Hence it becomes possible to practice paring and burning and/or to plow the land. When this situation occurs, plowing tools are usually already known, because plowing is practiced in neighbor villages with higher population density, or in one of the systems that farmers practiced already alongside slash-and-burn agriculture. Plowing enables extirpating the roots of the most invasive remaining perennials. This cleaning of the underground through plowing constitutes, after clearing, a “second step” in the long-term process of preparing land for permanent, intensive cultivation. The ﬁeld is then cleansed from both aerial biomass, which is eliminated through slashing and burning, and soil woody biomass, eliminated through short fallow and plowing. After the colonization of the forest frontier, a “second frontier,” the soil, has been opened and is ready to be exploited at greater depth, which compensates for the lower nutrient level produced by burning a short fallow. Typically, farmers then adopt a more complex and longer crop rotation. They often plant cereals, followed by or associated with legumes, followed by tubers, before leaving the plot into a short fallow dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants. In certain condition, S 2200 however (fragile soils, steep slopes, heavy rain), plowing requires improvements like terracing in order to be practiced. As intensiﬁcation proceeds, new strategies to maintain soil fertility need to be adopted. In slashand-burn systems, nutrients are brought to the plot by fallow vegetation, which pumps them deep into the soil. They are made available to the crops in the form of ash, through burning. With short herbaceous fallow or no fallow, this nutrient supply is lost. At ﬁrst, a more efﬁcient nutrient management (crop rotation, plowing, paring and burning, zero burning) can sufﬁce to maintain decent yield. But in the long term, a new source of nutrients needs to be provided. Typically, farmers develop animal husbandry, taking advantages of the new grazing resources of short fallow dominated by grasses, and start to use animal manure. At ﬁrst, they observe that crops yield more when cultivated in a coral so they rotate corrals and ﬁelds. But with increasing pressure on land and nutrient need, they start to actively manage manure by collecting it in corrals and transporting it to ﬁelds. If animals graze in ﬁelds, this represents an improved nutrient management but not a signiﬁcant net gain since nutrients are taken from grass growing on the same land as the crops. If they graze in uncultivated pastures, this represents a net gain through horizontal transfer of nutrients by animals from pastures to agricultural land, in the form of manure, which replaces the vertical transfer by fallow trees, in the form of ash Mazoyer and Roudart (2006). Constraints to the Evolution of the System The evolution of farming systems outlined above has been observed, with very similar patterns, in many regions of the world. It is encouraged by necessity when population density increases. But it does not automatically occur as it also faces strong constraints. One key constraint is the low investment capacity of slash-and-burn farmers. The practice of slash-and-burn agriculture relies on bestowed natural capital. It simply requires an ax and a Slash-and-Burn Agriculture machete and generates a high output for a relatively low labor input, at least when long fallow can be practiced and when hunting and gathering contribute to food security. Other land uses require more efforts, to plow the land, eliminate the weeds, and proceed to land improvements. As long as they are practiced with a hoe and other manual tools, they typically require more work for the same output. More efﬁcient tools need to be adopted (such as a plow, a cart, and a pair of oxen to produce manure and pull these tools), or significantly higher yields need to be obtained (through the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides) to render the new systems more labor efﬁcient. The acquisition of such equipment or inputs, that is, the substitution of a human-made productive capital for the natural capital, is probably the main constraint to phasing out slash-andburn agriculture. It is rendered difﬁcult by the fact that slash-and-burn agriculture is often practiced in remote areas with limited connection to market and few income generation opportunities to farmers, although this is not a rule. There are many cases where slash-and-burn agriculture has been abandoned without adopting animal draft or chemical inputs, but farmer communities in this situation are usually very poor and food insecure. The development of perennial crops, however, is an exception to this general pattern. When perennial cash crops are available and can be sold a good price, they can sustain a family with limited labor input and using a relatively small surface. As long as land is not an overly scarce resource, perennial crops can be associated with indigenous species that provide a broad range of goods and services and render the system more resilient to ecological stresses and economic shocks. Such systems, called agroforests, are developed progressively out of slash-and-burn systems and do not need signiﬁcant investments. But when land becomes scarce, they tend to be abandoned in favor of more intensively managed plantations that face the investment constraints described above. A second important constraint is the risk factor. The development of new systems creates new risks and requires the production and mastering of new knowledge in order to reduce these risks. Slash-and-Burn Agriculture This explains the preference of farmers to diversiﬁcation rather than specialization, and for a progressive transition during which both slash-andburn agriculture and the new system are practiced, rather than large investments and elimination of their traditional land uses. A third important constraint is the discount rate. When slash-and-burn systems are in a situation of crisis, food security is usually hardly achieved. In this context, investing labor for late reward is not an easy option, which often explains the reluctance to adopt conservation farming techniques. Environmental Impact The environmental impact of slash-and-burn agriculture is a very controversial issue, biased by political positions on both sides of the debate. Slash-and-burn agriculture requires clearing primary forest and leaving a secondary forest growing before clearing it for repeating the cycle. This clearing of forests is often criminalized by states and receive strong opposition and critique from organizations committed to biodiversity conservation, while the mosaic of primary and secondary forests that is typical of slash-and-burn agriculture landscapes is praised by social scientists and activists having sympathy for community or “traditional” ways of life. If one escapes this political ground, the reality is in fact quite simple. Slash-and-burn farmers clear primary forests, just like any other farmers willing to grow staple crops that demand sunlight. They clear more areas to obtain a given output than farmers practicing more intensive systems, but they do not clear the land permanently. For a given population with a given level of needs, slash-and-burn agriculture landscapes may have less primary forests and more secondary forests than more intensively cultivated ones. The environmental impact of each system, for a given output (ceteris paribus), thus depends on the value given to primary versus secondary forests. If biodiversity is to be conserved, it would be more rationale to cultivate less land, permanently, by adopting more intensive systems: the so-called 2201 “land-sparing” model. Primary forests are indeed mosaics of primary and secondary vegetation. They are pieces of land at various stages of vegetation development, because secondary succession occurs after the death and fall of large trees, so both early and late successional species would be conserved. Young secondary forests like those found in slash-and-burn agriculture landscapes, on the other hand, lack large stands of late successional species, because the complete secondary succession typically lasts a century or more in tropical forests. The reality is quite simple, but not that simple, however, which puts into question the landsparing model. The ceteris paribus clause makes sense if the purpose is to outline speciﬁc processes in a closed system, which is only the ﬁrst step of understanding realities, which are open systems. Variables cannot be isolated from each other in the real world, meaning that at some point, the ceteris paribus clause needs to be abandoned if science is to inform policy makers (Pollini 2007). In other words, the evolution from slash-andburn agriculture to alternative systems is not simply a change from using more land to using less land for the same output. Other changes can occur, like an increase in farmers’ needs and total output. Once investments are done and the labor productivity bottleneck mentioned above disappears, output per household can be doubled or more, and beneﬁts can be reinvested in the expansion of cultivated land. The formerly slash-and-burn agriculture landscape then becomes suddenly attractive. Outmigration decreases, while immigration increases, sometimes with the support of government incentives, and the forest frontier is pushed forward. The poorest farmers, who do not have sufﬁcient resources to follow this path, are often outcompeted by the most economically favored segments of the population. Poor farmers become socially marginalized and move to the ﬁrst line of the frontier where they continue practicing slash-and-burn agriculture with long fallows, which perpetuates the blame put on this land use, whereas the whole process was triggered by the combined effects of increasing cultivated area per farm and attracting more farmers, two frequent corollaries of intensiﬁcation. In the S 2202 worst case, the development of infrastructure attracts large-scale international investors who establish plantations to satisfy a virtually inﬁnite global demand, like palm oil plantations established for biofuel production. In sum, the transition from slash-and-burn agriculture to alternative land uses is part of an historical process that has multiple facets and is to be considered holistically if social and environmental improvements are to be achieved. Within this broader framework, slash-and-burn agriculture can be a cause of as well as a buffer against deforestation. Moreover, beyond the issue of deforestation, it must also be pointed out that slash-and-burn cultivation in self-sufﬁcient societies does not require a single drop of fossil fuel to be sustained, contrary to most of its so-called alternatives. Policies In most regions of the world where slash-and-burn agriculture is practiced, it is targeted by policy makers who aim to eliminate this practice, because of blames and prejudices regarding its environmental impact (Fairhead and Leach 1998), because of willingness to allocate forest land to other land uses and stakeholders, and because of ignorance about the context within which farmers cut trees. The domains of ignorance that characterize policy making are brieﬂy reviewed here. First, the proposed alternative land uses are usually designed based on the assumption that yield per acre matters, because obtaining high yield is the goal of most agronomists and extension agents working in agricultural projects. This is what they have been trained to do. The labor and investment bottlenecks and the risk and discount rate factors evoked above are usually overlooked, which leads to non-adoption of the proposed techniques, except for local elites, quite often foreigners or recent migrants, who already have some investment capacity. “Support” to slash-and-burn farmers then can favor a social differentiation or resource capture that contributes to the marginalization of slash-and-burn agriculture farmers and the persistence of their Slash-and-Burn Agriculture dependence on tapping natural resources, while the “successful” farmers who adopt intensive techniques invest their income in land acquisition and encourage further forest clearing. A second frequent mistake, or at least a counterproductive approach, is that the techniques being proposed are framed within a sustainability paradigm that assumes that resource stocks should be kept constant. It is argued, for instance, that forest biomass and the nutrient content of soils should not be reduced. This is at odd with the logic adopted by most economic agents, including smallholder farmers, who are committed to substituting resources once they are depleted, rather than maintaining their stock constant. If the shift to a new resource (B) can be achieved before the previous resource (A) is completely depleted, then the crisis can be avoided. Once resource B is adopted, resource A is relieved from pressure and can recover. This is what happens, for instance, in cases of forest transitions. If they adopted a more ﬂexible conception of sustainability, conservation and sustainable development organizations could provide support that help farmers to shift to resource B before resource A is completely depleted. Moreover, if it was accepted that the stock of resource A does not need to stay constant, then tapping into this stock could generate the means to build resource B. Nobody knows how long a given resource can last, and certainly no resource can last forever, but within policy time frames, this point should be taken into consideration. To illustrate this with a practical example, resource A can be land on hillsides where slashand-burn agriculture is typically practiced. Resource B can be bottom land. Farmers often shift from hillsides to bottom land when slashand-burn agriculture is in a situation of crisis because of short fallows. The depletion of resource A (nutrient losses through erosion) contributes to the building of resource B through the accumulation of nutrients in bottom land. If projects attempt by all means to maintain farming activities on hillsides, by designing new systems like contour lines, improved fallow, or other technologies that farmers do not adopt because of labor, investment, risk, and/or discount rate Slash-and-Burn Agriculture issues, then innovation and investment opportunities can be lost, and the transition to bottom land cultivation can be hampered. If support is allocated to improving bottom land instead, by realizing investments that farmers were already envisioning (terracing, irrigation schemes, supply of equipment like animal draft, development of livestock husbandry), then the transition can accelerate. With higher support to bottom land cultivation, the shift to new land uses will be faster, and more resources will remain on slopes in the end. Land will not be degraded to the point that vegetation cannot recover, and forest fragments will remain from where the original ecosystem will be able to recolonize space. In a false paradox, hillside vegetation would recover better if nobody cared about it and supported denaturalizing further the bottom land instead. Third, fallow land in slash-and-burn system is often considered idle land by policy makers, as reﬂected in the misguiding term shifting cultivation. Fields do not exactly shift in “shifting” (slash-and-burn) agricultural systems. They are permanently established but alternate periods of cropping with periods of fallowing, with fuzzy boundaries between the two. Fallow land is often actively managed, through enrichment with useful trees and care of remaining cultivated perennials. It is typically managed by the same individual families who grow the crops, unless it remains uncultivated beyond the typical fallow period, in which case the plot can be reintroduced into community land. Overlooking this fact, policy makers are tempted to deny the right of slash-and-burn farmers over fallow land, which is conducive to misguided policies that further marginalize them. How, then, should slash-and-burn agriculture be addressed by policy makers? First, it should not be criminalized or blamed and should not even be considered as a land use which, comparatively with others, deforests more land. There is quite a broad agreement that large-scale deforestation is mostly triggered by commodity booms and largescale agribusiness investments on forest frontiers, from the development of cattle ranching and soybean cultivation in the Amazon to palm oil production in Southeast Asia. In this context, securing the rights of local farmers practicing 2203 slash-and-burn agriculture could be a buffer against large-scale deforestation, like is securing the rights of hunting and gathering groups. Second, the transition to more intensive land uses could be favored by increasing the range of landuse options available to smallholder farmers, from access to new tools and inputs to the so-called ecological intensiﬁcation. The latter has the great advantage of relying on human labor and natural capital rather than ﬁnancial investments and further artiﬁcialization of the environment. But it remains doubtful whether it could maintain a satisfactory level of labor productivity, and hence a satisfactory livelihood, unless high-value products can be sold and/or fair trade markets can be captured. Smallholder farmers can be more easily seduced by productivity leaps permitted by animal draft and the use of chemical inputs than by ecological intensiﬁcation. They are willing to buy more goods, send their children to good schools, access healthcare, reach middle-class livelihood, and enter into “modernity” like other citizens. There is a risk that an excessive emphasis on ecological intensiﬁcation leads to denying them the right to engage more conventional, straightforward pathway to “development,” and one has to be cautious about this pitfall. Summary Slash-and-burn agriculture is a land use that represents an early step in agricultural history. It is practiced in locations where forest resources are still abundant. It typically implies the conversion of primary forests into a mosaic of secondary forests at various stages of development, but not the deﬁnitive elimination of forest. Primary forest clearing occurs progressively, though, as a way to maintain the same fallow period in spite of population growth. When no primary forest remains (or when the remaining primary forests are all protected, by local customs or conservation policies), the fallow period reduces, secondary forests eventually disappear too, and new techniques emerge or are adopted. The natural capital is progressively replaced by man-made productive capital, or the system enters into a crisis, depending S 2204 on whether the constraints to these changes can be levered. In theory, the new land uses that emerge enable preserving more forest, because they require the use of less land for producing the same output. In practice, they trigger or are accompanied by a series of more radical changes like the development of infrastructure, migrations, ﬁnancial investments, and new consumption patterns, which typically provoke larger-scale deforestation. In spite of this, slash-and-burn agriculture continues to be blamed for being the main cause of deforestation. Shortsighted policy makers fail to contextualize the act of cutting trees and are biased by modernization myths that see slash-and-burn agriculture as a primitive land use. Slash-andburn agriculture is a primeval land use in the sense that it preceded others in many regions of the world. But no value judgment should be attached to this statement. At a time of increasing doubts about mainstream development pathways, slash-and-burn agriculture should be seen as an opportunity not to fall into productivist, unsustainable models. But this is not to say that slash-and-burn farmers should remain trapped with this “primeval” land use. They have the right to evolve and change, as did other societies before. In our globalized society, they should be given access to the same range of economic and technical options that are made available to other farmers. In between the quest for sustainability and attempts to escape from poverty, smallholder farmers practicing slash-and-burn agriculture must be paid a great attention as they will continue to be key targets of conservation and development programs. If proper decisions are to be taken, that is, if they are to be given the possibility to control their future and increase their production while generating public goods, they will have to be listened to, away from prejudiced views that criminalize or idealize their choices, depending on which political agenda frames the debate. Cross-References ▶ Biodiversity ▶ Brazilian Agriculture Slash-and-Burn Agriculture ▶ Conservation Agriculture: Farmer Adoption and Policy Issues ▶ Economy of Agriculture and Food ▶ Food Security in Systemic Context ▶ Political Agronomy ▶ Resource Conﬂict, Food, and Agriculture ▶ Sub-Saharan African Agriculture References Angelsen, A., & Kaimowitz, D. (2001). Agricultural technologies and tropical deforestation. Wallingford: CAB International. Aweto, A. O. (2013). Shifting cultivation and secondary succession in the tropics. Wallingford: CAB International. Boserup, E. (1965). The conditions of agricultural growth: The economics of agrarian change under population pressure. Chicago: Aldine. Brookﬁeld, H. (2001). Exploring agrodiversity. New York: Columbia University Press. Cairns, M. (Ed.). (2007). Voices from the forest: Integrating indigenous knowledge into sustainable farming. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. Cairns, M. F. (Ed.). (2014). Shifting cultivation and environmental change: Indigenous people, agriculture and forest conservation. London: Routledge. Conklin, H. C. (1957). Hanunoo agriculture: A report on an integral system of shifting cultivation in the Philippines (FAO Forestry Development Paper No 12). Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. de Schlippe, P. (1956). Shifting cultivation in Africa: The Zande system of agriculture. London: Routledge. Denevan, W. M. (Ed.). (2001). Cultivated landscapes of native Amazonia and the Andes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dove, M. (1985). Swidden agriculture in Indonesia: The subsistence strategies of the Kalimantan Kantu’. Berlin/New York: Mouton. Fairhead, J., & Leach, M. (1998). Reframing deforestation: Global analyses and local realities. London: Routledge. Fresco, L. O. (1986). Cassava in shifting cultivation: A systems approach to agricultural technology development in Africa. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute. Mazoyer, M., & Roudart, L. (2006). A history of world agriculture: From the neolithic age to the current crisis. New York: Monthly Review Press. Mertz, O., Padoch, C., Fox, J., Cramb, R., Leisz, S., Lam, N. T., & Vien, T. D. (Eds.). (2009). Special issue on swidden agriculture in SE Asia. Human Ecology, 37(3), 259–264. Miracle, M. P. (1968). Agriculture in the Congo basin. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Nye, P. H., & Greenland, D. J. (1960). The soil under shifting cultivation. Bucks: Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux. Slow Food Palm, C. A., Vosti, S. A., Sanchez, P. A., & Ericksen, P. J. (Eds.). (2005). Slash-and-burn agriculture: The search for alternatives. New York: Columbia University Press. Peters, W. J., & Neuenschwander, L. F. (1988). Slash and burn: Farming in the third world forest. Moscow: University of Idaho Press. Pollini, J. (2007). Slash-and-burn cultivation and deforestation in the Malagasy rain forests: Representations and realities. Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca. http://www.scribd.com/doc/26790856/Deforestationin-Madagascar Ramakrishnan, P. S. (1992). Shifting agriculture and sustainable development: An interdisciplinary study from north-eastern India. Carnforth: Parthenon Publishing Group and UNESCO. Rappaport, R. (1984). Pigs for the ancestors: Rituals in the ecology of a New Guinea people. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press. Robison, D. M., & McKean, S. J. (1992). Shifting cultivation and alternatives: An annotated bibliography, 1972–1989. Wallingford: CAB International. Saxena, K. G., Liand, L., & Rerkasem, K. (2007). Shifting agriculture in Asia: Implications for environmental conservation and sustainable livelihood. Dehra Dun: Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh. Schmidt-Vogt, D. (1999). Swidden farming and fallow vegetation in Northern Thailand. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Shaoting, Y., & Fiskesjo, M. (2001). People and forests: Yunnan swidden agriculture in human-ecological perspective. Kunming: Yunnan Education Publishing House. Thurston, H. D. (1997). Slash/mulch systems: Sustainable methods for tropical agriculture. Boulder: Westview Press. Tr^an, Đ. V., Rambo, A. T., & Nguyên, T. N. (2009). Farming with ﬁre and water: The human ecology of a composite swiddening community in Vietnam’s northern mountains. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press. Whitmore, T. M., & Turner, B. L., II (Eds.). (2001). Cultivated landscapes of middle America on the eve of conquest. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Slaughter ▶ Judaism and Food Slavery ▶ Farmworkers: Ethical Issues 2205 Slavery and Food ▶ Race, Racial Identity, and Eating Slimming ▶ Ethical Assessment of Dieting, Weight Loss, and Weight Cycling Slimming Diets ▶ Ethical Assessment of Dieting, Weight Loss, and Weight Cycling Slow Food Joseph Campisi Department of Philosophy, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA Introduction Slow food is a recent food movement. Unlike other food movements, however, such as the campaigns to “eat organic” or “eat local,” slow food is closely associated with and inﬂuenced by the programs and policies of an international organization which is itself called “Slow Food” founded in Europe in 1989 (Irving 2008; Malatesta et al. 2005). One need not, however, be an ofﬁcial member of Slow Food to follow the movement’s ethos. Slow food is primarily a rejection of fast food and fast-food culture, and its followers claim that food that is “slow,” that is, food that is carefully prepared using minimally processed ingredients according to time-honored cultural traditions, is superior in taste and quality to the highly processed, generic, and standardized fare that typiﬁes much of the fast and processed food industries. Adherents of slow food also maintain S 2206 that food is more properly enjoyed when it is consumed at a leisurely rate in the company of others, as opposed to the frenetic and solitary eating that is motivated by fast-food culture. Since its inception, slow food has inspired similar movements beyond the purview of food, and its core principles have been applied to things such as local economies and urban planning (Parkins and Craig 2006). So, for example, proponents of Slow Cities (Cittaslow) encourage the implementation of measures that would promote “slow living,” restrictions on vehicular trafﬁc, improved park systems, etc. As for slow food, its followers are particularly concerned with the quality of food, slow vs. fast, but they also express interest in other issues related to food, in particular, environmental factors related to food production and worker rights. This wider array of concern is especially evident in the organization Slow Food which in its platform promotes food that it describes as “good, clean, and fair” (Malatesta et al. 2005; Petrini 2005). While the movement itself offers no explicit philosophical or ethical foundation for its various practices, parallels can be drawn between its position regarding food and food consumption and the ethical theories defended by ﬁgures such as David Hume, Epicurus, and Aristotle. The movement, however, has also been subject to a variety of criticisms and has been accused, among other things, of being elitist and anti-environmentalist. Philosophy and Ethics. Identifying a complete and coherent set of ethical principles underlying slow food is difﬁcult insofar as there are informal followers of the movement and an ofﬁcial organization, all of whom do not necessarily defend or place an emphasis on the same set of values. Insofar as the organization plays an inﬂuential role in guiding the philosophy and practices of slow food, attention will be focused in what follows on the ethical motifs underlying Slow Food. According to its mission, Slow Food defends three central values in relation to food, maintaining that it should be “good,” “clean,” and “fair.” “Good” refers to food’s quality, its ﬂavor and taste. “Clean” food is food that is produced using sustainable farming and production Slow Food practices that do not cause unnecessary harm to the environment. “Fair” food is food that reﬂects a commitment to social justice and to fair compensation for farmers and food producers. Good food. Slow Food’s concern with what they understand as “good” food has been dominant in the movement from its very beginning. As its name implies, Slow Food perceives itself as a response to “fast food” and “fast-food” culture. For the founders of Slow Food, the problem with “fast food” and the “fast life” within which it is consumed is not necessarily the speed with which food is produced per se (i.e., there can be “good” fast food in their sense) but its standardization and homogenization, features of food that, they believe, mark much of contemporary food culture and industry. Food in a “fast-food” society is, they argue, transformed from something to be enjoyed and savored in the company of others to something that merely serves to sustain us physically while eaten quickly on the go. Moreover, the rise of industrial and global agriculture they maintain has been accompanied by a concomitant fall in the diversity of food as food varieties and local food traditions vanish in the face of things such as monoculture and corporatization. For defenders of slow food, fast food thus prevents people from experiencing true pleasure in their food. They view fast food as basically bland and tasteless, highly processed and standardized fare, produced with quantity in mind over quality, lacking any real connection to a particular culture or place, designed to be eaten quickly and mindlessly. Recovering true gastronomic pleasure, they believe, can be achieved by pursuing food that is, in Slow Food’s terms, “good.” “Good” food, according to Slow Food, is food that is produced with quality in mind, food that is delicious, distinctive, and ﬂavorful. Proponents of Slow Food recognize that taste in food is subjective and that different individuals will ultimately ﬁnd enjoyment in different foods and ﬂavors, but they contend that, in general, certain food and food products can be identiﬁed as “good” (Petrini 2005). These would be foods that produce pleasant taste sensations and are, generally, as “natural” as possible, respecting the product’s original characteristics. Such criteria, they contend, Slow Food rule out much “fast” or industrialized food insofar as it is often ﬂavorless and highly processed. Slow Food’s contention that judgments about “good” food can be made despite the subjective nature of taste recalls the position on aesthetic judgment defended by David Hume (1963). For his part, Hume also acknowledges that, when it comes to matters of taste, there exists a variety of opinion as to what different individuals and different cultures deem to be beautiful or good. This leads him to recognize the distinction between objective matters of fact and subjective feelings or sentiments about objects, where beauty, it would seem, is entirely in “the eye of the beholder.” Nevertheless, Hume maintains that general standards in regard to aesthetic taste can be defended, that we can justiﬁably deem some things to be superior to others, and that we make these kinds of aesthetic judgments all the time. This ability to pass aesthetic judgment, Hume argues, is made possible insofar as all humans as humans share a “universal structure” that typically leads them to be pleased by certain experiences and displeased by others. This does not mean that everyone will always appreciate the same things. The proper appreciation of an art object, according to Hume, requires certain conditions, e.g., serenity and attentiveness, but it also requires, in his estimation, the possession of “delicacy” or “sensitivity,” the ability to discern or recognize the aesthetic traits or features in a given object. Such aesthetic sensitivity, Hume argues, can be developed in individuals by training and practice. Repeated exposure to a variety of artworks, he contends, can help individuals gain the sensitivity required for a discerning taste. Following Hume, some sense can be made then of Slow Food’s defense of “good” food. While acknowledging the fact that not everyone is going to be drawn to certain tastes and ﬂavors, followers of Slow Food maintain that we can nevertheless judge certain foods to be “good” or superior to others, e.g., artisanal cheeses over processed cheese food. Recognizing such superiority, however, requires a certain amount of discernment, and the focus on taste education in Slow Food, the “Taste Workshops” it conducts with both children and adults, can be understood 2207 in these terms, as an attempt, not only to acquaint individuals with different foods and a variety of ﬂavors but to provide them with the training and experience by which they can identify “good” foodstuffs. While “good” primarily refers, in Slow Food’s analysis, to the quality, taste and ﬂavor of food, the movement also emphasizes the settings in which food is prepared and consumed. Thus, defenders of Slow Food not only deride the quality of “fast food” but the ways in which such food is designed to be eaten, mindlessly, quickly and, often, in isolation from others. Thus, along with the pleasure of “good” food, slow food stresses the pleasure of conviviality or commensality, the joy of sharing food in leisurely company with others. Local chapters of Slow Food are called “convivia” (from the Latin for “feast” or “banquet”) for this very reason. In upholding the enjoyment and pleasure of “good” food, defenders of Slow Food seek to counter the asceticism that, they believe, characterizes both much of Christian society and traditional leftist politics, wherein the pleasures of eating are often derided for being either sinful or bourgeois (Petrini 2001, 2005). The approach to pleasure embodied in Slow Food hearkens back to the hedonic philosophies put forth in ancient Greek thought and, in particular, the position defended by Epicurus and the Epicureans. For Epicurus, happiness, understood as pleasure, represents the ultimate and highest intrinsic good in life, and so, he argues, we should strive to experience as much pleasure in life as is possible (Epicurus 1964). In promoting the pursuit of pleasure, however, Epicurus does not advocate proﬂigacy or base hedonism, arguing that indulging in too many physical pleasures will ultimately result in excessive pain. Rather, Epicurus maintains that the “good life” is ultimately a life of tranquility, attained by pursuing simple and modest pleasures, including those of good food and friendship. Proponents of Slow Food construe of pleasure and the pursuit of pleasure in terms similar to those found in Epicurean thought. The pleasures of food and company are extolled as central features of the “good life.” Such pleasure, however, should not be pursued to excess. Borrowing a notion from the S 2208 Renaissance humanist Bartolomeo Scappi, ﬁgures in Slow Food like to speak of “honesta voluptate” or “sober pleasure” (Petrini 2009). This is a pleasure that, in contrast with gluttony, is aware of its limits and is pursued in moderation. Parallels can also be drawn between the vision of the “good life” put forth in Slow Food and that defended by Aristotle’s virtue ethics (Aristotle 1999). Like Epicurus, Aristotle maintains that happiness or eudaimonia is the end of life. For his part, Aristotle argues that such fulﬁllment can be attained by practicing the virtues, habitual traits of character, that, avoiding excess and deﬁciency, adhere to the “golden mean.” As does Epicurus, Aristotle rejects a life of pure hedonism which he likens to a life for “grazing animals” (Aristotle 1999). Nevertheless, Aristotle does not advocate asceticism, maintaining that physical pleasure is a critical ingredient of the “good life.” Such pleasure, however, must be pursued in moderation and the relevant Aristotelian virtue as regards the pleasure of food is temperance. Likewise, Aristotle also maintains that friendship is a central feature of the good life. In promoting the value of pleasure, Slow Food nevertheless seeks to counter the elitism and gourmandism that they believe marks that tradition, arguing that “the right to pleasure” is one that is universally shared and open to everyone (Petrini 2009). Despite their reference to the notion of “rights,” however, Slow Food does not appear to have any fully developed sense of political rights, and at best, the “right to pleasure” can be understood as a right in the negative sense. When alluding to rights, Slow Food seems to conceive of them more in terms of consumer rights, as opposed to civil rights, and this may explain the organization’s reluctance to engage in and seek substantial political and economic reform. Clean food. As Slow Food has evolved, its concerns have broadened such that its initial focus on good food and gastronomic pleasure is now accompanied by an interest in the environment and environmental issues. So, along with “good” food, Slow Food promotes food that it deﬁnes as “clean” (Petrini 2005). This is food that is produced and grown sustainably, in ways that protect and respect the environment, and is Slow Food prepared in ways in which processing is as limited as possible. For defenders of Slow Food, there is a close connection between “good” and “clean” food as food that is “clean” often tastes better. In the estimation of Slow Food, judging whether food is “clean” requires scientiﬁc expertise, but they generally believe that the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers should be avoided, that intensive, highly industrialized modes of agriculture should give way to traditional farming practices and techniques, and that local plant varieties and breeds should be given preference over monocultures and standardized varieties and breeds. Slow Food also opposes the use of genetically modiﬁed organisms. Slow Food is not opposed to the transportation of food but argues that the environmental implications of food transport should be kept in mind when determining whether food is “clean” or not. In combining their interest in the ﬂavor of food with its environmental impact, Slow Food likes to describe their culinary philosophy as “ecogastronomy,” a pursuit of gastronomic pleasure that is informed by environmental awareness (Petrini 2005). Given the principles of “ecogastronomy,” the follower of Slow Food is not necessarily going to limit themselves to eating organic food or practicing locavorism. While organic food may be “clean,” it may not be “good,” and it is not clear, according to Slow Food, that food must be organic to be “clean.” When it comes to locavorism, Slow Food does promote local food varieties and traditions as evidenced by its Ark of Taste and Presidia programs (Irving 2008; Malatesta et al. 2005). However, Slow Food’s interest in local foods is not motivated by concerns regarding “food miles” or the environmental impact of transporting food great distances but by the impact that the loss of local foods, due to homogenization and standardization, has on gustatory pleasure. In fact, many of Slow Food’s projects and initiatives involve seeking broader, international markets for local products. In discussing Slow Food’s notion of “clean” food, it is perhaps appropriate to point out that the organization has little to next to nothing to say about issues concerning animal rights or animal Slow Food welfare. While Slow Food espouses a universal “right to pleasure,” this right is not understood as extending to nonhuman animals. And while Slow Food may be critical of certain practices in regard to animal husbandry, factory farming, CAFO’s, etc., their concerns are more a product of the quality of such foods, their “goodness” in their terms, than they are response to any animal pain or suffering they may cause. Fair food. As with “clean” food, Slow Food’s defense of “fair” food has evolved over time as the movement has grown. According to Slow Food, “fair” food is that involves equitable and proper remuneration for farmers, farm workers, and food producers (Petrini 2005). In this regard, Slow Food’s interest in “fair” food parallels the recent fair-trade movement. When discussing “fair” food, leaders of Slow Food often refer to what they call “virtuous globalization” (Petrini 2009). As noted above in reference to locavorism, Slow Food is not, in principle, opposed to the transport of food over long distances and welcomes globalized food markets. It is critical not of globalization itself but of tendencies in globalization toward standardization and homogenization. The Slow Food movement is not inherently anti-capitalist and much of its work focuses on securing markets for what it believes are highquality foodstuffs. It believes it can achieve this by, on the one hand, educating consumers and raising awareness in them, through programs such as “Taste Workshops” and food fairs, about “good” food and, on the other hand, by forming cooperative networks among small-scale producers. In its activities, Slow Food eschews tactics such as boycotts and direct action as utilized by groups like José Bové’s Confédération Paysanne. In summary, the ideal eater for Slow Food is someone who possesses a series of virtues. They appreciate good food in moderation while at the same time being cognizant of the impact that their food choices have on the environment and, guided by a sense of justice, respect the rights of those involved in food production. Criticisms. This somewhat eclectic collection of values and virtues has led some to criticize Slow Food of being guilty of certain contradictions (Chrzan 2004; Donati 2005; Gaytán 2004; 2209 Jones et al. 2003; Labelle 2004; Laudan 2001; Lotti 2010). Some critics argue, for example, that there is a conﬂict between Slow Food’s promotion of “good” food and its concern for “clean” food insofar as raising the demand for certain products is environmentally unsustainable. Similarly, some critics maintain that while Slow Food avows that pleasure is a universal right and that food should be “fair,” the movement’s reluctance to demand substantial political and economic reform opens the group up to charges of elitism, especially insofar as the typically expensive foodstuffs it seeks to promote remain beyond the reach of many consumers. It would appear that the future success of Slow Food depends on its ability to respond to these criticisms and articulate a coherent, ethical vision. Cross-References ▶ Epicureanism and Food ▶ Virtue Theory, Food, and Agriculture References Aristotle. (1999). Nicomachean ethics (2nd ed., trans: Irwin, T.). Indianapolis: Hackett. Chrzan, J. (2004). Slow food: What, why, and to where? Food, Culture and Society, 7, 117–132. Donati, K. (2005). The pleasure of diversity in slow food’s ethics of taste. Food, Culture and Society, 8, 227–242. Epicurus. (1964). Letters, principle doctrines and Vatican sayings (trans: Geer, R. M.). Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts. Gaytán, M. S. (2004). Globalizing resistance: Slow food and new local imaginaries. Food, Culture and Society, 7, 97–116. Hume, D. (1963). The standard of taste in essays: Moral, political and literary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irving, J. (2008). The slow food companion: Welcome to our world. New York: Slow Food Editore. Jones, P., Shears, P., Hillier, D., Comfort, D., & Lowell, J. (2003). Return to traditional values? A case study of slow food. British Food Journal, 105, 297–304. Labelle, J. (2004). A recipe for connectedness: Bridging production and consumption with slow food. Food, Culture and Society, 7, 81–96. Laudan, R. (2001). A plea for culinary modernism: Why we should love new, fast, processed food. Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, 1, 36–44. S 2210 Lotti, A. (2010). The commoditization of products and taste: Slow food and the conservation of biodiversity. Agriculture and Human Values, 27, 71–83. Malatesta, S., et al. (2005). The slow food companion. Bra: Slow Food Editore. Parkins, W., & Craig, G. (2006). Slow living. Oxford: Berg. Petrini, C. (2001). Slow food: The case for taste. New York: Columbia University Press. Petrini, C. (2005). Slow food nation. New York: Rizzoli Ex Libris. Petrini, C. (2009). Terra Madre. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing. Small Batch Smart Agriculture ▶ Women and Rural Agricultural Development Social and Spatial Contexts of Food Insecurity ▶ Food Security in Systemic Context Small Batch Social Class ▶ Artisanal Food Production and Craft ▶ Food, Class Identity, and Gender Small Farm ▶ Agrarianism and the Ethics of Eating Social Distinction ▶ Taste, Distaste, and Food Small Farmers Social Epistemology ▶ Resource Conﬂict, Food, and Agriculture ▶ Expertise in Agriculture: Scientiﬁc and Ethical Issues Small: Hobby Social Graces ▶ Farms: Small Versus Large ▶ Eating Etiquette Small-Holder ▶ Peasant Farming Social History of Food ▶ Agriculture and Colonialism Smallholder Farming Systems Social Horticulture ▶ Aroid Production and Postharvest Practices ▶ Horticultural Therapy Soil and Agriculture 2211 Social Impact ▶ Sustainability Consumption Socratic Ethics of Food Production and ▶ Plato and Food Soil and Agriculture Social Justice ▶ Food and Life Chances Social Model ▶ Eating, Feeding, and Disability Sarah Smith1 and Courtney M. Gallaher2,3 1 Department of Geography, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA 2 Department of Geography, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA 3 Department of Geography, Women’s Studies Program, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA Introduction Social Responsibility ▶ Food Animal Production, Ethics, and Quality Assurance Social Struggle ▶ Peasant Farming ▶ Subsistence Orientation and Food Socioeconomics ▶ GM Food, Nutrition, Safety, and Health Socio-economics ▶ Nanotechnology in Agriculture Soil is a key component to any successful agricultural operation, serving as a growth medium for plants and providing water and essential nutrients. It is also a highly precious commodity that can be quickly degraded but takes a very long time to form. Soil formation depends on ﬁve important factors: climate, living organisms, topography, parent materials, and time (Jenny 1941). Time is the controlling factor for all the other variables, as it allows for parent materials to weather and organisms to further modify those materials into soil. It often takes thousands of years for a soil to reach its maturity because of the slow processes of physical and chemical weathering of a given parent material. For example, soils that form along rivers and streams are sediments deposited as a result of multiple ﬂood events over time. Each ﬂood event may only deposit a centimeter or two of sediment at a time, therefore potentially requiring hundreds of ﬂood events to have enough material for a deep soil proﬁle. After the sediments are deposited, they undergo transformations to form soil horizons with the help of various soil micro- and macroorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, and earthworms among others. These organisms work at such a small scale, and under very speciﬁc S 2212 temperature and moisture conditions, that it takes decades before their impact is clearly visible. Soil and Agriculture Agriculture is one of the leading agents in global soil degradation due to its inﬂuence on soil fertility and soil erosion. Soil quality, a measure of physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil, is frequently degraded as a result of agriculture because of practices such as the use of artiﬁcial inputs of nutrients, removal of native vegetation, and destruction of soil physical properties through extensive cultivation (Kibblewhite et al. 2008). In terms of soil fertility, many intensive agricultural systems deplete the soil of its natural nutrient supply and thus soil must be supplemented with artiﬁcially produced fertilizers. A prime example is the Corn Belt region of the United States, where the majority of farmable land is populated with monoculture corn. Corn requires large amounts of nitrogen to be able to grow properly, and the soil does not hold enough naturally for the plant’s growth cycle, especially after years of solely corn being planted. To maintain yield, farmers alter the soil environment by adding nitrogen fertilizers, either artiﬁcial or natural, to the soil at various points of the year. Situations such as this are an example of human-induced nutrient depletion, which are common in countries with large, commercial agriculture systems. Eventually, overuse of the nutrient stocks in the soil can have negative impacts on global food security and the potential to use sustainable agricultural practices (Tan et al. 2005). Poor management of soil resources has also triggered massive erosion events in different parts of the world throughout history. One of the most memorable in the USA is the Dust Bowl. This was a direct result of the combination of poor farming techniques and an extensive drought, lasting through the early 1930s, that created unusually dry conditions across the country. At that point in time, farmers across the central United States were trying to grow wheat and corn with dryland farming methods, leaving large parcels of Soil and Agriculture land bare during the rainy season, from April to September, in order to allow the soil to absorb that water in preparation for a cropping of winter wheat. But without surface cover in the summer, the soil was very susceptible to wind erosion, and the dry conditions, compounded by the drought, led to the Dust Bowl (Phillips 1999). A more recent example of soil erosion on a massive scale can be found in the Loess Plateau in eastern China. Thousands of tons of soil have been eroded by wind and water from cultivated lands within the Loess Plateau. This is often a direct result of poor soil management techniques, including a destruction of native vegetation, and cultivation of land on steep slopes (Shi and Shao 2000). Global Relationships Between Soils and Agriculture Soil is inherently different across the globe because of the way it is formed. The different climates, geologic materials, and topography across the planet interact to form speciﬁc types of soil in each corner of the world. Ramankutty et al. (2008) used remote sensing and agriculture inventory data to map where different types of agricultural land, cropland and pastureland specifically, were located on a global scale. When those images are overlaid with a global soil distribution map (USDA-NRCS 2005), there is a distinct relationship between those areas with a high percentage of cropland as mapped by Ramankutty et al. (2008) and the areas where Mollisols are found. Mollisols are one of the twelve soil order classiﬁcations within USDA soil taxonomy mapped across the world and are organic rich, highly fertile soils often associated with native grassland vegetation and, in modern times, intensive agriculture. The primary exception to this global pattern is the country of India, which has a high percentage of cropland but very few, if any, Mollisols. Immense population numbers in this region, and others like it, are likely encouraging residents to farm soils that are not properly suited for intensive agriculture in an effort to provide food to their peoples. Soil and Agriculture From an economic standpoint, agriculture is vitally important to countries all over the world. Particularly in those areas with highly fertile soils, a lot of money is spent producing food, and the trade in and out of those areas is also heavily based on agricultural goods. In the USA, farms produced over $390 billion worth of crops and livestock and exported $141.3 billion of agricultural products in 2012 alone (Klobuchar 2013). Similar numbers can be found in multiple other places, with the higher economic values typically coming from more developed countries that have access to new technologies, machinery, and artiﬁcial fertilizers. Agricultural practices vary widely between different global regions and between developed and developing countries. In developed or newly industrialized countries, including the USA, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and China, agriculture is highly mechanized as farmers have better economic access to machinery, inputs, and other agricultural technologies to be more sustainable. Developed countries have also spent years and millions of dollars developing different genetically improved versions of basic crops, such as corn, wheat, and rice, to allow for more efﬁcient use of pesticides and fertilizers. In developing countries, agriculture is often practiced at the subsistence level with fewer economic inputs into agricultural production. Inputs and mechanization tends to be reserved for export cash crops rather than crops grown for local consumption, and farm sizes tend to be smaller overall. In many developing regions of the world, the soil is likely to have lower levels of natural fertility, and the climatic conditions may not be optimal for growing many key foodstuffs. Small-scale farmers in areas without industrialized agriculture have developed many useful and efﬁcient techniques for maintaining soil health and productivity, including crop rotation and the use of green manures and cover crops (Prasad and Goswami 1992). In many ways, agriculture in developing countries actually protects and appreciates the soil more than in developed countries because the peoples’ everyday lives depend on the food they grow as individuals and the soil that enables them to produce it. 2213 Local and Traditional Knowledge of Soil Indigenous populations often have a vast knowledge of their surroundings and have even developed systems of classiﬁcation for the natural resources they use on a daily basis. This is no different for soils. Ethnopedology focuses on local populations’ knowledge of soils, including their management, classiﬁcation, and use of this resource. Studies around the world have documented soils knowledge from local populations, especially those regions known to be centers of origin for modern plants (BarreraBassols and Zinck 2003). These studies have shown that indigenous populations often have a large collective knowledge about soil and frequently have developed their own classiﬁcation systems. By comparing indigenous knowledge of soils to Western scientiﬁc knowledge, scientists have shown that local classiﬁcation systems often document important features that are similar to the modern classiﬁcation systems used to map soils across the world. By making records of these native knowledge bases, researchers are also collecting information on the native languages used in these areas and how words are developed for and assigned to soils (Barrera-Bassols and Zinck 2003). Indigenous soil knowledge is often based on spiritual and cultural beliefs, but in many places, including Latin America, local people have also developed very speciﬁc descriptions for soils. Winklerprins and Barrera-Bassols (2004) conducted a study within three sections of Latin America’s primary agricultural areas to catalog the knowledge base of the local people in regards to soil. In Middle America, Mexico and Guatemala speciﬁcally, the local Nahua people hold a strong link between the “kosmos” and the earth, keeping them spiritually close to the soil. Drawings and glyphs clearly indicate that the people of this region understand how soil works and how it could, and can, be managed. They included information about how soils differed by texture, landscape position, and how well crops like maize would fare in different soils. People of the Andean region were also well versed in soil knowledge. While there is not as much evidence present in the S 2214 written history, there is a large amount of physical evidence across the landscape. Farmers in this area terraced and raised their ﬁelds, primarily to please the Earth Mother, who would repay them with good weather and high crop yields. Aside from the manipulation of the land, these peoples also established a well detailed classiﬁcation system that includes texture and color as primary indicators. Amazonia, the ﬁnal region observed in the study by Winklerprins and Barrera-Bassols (2004), does not have as clear of an ethnopedologic record. Most of the information is more modern because of the lack of presettlement agriculture that is still occurring in its original form. Those peoples that are still indigenous use soil color, texture, and porosity to categorize soil quality and link these properties to the relief and sediments of the land. Almost all of the descriptors used by local people are also incorporated within modern mapping and classiﬁcation methods. Based on these examples, it is clear that soil has been studied and respected for a long period of time, and even without structured science, soils are grouped to be used in the best possible way. Soil Productivity and Agriculture Although deﬁnitions of soil quality vary widely, most focus on some aspect of the soil’s ability to function. Poor quality soils are unable to provide adequate nutrients and water to plants, and thus it is very important to measure and track soil quality within agricultural landscapes. Soil quality is measured in a variety of ways and at multiple scales. Indicators of soil quality, also known as soil health, include physical, biological, and chemical properties of the soil. Typically these properties are dynamic within the soil, meaning they change as the land use and management of the soil changes. Key measures of soil quality include: organic matter content, inﬁltration of water, aggregate stability, pH, microbial biomass, nitrogen content, bulk density, and availability of nutrients, among others (Karlen et al. 1997). To properly measure soil quality for agriculture, these properties are only measured within the Soil and Agriculture surface of the soil, usually to a maximum depth of about 30 cm. One of these properties can have dramatic impacts on another, and they often work together to keep the soil functioning at its best. For example, aggregate stability will be at its highest levels when the soil also has high levels of organic matter and microbial activity as these characteristics work to help hold the different soil particles together to withstand changes within the soil (Karlen et al. 1997). Unfortunately, agriculture is one of the leading destroyers of soil quality globally. Soils are vulnerable to erosion as multiple passes are made across a given ﬁeld to prepare the seed bed, plant the crop, fertilize the crop, manage pests, and harvest, all conducted with heavy machinery where it is available. Heavy machinery also subjects surface horizons of the soil to compaction, reduced organic matter, porosity, and microbial activity, less stable aggregates, and larger, less organized structural units. As soil quality is degraded, direct environmental impacts include increased erosion and leaching of nutrients (Karlen et al. 1997). When soil quality is maintained, improved soil fertility leads to increased agricultural yields and soils that are less susceptible to erosion, keeping them in place for further use. A second, but equally important, component of soil for agriculture is soil fertility. This component of soils is its ability to provide essential nutrients and water to the plant being grown and is directly related to soil quality. Soil fertility relies on the amount of each nutrient present within the soil, the form in which the nutrient is present, or whether it is plant available, and the soil pH, one of the properties measured within soil quality. There is also some inﬂuence played by the texture of soils. Soils with more clay present will typically hold more of certain types of nutrients like potassium and calcium in comparison with sandier soils. pH is the primary soil property that will determine how much of each nutrient will be available within the soil (Fernández and Hoeft 2009). Different nutrients are solubilized and made plant available in acidic versus alkaline soils. Speciﬁcally, acidic soils often have high concentrations of iron and aluminum, either of Soil and Agriculture which can create toxic environments for plants, while alkaline soils typically have high concentrations of phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur. There is a small zone around the neutral pH values that provides optimal levels of the plant essential nutrients, primarily nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Other measures of soil quality typically stabilize soil pH creating a link between a high quality soil and high levels of fertility and agricultural productivity. A variety of approaches are used to manage soil fertility including amending the soil with fertilizers (artiﬁcial or natural) or adjusting soil pH to balance availability of different plant nutrients. Different places in the world require different techniques to manage fertility. Naturally fertile soils need minimal adjustments, except for when they are farmed intensively, as in developed countries. In such cases, artiﬁcial fertilizer is often applied to supplement nutrients removed from intensive harvests (Kibblewhite et al. 2008). Regions with low levels of soil fertility, such as the tropical rainforest, often have to adopt other techniques to try and raise the nutrient level of the soil, including slash and burn agriculture. Slash and burn is the process by which the native vegetation, typically trees, are cut down and then burned. Ash from the burned vegetation adds some nutrients to the surface horizons of these nutrient-poor soils. The boost in fertility lasts only a few years at which point the farmer must repeat the process on a new plot of land, allowing the formerly cultivated plot to return to native vegetation. After several years, the native vegetation will have started to reestablish itself, and the cycle can begin again. Soils with acidic pH values can also be adjusted by adding liming substances to bring the value to a more neutral position, but it is very difﬁcult to adjust alkaline soils downward. If necessary, sulfur compounds can be added to lower pH values (Fernández and Hoeft 2009). Economic development also inﬂuences the degree to which farmers are able to address soil fertility problems. Farmers in developed countries are typically more ﬁnancially able to make artiﬁcial adjustments to the soil, while farmers in developing nations are often forced to ﬁnd alternative, more natural ways of dealing with poor soil 2215 fertility. Although products like lime and artiﬁcial fertilizers are more accessible to farmers in developed countries, access is increasing globally (UN-FAO 2012). Soil Conservation and Management There is a long history of different societies attempting to conserve and manage their soils. This is particularly apparent in Latin America where societies have dramatically changed the landscape to protect their soils. Indigenous populations created elaborate systems to irrigate their crops and to grow crops on the steepest of hillslopes. Populations living in the Andes, including the Incans, made some of the changes that have lasted the longest, including terraced hills and raised ﬁelds (Winklerprins and BarreraBassols 2004). To date, some of the best examples of soil conservation come from developing countries because they are less able to artiﬁcially amend the soil and because, often times, the soils in these regions are more susceptible to major issues like erosion and nutrient leaching. One of the primary ways to enhance soil productivity, improving both soil quality and fertility, is the use of green manures, also known as cover crops. This technique uses a secondary crop, such as sunnhemp, mung bean, cowpea, and wheat, to provide nutrients and organic matter to the soil outside of the growing season. Leguminous cover crops are often chosen to help improve soil fertility because of their natural ability to ﬁx nitrogen from the atmosphere and release it in a bioavailable form into the soil. In Asia, where rice is the common cash crop, farmers use cover crops to help supplement the nitrogen in the soil because rice requires a lot of nitrogen during its growing cycle (Prasad and Goswami 1992). The type of green manure grown will depend on the region of the world being farmed. In addition to acting as a natural source of nutrients to the soil, these plants will also provide cover to the soil during a time it might normally be left exposed. As a result, erosion rates will likely be lowered in these ﬁelds. Green manures may also positively impact S 2216 physical characteristics of soil that are important soil quality indicators. By maintaining roots within the surface of soil, this secondary crop acts as a source of organic matter, provides food for the microbes that live within the soil and, depending on the crop, breaks up compacted layers within the surface soil. After the cover crop has reached maturity, it can either be harvested as a second cash crop for the year, used as animal feed, incorporated into the soil, or mulched. Mulching these crops will further improve soil properties by protecting the soil from erosion, increasing organic matter content, and maintaining soil moisture within the surface of the soil (Lal 1989). Crop rotation is another beneﬁcial soil management technique. Different crops have substantially different nutrient requirements. Rotating between crops draws down soil nutrient reserves in different ways and, depending on the crop, may even help to replenish soil fertility. Corn and rice, in particular, have extremely high nitrogen requirements. In the central United States, where corn is the primary crop, soil nitrogen levels are very low. Farmers in this region often choose to rotate corn with a legume, such as soybean, to ﬁx soil nitrogen and improve fertility for the following corn crop. Another beneﬁt of crop rotation relates to land preparation as different crops require different levels of preparation to be planted. Rotating crops means that over time ﬁelds will require different amounts of cultivation before planting, applications of fertilizer, and different harvesting techniques. In the case where the ﬁeld requires fewer passes with machinery, the physical characteristics of the soil, such as bulk density and structure, may be able to recover towards a more natural state. Overall, rotating crops will change how the soil is managed from a physical perspective, which will keep them more productive for a longer period of time (Prasad and Goswami 1992). A ﬁnal common management technique is conservation tillage or no-till systems. While these systems are common in some developing countries due to a lack of heavy machinery, conservation tillage is gaining popularity in Western countries as soil erosion is recognized as a major Soil and Agriculture issue by more and more people. The goal of conservation tillage is to increase the amount of residue cover left on the ﬁeld after harvest in order to prevent erosion, increase soil organic matter, and improve soil moisture retention, and decrease fertilizer applications. In mechanized agricultural settings, this is done by reducing the number of passes across a ﬁeld using tillage implements (Lal 1989). Conservation tillage ranges in application from leaving just a small amount of residue cover to more than ninety percent residue cover on the ﬁeld, which is then labeled as a “no-till” agricultural system. These types of tillage systems are highly beneﬁcial to soil and agricultural health. Globally there is data showing that reduced tillage and increased vegetative cover decreases erosion. Both of these factors protect the soil from being detached and moved by both wind and water. Second, the physical properties of the surface soil will be much improved under conservation tillage. Soil structure, a soil quality indicator, will improve as biological activity increases, and compaction is lowered by the removal of machinery. Finally, conservation tillage will often have positive impacts on soil fertility. Residue cover of the soil will maintain a consistent soil moisture and temperature regime for longer, making it easier for plants to establish themselves. It has also been shown that nutrients are more available within the root zone of plants as a result of conservation tillage, even in low fertility soils, such as those found in Brazil and Nigeria (Lal 1989). Summary Soil is one of our planet’s most important natural resources, both in terms of ecosystem health and agricultural production. Yet, poor soil management leads to declining soil fertility and wide scale erosion, threatening the health of this valuable resource. Various soil physical, biological, and chemical properties impact soil quality. Management strategies focused on soil quality improves soil fertility and agricultural productivity. The importance of soil management has been recognized by many cultures over time and can be recognized today by the different indigenous South Asia and Cow Protectionism classiﬁcation systems that exist around the world. These classiﬁcations are strikingly similar to those classiﬁcations of modern soil science. As knowledge of agriculture’s impact on soil increases, so do the number of management techniques available to help protect and maintain soil. Management techniques may vary globally, but their overall focus is the same, focusing on improving key indicators of soil quality. Good management of soils in agricultural settings protects soils from erosion and leads to high quality, productive agricultural systems that can support human populations in different environments around the world. 2217 Shi, H., & Shao, M. (2000). Soil and water loss from the Loess Plateau in China. Journal of Arid Environments, 45, 9–20. Tan, Z., Lal, R., & Wiebe, K. (2005). Global soil nutrient depletion and yield reduction. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 26(1), 123–146. UN-FAO. (2012). Current world fertilizer trends and outlook to 2016. Retrieved December 30, 2015. USDA-NRCS. (2005, September 1). Global soil regions map. Retrieved November 3, 2015. Winklerprins, A., & Barrera-Bassols, N. (2004). Latin American ethnopedology: A vision of its past, present, and future. Agriculture and Human Values, 21, 139–156. Soil Ethics References Barrera-Bassols, N., & Zinck, J. (2003). Ethnopedology: A worldwide view on the soil knowledge of local people. Geoderma, 111, 171–195. Fernández, F.G., & Hoeft, R.G. (2009). Managing soil pH and crop nutrients. In Illinois agronomy handbook (Vol. 24, pp. 91–112) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, Urbana, IL. Jenny, H. (1941). Factors of soil formation; a system of quantitative pedology. New York: McGraw-Hill. Karlen, D., Mausbach, M., Doran, J., Cline, R., Harris, R., & Schuman, G. (1997). Soil quality: A concept, deﬁnition, and framework for evaluation (a guest editorial). Soil Science Society of America Journal, 61(1), 4–10. Kibblewhite, M., Ritz, K., & Swift, M. (2008). Soil health in agricultural systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 363, 685–701. Klobuchar, A. (2013, September 1). The economic contribution of America’s farmers and the importance of agricultural exports. Retrieved November 3, 2015. Lal, R. (1989). Conservation tillage for sustainable agriculture: Tropics versus temperate environments. Advances in Agronomy, 42, 85–197. Phillips, S. (1999). Lessons from the dust bowl: Dryland agriculture and soil erosion in the United States and South Africa, 1900–1950. Environmental History, 4(2), 245–266 Prasad, R., & Goswami, N. (1992). Soil fertility restoration and management for sustainable agriculture in South Asia. In Advances in soil science soil restoration (pp.37–77), Edited by Rattan Lal and B.A. Stewart Springer, New York. Ramankutty, N., Evan, A., Monfreda, C., & Foley, J. (2008). Farming the planet: 1. Geographic distribution of global agricultural lands in the year 2000. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 22(1). Retrieved November 3, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GB002952. ▶ Fungi Ethics Soul Food ▶ Race, Racial Identity, and Eating Soup Kitchens ▶ Food Assistance South American Agriculture ▶ Brazilian Agriculture South Asia and Cow Protectionism James Stewart University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia The cow is viewed as a creature of special importance among several religious and cultural traditions in South Asia. Cow protectionism is S 2218 practiced in India, Nepal, Burma, and Sri Lanka. The veneration of the cow also traverses religious denomination and cows are valued within both Buddhist and Hindu communities. The origin of cow protectionism in South Asia derives to a large extent from a sense of religious obligation, though prudential reasoning has also played an important role in the promotion of cow welfare. Among many Hindus in India, cows are regarded as sacred objects that should not be interfered with, let alone slaughtered. The slaughter of cows is outlawed, or severely limited, in most states in India, and there are severe penalties for those who unjustiﬁably kill them. There are even some historical instances where cow slaughter was made a capital offense (McLane 1977). The penalty in modern Indian states is, of course, much less severe. This special treatment of cows has some textual justiﬁcation in the Vedas, an ancient corpus of sacred texts that have shaped modern Hinduism (Alsdorf 2010). Some parts of the Vedas have been dated from 1700 to 1100 BCE; cows have played an important role in the Indian subcontinent for a long time. This concern continues on into the modern era. Indeed, issues around cow protectionism represented an important part of the Indian independence movement (Van der Veer 1994). Even so, the issue of cow protectionism is nuanced. Yet the politicization of cow protectionism, and the idea that cows cannot be slaughtered, is a more recent phenomenon in India that stems in part from the Indian independence movement (Jha 2002). In Hinduism, the justiﬁcation for the unique protection of cows, over and above other animals, is attributed to their association with Hindu deities or their special association with the sacred feminine. In general, the bovine is of spiritual signiﬁcance in Hinduism. Shiva, one of the most important and powerful deities in the Hindu pantheon, has Nandi the bull as a vehicle (Cush et al. 2008). Kamadhenu, the mother of cows and the sacred provider of milk, is a deity of some religious signiﬁcance in India (Bonnefoy and Donniger 1993). Another example of this is the deity Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu – another deity South Asia and Cow Protectionism of high importance in modern Hinduism – who was once a cow herder (Van der Veer 1994). Cow products are frequently used in a variety of sacred ritual ceremonies (Van der Veer 1994; Bastin 2002; Fuller 2004). Nepal, being a primarily Hindu nation, also maintains a strong tradition of cow protectionism. Cow slaughter is illegal in Nepal and there are penalties for killing cows and eating beef. Historically, these penalties have been very severe. For example, in 1805 King Rana Bahadur Shah made a decree that those who are found to have killed a cow must be executed by state ofﬁcials (Michaels 2004). Subsequent laws in Nepal involved the execution and violent torture of individuals who transgress the ban on cow slaughter (ibid). One torture method involved the violator being forced to eat their own ﬂesh before receiving capital punishment (ibid). These laws were later relaxed, and over the years, ﬁnes and/or imprisonment have been implemented as forms of punishment. Buddhist South Asian nations also maintain popular cow protectionist movements. Despite the fact that Buddhist texts tend to treat sentient animals as beings of equal moral worth, Sinhalese (Sri Lankan) Buddhists (Stewart 2015) and Burmese Buddhists (Braun 2013) often treat cows with special attention and importance. In recent years there has been a strong push by interest groups to have cattle slaughter outlawed altogether. An explanation for cow exceptionalism is therefore warranted. One answer is that Sri Lanka and Burma are in proximity to India and therefore the exchange of cultural practices are to be expected. In Sri Lanka, many Buddhist Sinhalese practice Hindu rituals and believe in the Hindu pantheon (Gombrich and Obeyesekere 1988). Hindu practices are therefore integrated into the Sinhala Buddhist religious life. There are also special and unique religious cults in Sri Lanka – cults that also have their origin in India – in particular the Kiri Amma cult (Obeyesekere 1984). Another explanation is the preexisting textual authority for cow exceptionalism, and some Buddhist texts do imply that the cow is of special signiﬁcance (Norman 2006). South Asia and Cow Protectionism In Sri Lanka, there is also a sizable Hindu Tamil population, usually Saivite in orientation, that worship the cow in the manner normally accepted in mainland India (Bastin 2002). Cow protectionism in Sri Lanka is therefore practiced in multireligious, multiethnic ways. In Burma, as in Sri Lanka, the cow protection movement stems in part from a deep respect for the cow as a beast of burden. The cow should therefore be protected as a matter of respect for its hard work and sacriﬁce (Braun 2013). This concern stems in part from the fact that the Burmese and Sri Lankan economies have been historically agricultural. There is a strong discourse in Sri Lanka (Stewart 2015) and in Burma (Braun 2013) that the cow is a provider of milk that helps sustain and grow the nation. Therefore, the mystical, religious motive for cow protection is also mixed with prudential awareness of properly maintaining and cultivating a strong cow population. Cow protectionism has occasionally led to ethnic conﬂict. In India this ethnic conﬂict has typically occurred between Hindu and Muslim communities (McLane 1977; Van der Veer 1994). Hindu nationalists have seen Muslim cow slaughter practices as an insult to their religious convictions. This has been complicated by the fact that Muslims sometimes regard cow slaughter as a religious duty during the Bakr Id Festival (McLane 1977). Over the years, this tension has led to communal rioting, assaults, and the killing of a number of Muslims. In Sri Lanka and Burma too, Muslims have born the brunt of much cow protectionist animosity (Braun 2013; Stewart 2013, 2014, 2015). In Burma, when cattle slaughter has been allowed, it has almost exclusively been a practice conducted by Muslims (Spiro 1982). This is also the case in Sri Lanka (Gombrich 1991). In these countries, conﬂict over the treatment of cows has also resulted in communal rioting as well as individual acts of violence. Christians have also been targeted as a result of this violence, as well. In Sri Lanka, monks have even committed self-immolation in protest against these actions (Stewart 2015). Such is the seriousness of the cow protectionist movement. 2219 Historical Considerations The origin of cow veneration in South Asia must start with an examination of views found in the Vedas. These ancient texts now form an integral part of modern Hindu religious life and have shaped antecedent religious movements in the Indian subcontinent. The Vedas make it clear that the cow is of special religious signiﬁcance and is construed as one of the most divine animals (Alsdorf 2010). Yet these texts do not instruct the believer to abstain from killing them. On the contrary, according to the Vedas, the very fact that the cow is worthy of veneration and spiritual respect makes it an ideal object of ritual sacriﬁce for the gods (Alsdorf 2010; Lipner 2010). Things change with the introduction of the Manusmrti (Law Codes of Manu), another important document that has shaped modern Hindu legalism. This text is found within the Dharmasastras and is variously dated to the second century BCE to the third century CE. The Manusmrti represents a shift from the cow as an object of sacriﬁce to a creature that should be protected from sacriﬁce. Both these incongruous views are present within this text (Alsdorf 2010). The Bhagavad Gita (ﬁfth to second century BCE), a cornerstone of modern Hindu religious life, has been interpreted as a document that prescribes nonviolence and cow protectionism. Although the Bhagavad Gita does not explicitly endorse cow protectionism (Brown 1964), it has been interpreted to be so in light of its association with the deity Krishna and its apparent endorsement of nonviolence, a doctrine known as ahimsa within many South Asian cultures. This interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita is particularly clear in the case of the Hari Krishna movement (Rosen 2004). General endorsements of cow exceptionalism within these sacred texts led to the rise of cow veneration and cow protectionism within premodern Indian religious movements that were based upon texts such as the Vedas. There was also a motive to protect cows as a result of ethnic and religious competition. Abstention from beef eating and an increased interest in cow protection became important for many followers of these S 2220 native religions as Muslims invaders began to occupy Indic lands during the medieval period (Lipner 2010). This animosity led to the rejection of beef eating as it was perceived to be a foreign practice associated with the Muslim invaders (McLane 1977; Lipner 2010). This, in turn, led to the increased recognition of the importance of cow protectionism. The relationship between cow protectionism and ethnic and religious politics becomes especially clear during the period of the Indian independence movement. Mahatma Gandhi, a key ﬁgure and widely respected leader in the independence movement, regarded cow veneration as a key part of the Hindu religious life (Ven der Veer 1994). This was not, however, compatible with his religious pluralism as Muslims continued to slaughter cows in accordance with their own religious traditions. Indeed, the Hindu-only faction of the Indian independence movement used Muslim cow slaughter practices as a mechanism to preach the view that the new India should be a nation that excluded Muslims. Gandhi attempted to remedy this through his concept of satyagraha – he believed that the Hindus should win over their Muslim compatriots through mutual love and understanding (Van der Veer 1994). Tensions between Hindus and Muslims over the issue of cow slaughter have nonetheless exploded at various times both during and after Indian independence. In particular, anti-Muslim rioting was especially prevalent in 1893 (McLane 1977). In part, Hindu anger was fueled by the British colonial tendency to try and foster an artiﬁcial pluralism by protecting Muslims and then consequently demanding that Hindus adopt an interpretation of the Hindu religion in which cows were not deemed to be sacred creatures (Van der Veer 1994). It should also be noted that Hindu nationalists enforced cow protectionism on other more moderate Hindus, and this led to the shaming and punishment of Hindus who were less concerned with it (McLane 1977). For example, Hindus were punished by local councils for selling cattle to Muslims, and in some places, a tax was enforced for the purpose of buying cows from butchers and abattoirs (McLane 1977). Nonetheless, cow protectionism South Asia and Cow Protectionism continues to be a source of conﬂict into the modern period (McLane 1977). Cow protectionism has been a crucial part of Indian politics. The Arya Samaj movement has been instrumental in developing and spearheading the cow protection movement in India (Van der Veer 1994). Another example is Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party’s electoral symbol which was an image of a cow suckling a calf (McLane 1977). Finally, Hindu nationalist concerns with cow protectionism are also associated with Hindu food ethics and meat eating. In Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka, cow protectionism also has strong historical roots. As mentioned above, there are some Buddhist texts of importance to Sinhala Buddhists that endorse the cow as a creature of special importance. The Sutta Nipata, for example, celebrates the cow as an important creature (Norman 1984), and in other sutras, the cowherd is used in positive terms as an analogy for those who cross over the river of suffering to the shores of enlightenment successfully (Buswell and Lopez 2014). We learn from the records of colonists that Sinhala Buddhists were also concerned with exclusive acts of cow protection and repudiated the consumption of cow ﬂesh. During the Portuguese occupation (1505–1658), Pieris observes that Sinhala Buddhists would not eat cows and attributes this to a reverence for the animal adopted from the Indian Hindus (Pieris 1920). Likewise, Robert Knox, a British sailor who was a prisoner of the Kandyan Kingdom during Sri Lanka’s Dutch occupation (1656–1796), also noted that Sinhala Buddhists refuse to eat beef, revere the cow, and in fact regard foreigners who consume cow ﬂesh with derision (Knox 1958). This concern over cows in Buddhist Sri Lanka is also strongly connected to questions of Buddhist food ethics and questions around meat consumption. In modern Sri Lanka, cow protectionism continues to be of high importance. For example, the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress in 1985 adopted a resolution that, among other things, urged Buddhists to give up eating beef because bovines help the rice farmer (Bond 1992). As in India, the cow protection movement is highly politicized and has South Asia and Cow Protectionism led to tension with the indigenous Muslim community. Rioting between Sinhala Buddhists and Muslims has been a fact of Sri Lankan history both before, but especially after, independence (Jayawardena 1970; Kannagara 1984). These anti-Muslim riots often stem, at least in part, from animosity born from the Muslim practice of slaughtering cattle. Nonetheless, because Sinhalese Buddhists cannot kill cattle, there continues to be a demand for beef that is met by Muslim butchers (Gombrich 1991). This is the case even though Sinhala Buddhist nationalists continue to maintain a campaign to shut down Muslim abattoirs (Stewart 2015). Violence against Muslims as a consequence of strong views about cattle slaughter continues on in the present time (ibid). In Burma, similar concern over cow protection is evident. As in the case of India and Sri Lanka, this concern has also led to conﬂict with the local Muslim population. In ancient times, cows were held in high regard in Burma because they were associated with agriculture (Braun 2013). Ledi Sayadaw (an important Burmese Buddhist reformer and political agitator) viewed cow protectionism as an important extension of his Buddhist values and used it as a platform to attack British colonists (Braun 2013). In the 1880s he penned a letter urging his Buddhist followers to give up beef eating and take seriously the need to venerate and protect cows from harm. After independence, Burma adopted measures to ban the slaughter of cattle as a result of legislation instituted by U Nu, a leading Burmese nationalist. In contemporary times, the Muslim minority in Burma has been routinely subject to attack by Burmese nationalists, again, in part stemming from animosity over their practice of cow slaughter. Motives for Cow Protectionism The central motives driving cow protectionism in South Asia are (1) an ethical concern over the welfare of cows, typically born from religious convictions; (2) prudential arguments for caring for the cow, such as the fact that cows support the 2221 wider community with their products; and (3) cynical exploitation of underlying concern for cows for political gain. The ﬁrst motive of ethical concern for cow welfare is usually religious in nature. In India, the cow is positively compared to one’s own human mother. Gandhi, for example, comments that we should venerate the cow out of gratitude for supporting us as we do our own mother (Jha 2002). There is therefore a strong argument that cows should be treated with respect just as our mothers are treated with respect. This analogical argument nonetheless has religious associations because of the spiritual importance of the spiritual feminine in Hinduism. This feminine domain is important since it is the female consort of the gods that provides the male deity with his power (shakti) (Fuller 2004). In this way, the spiritual feminine is of moral and religious importance in modern Hinduism. Worship of the cow is therefore connected to the worship of the essence of the main Hindu gods. As discussed above, the cow is associated with the story of Krishna. Krishna’s childhood was based in a pastoral environment and he was often surrounded by herds of cows (Van der Veer 1994). The myth of Krishna also tells us of how he stole milk and curd from cows (ibid). This has led to milk playing an important role in Hindu ritual libations (Smith 1990). Kamadhenu is the more explicit manifestation of the cow as an object of religious veneration. The cosmic deity Kamadhenu, also known as the “mother of all cows,” manifested from a great churning ocean of cosmic milk (Bonnefoy and Donniger 1993). She is considered the “source of all prosperity” and plays an important role in the relief of disease and illness (ibid). It is clear, then, that veneration of the cow in Hinduism is also associated closely with milk and milk products. Indeed, the ﬁve products of the cow – cow dung, milk, urine, curd, and ghee (the latter two being derived products) – are important in a number of Hindu rituals. They are particularly important during the Thai Pongal festival. During this harvest festival, painted and decorated bullocks are worshipped and milk libations are made at temples (Gough 1981). When S 2222 combined in particular ways, these ﬁve products can form a compound that is also considered a reliable homeopathic medical treatment. As stated above, the cow was once sacriﬁced as a way to please the gods, but this has since ended under the view that the cow should instead be protected from harm. Despite this, the cow is still associated with religious sacriﬁce, albeit in a nonviolence way. For example, cows are sometimes given to Brahman priests (Bonnefoy and Donniger 1993), and the release of cows from slaughterhouses is viewed as a religious duty. In this way, the religious ideal of blood sacriﬁce has been reappropriated toward nonviolent ends. This reverence for the cow in Hinduism is also exempliﬁed in other creatures including Nandi. Nandi is a bull that acts as Shiva’s vehicle (vahana). All major Hindu deities have an animal vehicle, and they are of spiritual signiﬁcance because they act as a gatekeeper between the worshipper and the deity and his consort. Nandi, of course, is a male bull, and this therefore runs counter to the prevailing narrative of the bovine being associated primarily with the feminine. Note also that during religious festivals like Thai Pongal, it is usually bullocks (males) that are worshipped. This illustrates that the importance of the bovine transcends just the feminine, though the feminine is of predominant importance. Cow protection and veneration in Sri Lanka occupies a similar religious space to India. Hindu Tamil Sri Lankans participate in cow veneration activities in similar fashion to their Hindu Indian counterparts. During Thai Pongal celebrations, Hindu Tamil Sri Lankans also decorate and worship cows. Rohan Bastin has observed that the ﬁve products of the cow discussed above are used during religious rituals at Hindu temples in Sri Lanka (Bastin 2002). Indeed, Bastin observes that cow dung is a central part of Hindu ritualism at the Munnesvaram temple in Eastern Sri Lanka and is used to mark the images of sacred deities (ibid). As in India, milk libations play a central role in Hindu Tamil Sri Lankan ritualism (ibid). Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka also respect and venerate the cow. As discussed by Obeyesekere, this veneration is rooted primarily in concern over the Kiri Amma deity South Asia and Cow Protectionism (Obeyesekere 1984). Kiri Amma means “milk mother” and is also the common name for the patrilineal grandmother. As in India, therefore, there is a strong connection between the domain of the spiritual feminine and the cow (Stewart 2015). The modern cow protectionist movement in Sri Lanka commonly deploys arguments to link respect of the mother with respect for the cow in the same manner as Gandhi discussed above (ibid). Obeyesekere has observed that there are ceremonies and rituals associated with veneration of the Kiri Amma deity that are intended to relieve illness in young children (Obeyesekere 1984). This is because Kiri Amma is isomorphic with the goddess Pattini who is a native deity that cares for young children and cures disease (ibid). There is also evidence that Sri Lankan Sinhala cow protectionists also recognize the Kamadhenu deity, and her icon can sometimes be found in Sri Lanka (Stewart 2015). In Sri Lanka, Buddhist arguments are also employed in order to justify the protection of cows. These arguments typically center on the need to express compassion (karuna) toward other nonhuman creatures (Stewart 2013, 2015). In this way, it is a Buddhist duty to save cows for the same reason that other animals must be saved. However, the exceptional position of cows is in part a result of other religious forces discussed above. There are also prudential arguments in favor of cow protectionism, though these arguments are almost always linked ultimately to religious consideration. In Sri Lanka, cow protectionist groups have run campaigns to advocate for the better of treatment of cows because they are of instrumental importance in supplying schoolchildren with milk (Stewart 2015). Such campaigns argue that cow’s milk is essential in strengthening growing children and that it is important as a way to supplement a human mother’s milk (ibid). There have also been arguments that the religious attitude toward the cow stems originally from the pragmatic need to preserve cows due to their economic and agricultural value (Crooke 1912; Jha 2002). Economic arguments are also evident in the nineteenth century where educated Indians became aware of the poor condition of Indian South Asia and Cow Protectionism livestock and sought to raise awareness about the need to maintain a healthy dairy industry (McLane 1977). These Indians represented a sector of the Indian Hindu community that were not offended by the Muslim or non-Hindu treatment of the cow but were concerned about cows for other practical reasons. Likewise, the leader of Arya Samaj, Dayananda – an Indian nationalist organization – maintained that stopping the slaughter of cows was important because a living cow would sustain the lives of more people than a dead one would (ibid). These, and other similar examples, illustrate how cow protectionism has not always been concerned with religious motivation, but that there has also been a strong economic and prudential line of thinking when it comes to improving cow welfare in India. There are also examples of cow protectionism being used as an expedient means to motivate other political campaigns. One example of this is the Kuka Movement in India in the 1870s. Recognizing that their movement had begun to lose its momentum, Kuka leaders attempted to raise awareness by beginning a cow protectionist campaign that targeted local Muslims (McLane 1977). Conclusion The cow protection movement in South Asia has strong historical roots that go back to its ancient religious texts. Cow protectionism is most strong in India though it has spread to almost all neighboring countries including Nepal, as well as Buddhist nations such as Burma and Sri Lanka. The origin of this cow protectionism is often religious and centers on various cults and associations with important deities. In Sri Lanka, this concern also stems from Hindu roots though Buddhism has also had a hand in justifying cow protectionism through wider animal welfare concerns. These same concerns have also motivated cow protectionism in Burma. In all these countries, cow protectionism is strongly associated with ethnic politics. In particular, Muslim communities have been hard hit by nationalists who seek to expel Muslim slaughter practices from their respective countries. 2223 Nonetheless, not all these arguments stem from religious concern which is the typical source. In some cases, economic arguments are deployed to justify cow protection, and in such cases, there is usually no malicious intent toward Muslims or other ethnic groups. In general, concern over cow protection is often linked to other issues such as animal welfare, vegetarianism, and food ethics. Cross-References ▶ Beef Production: Ethical Issues ▶ Hinduism and Food ▶ Islam and Food and Agricultural Ethics ▶ Milk Production: Ethical Issues ▶ South Asia and Food References Alsdorf, L. (2010). The history of vegetarianism and cow-veneration in India. London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. Bastin, R. (2002). The domain of constant excess: Plural worship at the Munnesvaram temples in Sri Lanka. New York: Berghahn Books. Bond, G. (1992). The Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka: Religious tradition, reinterpretation and response. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Bonnefoy, Y., & Donniger, W. (1993). Asian mythologies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Braun, E. (2013). The birth of insight: Meditation, modern Buddhism and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brown, N.. (1964). The sanctity of the cow in Hinduism. The Economic Weekly. Crooke, W. (1912). The veneration of the cow in India. Folklore, 23(2), 275–306. Cush, D., Robinson, C., & York, M. (Eds.). (2008). Encyclopedia of Hinduism. London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. Fuller, C. J. (2004). The camphor ﬂame: Popular Hinduism and society in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gombrich, R. (1991). Buddhist precept and practice: Traditional Buddhism in the rural highlands of Ceylon. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publisher. Gombrich, R., & Obeyesekere, G. (1988). Buddhism transformed: Religious change in Sri Lanka. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gough, K. (1981). Rural society in southeast India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. S 2224 Jayawardena, K. (1970). Economic and political factors in the 1915 riots. The Journal of Asian Studies, 29(2), 223–233. Jha, D. N. (2002). The myth of the holy cow. London/New York: Verso Books. Kannagara, A. P. (1984). The riots of 1915 in Sri Lanka. Past and Present, 102(1), 130–164. Knox, R. (1958). An historical relation of the island Ceylon in the East Indies. Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia: Dodo Press. Lipner, J. (2010). Hindus: Their religious beliefs and practices. Routledge/Taylor and Francis. McLane, J. R. (1977). Indian nationalism and the early congress. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Michaels, A. (2004). The king and cow: On a crucial symbol of Hinduization in Nepal. In D. N. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, & J. Whelpton (Eds.), Nationalism and ethnicity in a Hindu kingdom. London: Routledge/ Taylor and Francis. Norman, K. R., Trans. (2006). The group of discourses (Sutta Nipāta). Lancaster: Pali Text Society. Obeyesekere, G. (1984). Cult of the goddess Pattini. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pieris, P. E. (1920). Ceylon and the Portuguese, 1505–1658. Colombo: Ceylon Civil Service. Robert, B., & Lopez, D. (2014). The Princeton dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rosen, S. (2004). Holy cow: The Hare Krishna contributions to vegetarianism & animal rights. New York: Lantern Books. Smith, B. K. (1990). Eaters, food, and social hierarchy in ancient India: A dietary guide to a revolution of values. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 58(2), 177–205. Spiro, M. (1982). Buddhism and society: A great tradition and its Burmese vicissitudes. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stewart, J. J. (2013). Cow protection in sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka. Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, 45, 19. Stewart, J. J. (2014). Muslim-Buddhist conﬂict in contemporary Sri Lanka. South Asia Research, 34(3), 241–260. Stewart, J. J. (2015). Vegetarianism and animal ethics in contemporary Buddhism. Abingdon: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. Ven der Veer, P. (1994). Religious nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India. Berkeley: University of California Press. South Asia and Food James Stewart University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia Throughout South Asia, food consumption practices are intimately concerned with motives South Asia and Food related to prudence, such as eating foods that promote better health, but also with more complex religious motives. For example, the view that certain food practices can lead to spiritual pollution is a serious issue in Hindu India. Furthermore, food practices are often governed by wider concerns over the treatment of animals. This, in turn, is frequently motivated by religious sentiment. Despite their divergent religious traditions, Buddhists and Hindus both often reject the consumption of beef because it involves the slaughter of cows, an animal that is widely venerated throughout South Asia. Other matters of ethical signiﬁcance in modern South Asia include issues around questionable labor practices in the agricultural and animal husbandry sector. The Vedas are a body of sacred texts that have been inﬂuential within indigenous Indian religions. In these texts, food plays a prominent role. Food is understood to supply our basic life force (Smith 1990), and there was a view among ancient Indian communities that life force was absorbed through the consumption of food, both plant and animal (Spencer 1996). These views would later be adapted into a more systematic religious movement through the Vedas whereby ritual sacriﬁce, and the consumption of products associated with that sacriﬁce, would lead to the ampliﬁcation of the worshipper’s physical and spiritual powers. In the ancient heterodox religious traditions, food consumption is also heavily scrutinized. In the Buddhist Sutra literature, the Buddha requires that his devotees adhere to a dietary regime governed by strict moderation (Stewart 2010). The founder of Jainism, Mahavira, likewise implemented religious directives that restricted his followers’ diets in a variety of different ways (see ▶ Jainism and Food) (Dundas 2003). Likewise, the Ajivikas were famous for their extreme dietary practices, and fasting was considered a viable way of developing supernormal abilities (Basham 1951). The relationship between food practices and religious observances therefore has strong roots in the subcontinent. Many issues concerning food in South Asia center around arguments that have to do with meat consumption. Vegetarianism, in particular, South Asia and Food is ubiquitously associated with India, as are food consumption practices stemming from traditional medical beliefs. In India, these food consumption practices are pan-cultural and pan-religious (see ▶ Vegetarianism). Vegetarianism, for example, ﬁnds expression in Hinduism and Jainism. Early Buddhism, though not widely practiced in India, does not directly recommend vegetarianism (see ▶ Buddhist Perspectives on Food and Agricultural Ethics). Nonetheless, there is widespread respect for vegetarianism in South Asian Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka and Burma. In some interpretations Sikhism, a religion indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, vegetarianism can be viewed in a positive light. In Nepal, a predominately Hindu country, vegetarianism is sometimes practiced, though not to the same extent as in India (Levine 1987). The Jains are especially restrictive in that they explicitly view plants as objects of moral consideration and they maintain the view that consuming plants is also a sin (Alsdorf 2010). This concern over the consumption of plants and animals, however, underscores a general reverence for life that would later provide a basis for the idea of non-violence (ahimsa) that would become an important feature of indigenous Indian religions (ibid). It is this concern over non-violence that would be particular inﬂuential in the case of heterodox religions such as Jainism and Buddhism and cause them to adopt stringent food consumption practices. Hinduism has also been concerned with the issue of non-violence, but it is also heavily indebted to the concept of moral and spiritual impurity in a way less obvious in the heterodoxy. Furthermore, foods of all types are frequently associated with wider issues that have to do with health and body image. In particular, in India, masculinity and virility is associated especially with meat eating (Smith 1990), and this is the case throughout South Asia. These matters also intersect with wider issues about the role of food in medicine, and many traditional medical practices – such as Ayurveda and Unani – require restrictive diets in order to improve a patient’s health. In ancient India, the consumption of food was also critically concerned with a cosmic hierarchy 2225 with humans located at the top (Smith 1990). In this cosmic structure, humans are understood to consume animals and, in turn, animals consume other animals and plants. This structural hierarchy implicitly justiﬁes conventional food consumption practices. Ritual sacriﬁce also played an important role in the early Vedic religion and often led to special food consumption practices. Ritual sacriﬁce was primarily about the preparation and redistribution of food through special religious observances. For example, the use of ghee or clariﬁed butter, a product of the cow, is a central part of many Vedic rituals (ibid). In all these matters, food plays a spiritual role in ancient Indian culture and this importance has been transmitted through to contemporary times. This concern has found its way to surrounding South Asian nations and has subsequently inﬂuenced attitudes toward food in those nations as well. Yet within individual cultures and traditions, there is considerable disagreement over the correct way to address fundamental questions about how to settle ethical debates around food consumption practices. Food Agriculture in South Asia Agriculture has played a critical part in the development of subcontinental society and culture since prehistory. Rice has been cultivated in the Ganga Plains, for example, since at least the Neolithic period (Singh 2008). Rice has therefore been a staple food throughout South Asia since ancient times. The cultivation of rice has also played an important role in many South Asian cultures and traditions. For example, in Sri Lanka, due to the perceived national importance of rice, the rice farmer is sometimes held up as an exemplary individual whose occupation beneﬁts the whole nation (Stewart 2015). In Northern India, there is also evidence of wheat, barley, lentils, and peas being cultivated during the Neolithic period (Singh 2008). Various animals, including cattle, were also reared and domesticated during this period (ibid). In later periods, a range of crops were added to the above agricultural staples including mangoes, S 2226 plantains, jackfruit, coconut, areca, and other plants native to the subcontinent. Even during the ancient period, there is evidence that a spice trade had developed between India and polities in the Mediterranean. In Sri Lanka, evidence of agriculture has also been present since ancient times, but of particular note are the highly advanced irrigation systems developed during the later Anuradhapura period that were used in the northern dry zones to water large farming areas (De Silva 2008). In the British colonial period, the Sri Lankan (then Ceylon) economy was primarily a plantation economy, and the main export was ﬁrst coffee and then later tea (ibid). Some scholars have argued that the development of agriculture in ancient India helped support a cultural boom in India that led to rapid urbanization and consequently the development of new religious and philosophical traditions that appealed to a new wealthy merchant class (Gombrich 2006). Such new religions included Buddhism and Jainism. Greater access to food also inﬂuenced other cultural practices, such as the possibility of widespread food donations in the form of offerings to monastic institutions, for example, the ancient Buddhist monastic order. The importance of agriculture may have also played a role in other customary practices, such as Vedic animal sacriﬁce. The most important agricultural animals were also the most prized animals for ritual slaughter, such as the cow (Crooke 1912; Jha 2002). The killing of these animals demonstrated great devotion to the relevant Vedic god because it was an act that entailed signiﬁcant ﬁnancial loss. In modern times, agriculture in South Asia is associated with other ethical problems such as the use of child labor. In India, children of destitute families have often been involved in unpaid labor activities, the majority of which were concerned with agriculture and animal husbandry (Weiner 1991). More recent studies in child labor continue to reveal that children are primarily engaged in trades associated with agriculture (Burra 2005). Similarly, in Sri Lanka, the predominant form of child labor is in the agricultural sector, primarily farming (67 %) (United States Department of Labor 2014). Again, in Burma, child labor is South Asia and Food also ubiquitously associated with the agricultural sector. In some South Asian countries that rely upon agriculture, child labor laws are often relaxed with a view to better the agricultural sector (Basu and Chau 2003). In general, labor exploitation in the agricultural and food sector is a major problem in South Asia. Tea cultivation in India and Sri Lanka is ubiquitously associated with problematic labor practices (Biyanwila 2011). In Sri Lanka, tea pickers subsist on an irregular and substandard income due to a lack of government oversight that is only compounded by troublesome legislation that has arguably resulted in Sri Lankan Tamil disenfranchisement (Peebles 2001; Vijayapalan 2015). There are also ongoing child labor problems speciﬁc to the tea industry in Sri Lanka. Therefore, apart from the ethical questions directly related to animal welfare and food consumption practices, there are also wider moral questions relating to human labor that need to be considered in these matters. This has led some to call for a boycott of certain South Asian agricultural products, such as tea, in protest of these inequalities and abuses. Meat Eating and Vegetarianism in Ancient India Meat eating and vegetarianism remain key issues when it comes to addressing food ethics in South Asia. The origin of this debate stems from ancient Indian sources (see ▶ Food in Ancient Indian Philosophy). Contrary to popular belief, there is little evidence that vegetarianism played a role in ancient Indian religious practices. Some scholars have argued that the Vedas endorsed the consumption of meat (Alsdorf 2010; Jha 2002). The Vedas were key Indic religious texts that were critical in the formation of early indigenous religions such as Vedic Brahmanism but have also come to shape the modern religion of Hinduism. According to these scholars, the earliest part of this body of texts dates from around 1700 to 1100 BCE, and even here there is a recognition that meat can – and even should – be consumed as a part of appropriate religious ceremony. South Asia and Food Scholars note that the ritual slaughter of animals, and their subsequent consumption, was part of Vedic religious observances (Smith 1990; Jha 2002). There is evidence that the Vedas endorsed the idea that meat eating was a natural part of the cosmic order whereby humans dominated the animal world (Smith 1990). Indeed, meat is explicitly stated to be the best kind of food (ibid). The importance of vegetarianism is not made in these ancient texts and does not appear as an Indian value until much later on in the development of Indian religions (Alsdorf 2010). Nonetheless, the slaughter of animals as part of religious observances was a necessarily expensive enterprise and was therefore generally practiced by only the wealthy elite (Spencer 1996). The later development of the idea of non-violence (ahimsa) and its importance as a religious aspiration is ﬁrst made by non-Vedic/ Brahmanical religious traditions, such as Jainism and Buddhism. This attitude of non-violence was thought to apply to animals and this in turn led to the development of vegetarianism as an ethical and spiritual ideal. Of these latter two religions, only Jainism enforced vegetarianism as a religious duty. The ancient Buddhist texts report that the Buddha refused to make meat abstention mandatory and maintained that certain animals could be consumed under speciﬁc strict conditions (Stewart 2010). The Buddha maintained that vegetarianism is an optional activity and that meat may be accepted by monks if they know that it is pure in three ways: that the monk had not known, heard, or suspected that the animal had been killed for him (Harvey 2000; Stewart 2010). It seems that this reluctance to adopt vegetarianism as a mandatory activity was driven by a fear of sectarianism that the Buddha believed would lead to the destruction of Buddhism (Stewart 2010). The Buddha also maintained that an injunction that enforced vegetarianism would be an extreme position that violated his own middle way principles (ibid). This split between Buddhism and Jainism over diet has led to considerable conﬂict. Buddhist texts maintain that Jains are extremist ascetics, while Jain texts argue that Buddhists are decadent gourmands who do not respect the 2227 ascetic necessities of the monastic life (Ulrich 2007; Stewart 2015; Lang 2015). Jainism, a heterodox ancient Indian religion founded by the sage Mahavira who was a contemporary of the Buddha, expounded the view that meat eating is a violation of the key Jain ethical principle of non-violence (Dundas 2003). This non-violence principle holds that Jains should not harm any living creature; this can also include plants and microorganisms. This has led some Jain monks to undertake severe practices such as sweeping the ground in front of them so they do not step on small animals and insects and also wearing masks to prevent the inadvertent breathing in, and therefore killing, of tiny insects (Spencer 1998; Dundas 2003). It is therefore unsurprising that Jains are also required to abstain from meat consumption since this necessarily involves the slaughter of animals. The Jains take such matters a great deal more seriously than the Buddhists in part because, in the early texts, they do not believe that intention is a relevant factor in apportioning blame (Dundas 2003). Hence one can attract unwanted karma even by accidentally killing a creature. The Buddhist texts, on the other hand, communicate the view that intention is relevant and therefore unintentional killing is less morally blameworthy. These Jain ethical practices are linked to more fundamental metaphysical views about the corrupting effects of evil thoughts and bad actions. Wrong action leads to the encumbering of the soul with karma thus preventing liberation from worldly rebirth. Only a pious lifestyle over many rebirths can remove the presence of this karma enabling liberation (Dundas 2003). This attitude toward spiritual purity inﬂuenced Jain food practices. Jain ascetics would become so concerned with ethical food consumption that it frequently led to fasting which in turn would sometimes lead to death (Basham 1951). The extremeness of such actions in part led to a division between the Svetambara and Digambara sects, the latter being the more conservative and the former being more pragmatic (Jaini 2007). Ancient Buddhist texts, in particular the Sutra literature, state that the Buddha rejected a range of S 2228 different food consumption practices. For example, the Buddha disallowed the consumption of a number of different animals – elephants, lions, hyenas, monkeys, and others (Harvey 2000). These rules were implemented sometimes out of respect for the particular animals, such as the lion and the elephant, but also due to the notion that some of these creatures are unclean or not ﬁt for human consumption, such as in the case of the monkey and hyena. The Buddha also opposed the consumption of human ﬂesh (ibid). In many cases such as these, the evidence is that these rules were implemented for prudential reasons. In the Vinaya, an important, and ancient, Buddhist text of monastic legalism, we ﬁnd the Buddha rejecting cannibalism seemingly out of concern that it would bring shame upon the monastic order (Stewart 2010, 2015). Nonetheless, the Buddha expressly rejects the ritual slaughter of animals and also condemns merchants who slaughter animals for economic reasons. Again, such bans did not lead to the mandatory adoption of vegetarianism, unlike in the case of Jainism. The Buddha’s overall attitude toward food was that of moderation (Harvey 2000; Stewart 2010, 2015). He believed that Buddhists should not overindulge in food and that food should be viewed as a fuel that supports the renunciate’s life. In the Vinaya and in other ancient Buddhist texts, the Buddha limited monks to consuming no food after midday, and this has led to the customary practice whereby monks in South Asian Buddhist nations consume breakfast and a large meal at lunch but only take “medicines” and drinks in the afternoon. Monks were also completely banned from consuming, among other things, alcohol because it was viewed as an intoxicant that would inhibit the spiritual development of the religious aspirant. This stems in part from the wider Indian historical association between vows of chastity (brahmacharya) and food-limiting practices such as fasting (see ▶ Fasting). The common denominator among all these religions, whether orthodox or heterodox, is the need to control desire. In line with the view that desires must be controlled for spiritual limitation, the Buddhist Sutra literature reports that the Buddha engaged in South Asia and Food stringent fasting practices that were associated during this period with orthodox Brahmanical renunciate practices. The Buddha found extreme fasting to be manifestly harmful so while he did believe that food should be strictly controlled, he did not adopt the idea that the total withholding of food was critical for spiritual advancement – unlike the Jains and the Ajivikas. This idea did, however, continue to be popular within the religious orthodoxy and elements of such practices can be found in all Indian religious traditions. Buddhist debates surrounding the moral and spiritual justiﬁcation for certain food consumption practices declined in importance as the religion of Buddhism ultimately expired in India. These debates were instead transplanted to surrounding nations such as Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Burma. In the orthodox Vedic religions, the view that animal slaughter was an important aspect of the religion began to have less inﬂuence as ﬂedgling heterodox religions such as Buddhism and Jainism started to develop. Some have argued that the Dharmasastras, especially the Manusmriti (a text that dates from the second to the third century BCE), maintains a contradictory view that can be interpreted as both endorsing and rejecting animal slaughter (Alsdorf 2010). This has led some scholars to posit that there was disagreement within the orthodox Brahmanical tradition over the importance of animal slaughter and that there is evidence that a trend toward animal non-violence was beginning to appear (Jha 2002; Alsdorf 2010). Nonetheless, animal slaughter in the orthodox Indian religions would never truly disappear, and even in India today, some Hindus continue to slaughter animals as part of their religious observances (Fuller 2004). Nonetheless, there is a strong Hindu movement that supports and promotes animal non-violence and vegetarianism in India, and so such practices are also, at times, discouraged (ibid). An inevitable part of the promotion of the idea of non-violence was the rise of King Asoka (reigned 265–238 BCE) of the Maurya Dynasty. Asoka, seemingly inspired by his conversion to Buddhism, implemented a number of policies that banned or limited the hunting and killing of animals (Horner 1967). This would have South Asia and Food unavoidably led to the promotion of dietary practices such as vegetarianism and abstention from the consumption of meat. The main historic source for Asoka’s rejection of animal slaughter is his rock edicts, some of which can still be accessed today (ibid). It has been argued, however, that Asoka’s apparent paciﬁsm ﬁnds its roots not necessarily in Buddhism, but instead in Jainism and orthodox Brahmanism (Alsdorf 2010). Still, the impact that Asoka has had on food practices in South Asian cultures cannot be disputed. Meat Eating and Vegetarianism in Modern India Modern Hindu food practices have not only been shaped by these ancient and premodern forces, but they have also been heavily inﬂuenced by more recent colonial forces. To begin with, early Western missionaries traveling to the subcontinent observed that the Hindus, especially in South India, took vegetarianism to be a crucial part of their religious observances (Stuart 2007). While some missionaries respected Hindu food practices, many ridiculed them (ibid). This set up a competitive narrative between foreign (i.e., usually Western) interlopers on the one hand and indigenous Hindus on the other. From the perspective of some Hindus, European invaders were barbarians who had no respect for nonhuman life and, in particular, no respect for the sacred practices of the Hindus. They were especially appalled by the invader’s tendency to slaughter cows and consume beef (ibid). Similar attitudes toward foreign invaders are present in Sri Lanka (Young 1995). During this period of occupation, there was great controversy in Europe as to whether converts to Christianity were permitted to continue their traditional practices which sometimes included vegetarianism (ibid). This conﬂict between European invaders and local Hindus propagated a narrative between those interlopers who threatened indigenous customs and those who sought to protect them. This later inﬂuenced the Indian independence movement and, since then, the modern Hindutva (Hindu-only) movement. The Hindutva 2229 movement, a Hindu nationalist movement in India, seeks to expel non-Hindu cultural practices, including food practices, from the country altogether. In modern Hinduism, vegetarianism, and other food-limiting practices, is associated with caste purity (see ▶ Hinduism and Food). Typically, vegetarianism is nominally practiced by the Brahmin (priest) caste, which is the highest spiritual caste in the Hindu religion (Fuller 2004). Vegetarianism is part of a social hierarchy where certain food practices are understood to be conducted by a spiritual elite. Meat eating, on the other hand, is viewed as a baser practice and is afﬁliated with violence and martial excellence. Nonetheless, vegetarianism is not strictly associated with the Brahmin caste. Lower castes sometimes practice vegetarianism, often as a way to improve their social and spiritual standing (Mayer 1970). On the other hand, not all Brahmins practice vegetarianism and some Brahmins eat meat without any concern. For example, within the Kanya-Kubja community, some meats and ﬁsh are consumed (Fuller 2004). Furthermore, in modern India, religiously motivated vegetarianism is more commonly associated with South Indian Hindus and is more sporadically practiced in North India (ibid). The practice of vegetarianism in India is also critically associated with concern over ritual pollution (Douglas 2002; Flood 2004). Ritual food management practices, especially in relation to the Hindu temple, involve strict pollution avoidance strategies, and sacred food items offered in temples are usually consumed by temple ofﬁcials, not by the attending devotees (Fuller 1979). Food that has come into contact with low-caste individuals cannot typically be consumed by higher-caste individuals such as Brahmans. In the event of this sort of contamination, rigorous cleansing rituals are sometimes implemented (Flood 2004). These decontamination rituals include ritual bathing in sacred rivers such as the Ganges or the sipping of pure water. The ingestion of sacred water counteracts the ingestion of spiritual pollutants. The threat of intercaste pollution is considered so great that some never eat away from their homes in case they inadvertently come into contact with food S 2230 prepared by a member of the lower castes (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012). Vegetarianism, as a spiritual activity, became particularly prominent during the colonial period. It was of particular importance in relation to the Indian independence movement. Dayananda Saraswati (1824–1883), the founder of the Hindu nationalist movement known as Arya Samaj (Noble Society), vigorously promoted cow protectionism as well as vegetarianism. Vegetarianism was, for him, a proper expression of the Hindu ethos (McLane 1977). Arya Samaj was a powerful historical force that helped install Hinduism as a national religion. The movement also had the effect of propagating the virtues of vegetarianism. Mohandas Gandhi is another important ﬁgure among Hindus for propagating the role of foodlimiting behaviors in pursuit of religious purity. Gandhi argued in favor of fasting as a method of controlling cravings and desires. For Gandhi, and other Hindus, controlling desire is a crucial pathway toward connecting with God (Van der Veer 1994; Tidrick 2013). Yet while Gandhi favored fasting, he was not the ﬁrst to value fasting as a spiritual practice, and its roots originally lie in ancient Vedic sources and are adopted also in the heterodox tradition (Flood 2004). Gandhi viewed vegetarianism as a basic practice of true Hinduism because it was an expression of the Hindu principle of non-violence. He also saw meat as a pollutant that needed to be expunged, not to mention the fact that he regarded vegetarianism as a prudential health necessity (Tidrick 2013). In line with his food-limiting practices, he also experimented with limiting other foods including salt and at one time even adopted a quasi-fruitarian diet that mainly involved him eating groundnuts and lemons (Gandhi 1993). Again, Gandhi connected food practices back to their Vedic origins (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012). The practice of vegetarianism is increasingly popular as an expression of Hindu piety throughout India. In turn, animal sacriﬁce practices are becoming less popular as vegetarianism and concern over animal welfare continue to rise (Fuller 2004). Public restaurants in India sometimes go to considerable lengths to provide spaces that South Asia and Food accommodate both vegetarians and meat eaters (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012). Special secluded booths are made so that vegetarians and meat eaters can be segregated from one another (ibid). Because of the issue of spiritual contamination, restaurants must sometimes employ complex food management systems to ensure that meat never comes into contact with vegetarian food (ibid). Despite such attempts to accommodate different dietary needs, the vegetarian movement is nonetheless associated with elements of the Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) movement. This movement is also concerned with cow protectionism and so the issue of vegetarianism in India is often concerned with ethnic and religious politics. Aside from Hinduism, Sikhism – another indigenous religion to India – prescribes complex food consumption practices. Key ﬁgures in the history of Sikhism, such as Guru Amar Das (1479–1574 CE), refused to eat anything except rice and lentils, and this is sometimes construed by Sikhs as evidence that Sikhism promotes vegetarianism (Cole and Sambhi 1998). This has led some Sikhs to adopt a vegetarian diet and abstain from meat (ibid). Many Sikhs also refuse to consume beef because of their appreciation of the cow, but cow protectionism appears to be a pan-Indian practice (see ▶ South Asia and Cow Protectionism). Still, there is disagreement about this within the Sikh tradition, and some Sikhs read passages of the Guru Granth Sahib (the central text of Sikhism) as rejecting universal vegetarianism. Other central historical ﬁgures of the Sikh religion, such as the prophet Guru Nanak (1469–1539 CE), appear to have eaten some types of meat such as lamb (ibid). Guru Gobind Singh (1675–1708 CE) also explicitly rejects the consumption of meat stemming from the halal method of animal slaughter. These injunctions coming from these important gurus have led some Sikhs to view this as an implicit endorsement of animal slaughter and therefore meat consumption, insofar that there are only restrictions on the method of slaughter (ibid). On the other hand, Sikh vegetarians interpret this as an independent criticism of Islam and view this as a statement about the need to avoid harm to animals South Asia and Food completely and not as a conditional allowance of meat consumption (ibid). Another example of vegetarian practices in Sikhism is the existence of the langar or common kitchen. It is basic to the langar institution that the dishes be vegetarian (Dogra and Manuskhani 1995). Here, food is prepared by Sikhs as part of their religious commitment to community service. The food is then distributed to others in the community regardless of economic status or religious afﬁliation. This practice has been utilized by some Sikh leaders as a way to build bridges between communities (Cole and Sambhi 1998). Islam is the chief religion of Pakistan and Bangladesh and is also widely practiced in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma. In accordance with normal Muslim food practices, it is considered a sin to consume meat that has not been prepared in a ritually pure manner known as halal (see ▶ Islam and Food and ▶ Islam and Food and Agricultural Ethics). This in part stems from a more basic concern over the consumption of blood, a material that is considered haram, or forbidden (Rippin 2011). Hence, Muslim animal slaughter practices are concerned with ensuring that food materials are free of blood. Muslims, as with other Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, also reject the consumption of pork and pig products. In the Quran, pig ﬂesh is described as an “abomination” (ibid). The general question of why pigs are so maligned has been vigorously debated by scholars for some time. One explanation for why pigs are rejected is out of a concern for hygiene, though Mary Douglas has argued that it is because pigs do not ﬁt properly into ancient animal classiﬁcation schemas (Douglas 2002). Muslims also ritually slaughter animals for the Bakra Eid festival. The remains of these animals are typically distributed among the poor. Yet this festival, which often involves the slaughter of cows, has sometimes led to conﬂict between Muslims and Hindus (McLane 1977). Therefore, there are animal sacriﬁce practices within the Islamic tradition, just as there are within the Hindu tradition. Controversy over such matters has led to some interethnic and interreligious conﬂict in a number of South Asian nations including India and Sri Lanka. 2231 Meat Eating and Vegetarianism in Buddhist Nations Vegetarianism has historically been a complicated issue within South Asian Buddhist communities (▶ Buddhist Perspectives on Food and Agricultural Ethics). In India and Nepal, Tibetan diaspora communities typically consume meat without problem, though it appears that some monks do practice vegetarianism (Gurumurthy 1980). There is a tradition within Tibetan Buddhism for vegetarianism, and some inﬂuential monks have adopted and endorsed vegetarianism as a proper expression of the Buddhist principle of non-violence (Barstow 2013). It is clear that such ﬁgures will have some inﬂuence on Tibetan diaspora communities in India and Nepal. The historical origins of vegetarianism in South Asian Buddhist communities are equally complicated. In Sri Lanka, vegetarianism appears to predate European colonization. There are reports in indigenous Sinhalese chronologies that indicate a respect for vegetarianism and a rejection of speciﬁc meat consumption practices, in particular beef and ﬁsh (Stewart 2015). Later European settlers and explorers also report that Sinhalese Buddhists regarded vegetarianism as a dietary ideal, even if many did not practice it. For example, Robert Knox, an explorer who was marooned in Sri Lanka during the Dutch occupation, observed that pious Buddhists practiced vegetarianism. He also noted that beef eating was so thoroughly rejected that European colonists were derisively referred to as “beef-eating slaves” (ibid). Even older reports from Sinhalese records indicate a general disbelief of colonial dietary practices. In particular, the Catholic Portuguese’s consumption of meat and wine was derided by Buddhists, and reimaginings of the Biblical tale of Christ were produced to ridicule Catholic beliefs and practices. These stories depict Christ as a demonic ﬁgure who is addicted to alcohol and meat (Young 1995). Within Sinhala Buddhist communities, some of these concerns stem as much from Hindu cultural inﬂuence as it does from their Buddhist beliefs. For example, the rejection of beef eating appears to have its roots in imported views about the need to protect cows (ibid). These beliefs of S 2232 course lead to Muslim-Buddhist conﬂict as in India. Objections are similarly raised against the killing of ﬁsh in Sri Lanka, and this has led to intercaste and interreligious conﬂict since the ﬁsher people in Sri Lanka are predominately Christian and of the Karava caste (ibid). The intersection between caste, ethnicity, and religion therefore plays a strong role in dietary practices in Sri Lanka. Views about meat, however, are complicated by other spiritual and religious beliefs. For example, it is clear – as in the case of Hindu India – that meat has a particular power concerned with violence and martial ability. This association means that meat is typically afﬁliated with demonic entities and therefore plays a crucial role in exorcism rituals (Kapferer 1991; Mayer 1970). Likewise, some key deities, such as Kataragama, are sometimes given ﬂesh as a sacriﬁcial offering (Gombrich and Obeyesekere 1988). Kataragama is a war god and a deity worshipped by Sinhala Buddhists and Hindu Tamil Sri Lankans alike and is of considerable cultural importance (ibid). Nonetheless, the need to offer ﬂesh to these violent deities is in tension with a recognition that such gods should be encouraged to act in a morally upright manner. Hence, fruit platters are the main offering that Kataragama receives, even though many accept that he prefers meat (ibid; Stewart 2015). After the offering is complete, and the platter of fruit has been blessed, the fruit is then consumed by the devotees or fed to nearby animals (Stewart 2015). There is some recognition that good deities should be supplied with vegetarian offerings and violent and/or demonic deities prefer ﬂesh (Obeyesekere 1963). Buddha images at temples are commonly offered vegetarian food, and at the most holy Buddhist site in Sri Lanka, the Sri Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Holy Tooth), only vegetarian food is allowed to be offered to the Buddha relic (ibid). On holy days (poya), many Buddhists abstain from meat and intoxicants, such as alcohol and tobacco, entirely (Gombrich 2009; Stewart 2015). Some Buddhist restaurants will only serve vegetarian food on holy days (Stewart 2015). All of this indicates that vegetarianism has positive religious associations in Sri Lanka, South Asia and Food while meat is negatively afﬁliated. Still, while vegetarianism is respected among pious Buddhist laypeople, it is not necessarily commonly practiced (ibid). While some Buddhists are wary about the killing of ﬁsh, ﬁsh is a mainstay of the Sinhala Buddhist diet. On the other hand, monks are especially critical of ethical vegetarianism because they interpret the Buddha’s original message to be one of indifference toward vegetarianism (ibid). This relates back to ancient debates over the moral need for vegetarianism and some Buddhists continue to see it as an unnecessary form of asceticism. The cause of vegetarian culture in Buddhist Sri Lanka is the result of a range of factors by a range of factors, not all of which are religious. From the perspective of religious ethics, some Buddhists insist that it is the proper expression of the ﬁrst Buddhist precept of non-violence. A few pro-vegetarian Buddhists even cite the Buddha as a moral authority on this, and many arguments over the virtues of vegetarianism relate to arguments about the Buddha’s ﬁnal meal (Harvey 2000; Stewart 2015). Some argue that the Buddha’s last meal was a vegetarian one thus implying that the Buddha was vegetarian. Such claims have been rejected by Western and non-Western scholars alike (Harvey 2000; Stewart 2015), though even modern Sri Lankan Buddhists continue to maintain such views (Stewart 2015). In Burma, as in Sri Lanka, there is a culture for Buddhist vegetarianism. Buddhists there sometimes view vegetarianism as morally justiﬁed given the Buddha’s view on non-violence. In particular, the monk Mahasi Sayadaw (1904–1982), who was a monk of great signiﬁcance in Burma, recommended vegetarianism as a way to guarantee that food has not been associated with the killing of animals – which would be a transgression of the ﬁrst precept and would result in the violation of a monk’s religious oaths (Harvey 2000). Another inﬂuential monk, Thamanya Sayadaw (1910–2003), also argued for vegetarianism, but rather than arguing for this diet as a prudent way to accidentally avoid violating one’s monastic vows, Thamanya saw vegetarianism as a way to uphold the Buddhist principle of metta or loving-kindness (Houtman 1999). South Asia and Food These more modern Burmese monks ﬁnd their roots in other Burmese ﬁgures, in particular Ledi Sayadaw – one of the most important Buddhist monks in Burmese history. He recommended and adopted a strict vegetarian diet (Braun 2013). Sayadaw was also a major force of religious reformation in Burma, was involved with the Burmese independence movement, and was also an integral force in the development of Burmese nationalism. His interest in vegetarianism extended to other related areas including cow protectionism. Even in contemporary Burma, virtuoso monks with a great deal of social and religious inﬂuence continue to promote vegetarianism. U Thuzana, a pupil of U Thamanya, for example, is one such individual who promotes vegetarianism and non-violence (Gravers 2005). In many cases, the promotion of vegetarianism in Burma has been historically associated with a pious Buddhist lifestyle that should be practiced in anticipation for the arrival of the next Buddha, Maitreya Buddha (Hayami 2011). Vegetarianism in Burmese culture is also associated with esoteric spiritual practices. Those who practice non-Buddhist eschatology – in Burma essentially a type of alchemical magic – adopt what would be considered nonconventional practices including vegetarianism. These alchemists, called weikza, shun ordinary human society including meat consumption, as it is viewed as a dirty, unclean, and spiritually harmful custom (Spiro 1982). This is another example, as in the case of Sri Lanka, where food practices such as vegetarianism are not just restricted to the majority religion but are also inﬂuenced by other customs and practices that have been adopted through social accretion from surrounding countries. Also, as in the case of Sri Lanka and India, vegetarianism in Burma has associations with the development of spiritual improvement. Food and Traditional Medicine in South Asia The treatment of food in terms of traditional Indian medicine is less concerned with moral purity, as is the case in the above discussion of 2233 food in its religious domain, and is more concerned with the practical implications of food consumption practices (see ▶ Medicalization of Eating and Feeding). In relation to food practices, traditional medicine in South Asia is concerned mainly with the prudential issue of improving one’s health. In India, traditional medicine is mainly associated with the Ayurveda (“the science of living (to a ripe age)”) (Basham 1976), a tradition that has its roots in practices dating back from 1000 BCE (Warrier 2016). Ayurveda has also absorbed other traditions such as Unani, a traditional medicine of Perso-Arabic and Greek origin that was received in India from around 11CE (ibid). Ayurvedic medicine has been transplanted from India to neighboring countries, especially Sri Lanka and Nepal. In Sri Lanka, traditional medicine – much of which comes from the Ayurvedic tradition – is important in local health practices. It is considered a legitimate option for treating ailments and is sometimes in competition with Western medical treatments. Nonetheless, it has been argued that the encounter between Ayurvedic medicine and the West is such that Ayurveda no longer has a distinctive identity and has been highly biomedicalized (ibid). Traditional practitioners of indigenous medicines were forced to adapt during the colonial period as European colonists looked upon Ayurvedic and traditional medicine with disdain, regarding it as a backward and primitive custom (ibid). The basic principles of traditional medicine in South Asia involve, among other therapies (including meditation, purgation etc), food control practices in conjunction with the ingestion of medicines specially prepared by traditional doctors (Engler 2003). These medicines are usually composed of animal and plant materials that have been prepared in a particular manner prescribed by Ayurvedic texts that are often thousands of years old. Ayurvedic medicine is based around a humor (dosha) theory of health. The three humors dealt within Ayurveda are wind (vayu), bile (pitta), and phlegm (kapha) (Warrier 2016). Maintaining the correct balance of these humors is the primary goal of Ayurvedic practice and S 2234 diet is critical in this. Different types of food can excite one or more humors and result in an imbalance that can lead to mood changes or ill-health. Some foods can result in the excessive production of heat, others lead to excessive cooling, others promote the production of phlegm, others inhibit phlegm production, and so on. On the other hand, the satvic ayurvedic theory emphasizes the importance of controlling the amount of heavy (tamarsic) versus light foods that are consumed. Again, balancing these foods is crucial. Because onions are “heavy,” excessive onion eating can lead to ill-health. On the other hand, sometimes the excessive consumption of these foods is necessary to overcome other more serious illnesses. For example, there is a (likely somewhat ﬁctionalized) tale of King Asoka falling very ill with a gut parasite. It was determined that the parasite was weakened by onions, and so King Asoka was made to eat an excessive number of onions in order to be rid of the parasite (Basham 1976). A basic principle of Ayurveda is that, when food is ingested, it is then subject to “cooking” in the body (Engler 2003). The type of food and the quantity of that food are variables that can lead to humoral imbalance and, consequently, illness. Therefore, in many Indic cultures, paying close attention to your diet is critical in maintaining good health, and there are complex views about what constitutes an appropriate food to consume. Overall, the goal of Ayurvedic medicine is to prolong life (ibid). It is interesting to note that the traditional student doctor was originally supposed to be an exemplar of good health and his motives for taking up the profession were expected to be pure. It even seems that, originally, the student doctor was meant to obey a good diet by being a vegetarian (ibid). In some instances, authorized doctors were required to sip samples of a patient’s urine as part of their diagnostic testing. Despite the fact that such practices would be potentially polluting, there is no obvious evidence that a doctor was to undergo puriﬁcation rites, and therefore it seems that religious taboos were relaxed for medical professionals (ibid). South Asia and Food The ancient medical texts upon which modern Ayurvedic medicine is based are also concerned with dietary habits (Basham 1976). Some of these ancient texts quite explicitly provide instructions to avoid food poisoning (ibid). In fact, Ayurvedic texts such as the Charaka Samhita and the Sushruta Samhita recommend the use of special rituals in order to cleanse food of contaminants (Engler 2003). Ancient Ayurvedic pharmaceutical practices are of particular note here, as they recommended the consumption of various herbs and other foods that, when consumed, affected the humors in a desired way thus bringing balance back to the body. It has been suggested by some scholars that these ancient Ayurvedic texts appear to require that, in the preparation of medical compounds, meat and meat products be used (ibid). The requirement that a student doctor should adopt vegetarianism does not imply that vegetarianism was always considered medically beneﬁcial. At least sometimes meat was needed to improve one’s health. Apart from medical beneﬁt, some plants were consumed for spiritual advantage. In particular, the soma plant was used in the composition of a beverage that was drunk by the Brahmin priest caste to induce hallucinations and help facilitate spiritual insight (Flood 2004). The consumption of certain plants therefore entailed particular spiritual advantages though the use of such materials went out of favor in part because the soma plant seems to have become extinct (ibid). In non-esoteric forms of modern Hinduism, intoxicants are typically discarded because they are construed as pollutants. In esoteric Tantra, however, intoxicants – such as alcohol – are sometimes consumed for spiritual ediﬁcation (Flood 2004; Fuller 2004). Other unique materials used in Ayurveda include cow’s milk, which is considered especially potent at curing disease and illness (Engler 2003). In Sri Lanka, cow’s milk is frequently viewed as having a curative property and is regarded as having special health beneﬁts (Stewart 2015). The special curative properties of dairy products are also a feature of the Hindu religion as well (Fowler 1997). South Asia and Food In modern India, Ayurveda and ancillary traditional medicines continue to be popular, though Western medicine is still the most popular form of medical treatment (Islam 2009). Ayurveda is often sought after when Western treatments fail or are considered inadequate in controlling symptoms (ibid). In Sri Lanka, traditional medicine – which is also largely Ayurvedic in nature – is very popular regardless of ethnic or religious afﬁliation. Again, traditional medicine can have an impact on shaping one’s diet and general attitude toward food. In Sri Lanka, the same basic principles of Ayurveda already discussed hold, and sometimes Sri Lankan Ayurvedic doctors travel to India for their education. Sri Lanka, in fact, has a proud history of medical innovations and there is evidence of a number of ancient hospitals. These ancient hospitals also illustrate some of the novel ways that food was used as a way of treating patients. In particular, the use of immersion baths was prescribed as an alternative mechanism for ingesting medicines. Using immersion therapy, medicines – composed often of milk, ghee, oils, and vinegar (again, nominally also ordinary foods) – were absorbed through the skin rather than orally (MuellerDietz 1996). In modern Sri Lanka, efforts are made to control undue “heating” and “cooling” (bought on by an improper diet, among other things) in a variety of ways. In particular efforts are made to appease the goddess Pattini, a deity associated with wellbeing and health (Obeyesekere 1976). She is also thought to be sometimes responsible for excessive “heating” because she is construed as a deity who is irascible and easily angered (ibid). When rituals to please Pattini are complete, Sri Lankans dine on special foods such as milk rice (kiribath), turmeric water, and leaves from the neem tree. In general, when illness cannot be explained by bad karma or other forces, sometimes traditional doctors will determine that illness is a result of a poor diet that brings on excessive “heating.” As Obeyesekere explains, sometimes correcting that diet proves impossible, in which case special “cooling” medicines are provided as a way to minimize the effects of the diet (ibid). 2235 Common and exotic animal and plant materials are sometimes used in Ayurvedic preparations. One study showed that even creatures such as elephants and tigers are said to be used in the composition of some remedies (Stewart 2015). This can prove to be a problem in cases where the slaughter of such animals is restricted or banned. In Sri Lanka, the killing of elephants, for example, is strictly controlled and in many instances is illegal. Nonetheless, dedicated Ayurvedic doctors feel compelled to source the materials from somewhere if it is necessary to alleviate a patient’s illness (ibid). Some Sri Lankan traditional doctors do not consider animal welfare issues a priority in their medical practice, while others believe that true Ayurvedic medicine should be strictly vegetarian (ibid). In Pakistan, traditional medicine is governed primarily by the Unani medical tradition, a Perso-Arabic origin, though this form of medicine was originally invented in ancient Greece (Sheehan and Hussain 2002). Ayurveda still plays a role in traditional medicine in Pakistan, however (ibid). Regarding food, similar principles apply as in Ayurveda (though, over time, Ayurveda has been signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced by the Unani tradition). For example, as in Ayurveda, food is broken down and “cooked” in the stomach. Unani is also based around a humoral theory. Again, as in Ayurveda, Unani doctors may recommend a treatment that involved some amount of food restriction (ibid). Different foods may also be utilized in order to control or remedy illness. Animal parts are sometimes ingested to cure corresponding injury in the human patient – e.g., kidney may be recommended for consumption in order to rectify kidney disease (ibid). In Unani, the diagnosis of illness is made in part through monitoring food consumption. In particular, doctors sometimes examine a patient’s feces in order to better understand the patient’s food consumption patterns. In these matters, Unani is again similar to Ayurveda. Conclusion Food ethics in South Asia is often dominated by debate over the religious and spiritual importance S 2236 of food consumption. These debates are frequently concerned with the questions about the moral viability of meat consumption. Meat is sometimes construed as perfectly morally acceptable, while at other times, it is seen as a spiritual pollutant. In other instances, meat consumption is seen as a violation of the principle of non-violence, a view that is held among almost all Indian religions. This concern over animal welfare is especially obvious in the case of the cow. Apart from these religious considerations, prudence also plays a role in food consumption practices. The intersection of food ethics with prudence is most obvious in the case of indigenous medical practices such as the Ayurveda or Unani medical traditions. Finally, there are more basic ethical and moral questions about food production that are concerned with the agricultural sector where labor exploitation continues to be a problem. Cross-References ▶ Buddhist Perspectives on Food and Agricultural Ethics ▶ Fasting ▶ Food in Ancient Indian Philosophy ▶ Hinduism and Food ▶ Islam and Food ▶ Islam and Food and Agricultural Ethics ▶ Jainism and Food ▶ South Asia and Cow Protectionism ▶ South Asia and Food ▶ Vegetarianism References Alsdorf, L. (2010). The history of vegetarianism and cow-veneration in India (trans: Bal, P. & Ed. Willem, B.). London: Routledge. Barstow, G. (2013). Buddhism between abstinence and indulgence: Vegetarianism in the life and works of Jigme Lingpa. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 20, 74–104. Basham, A. L. (1951). History and doctrine of the Ajivikas, a vanished Indian religion. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Basham, A. L. (1976). The practice of medicine in ancient and medieval India. In C. M. Leslie (Ed.), Asian South Asia and Food medical systems a comparative study. California: University of California Press. Basu, A. K., & Chau, N. H. (2003). Targeting child labor in debt bondage: Evidence, theory, and policy implications. The World Bank Economic Review, 17(2), 255–281, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Biyanwila, J. S. (2011). The labor movement in the global south: Trade Unions in Sri Lanka. London: Routledge (Taylor & Francis). Braun, E. (2013). The birth of insight: Meditation, modern Buddhism and the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Burra, N. (2005). Crusading for children in India’s informal economy. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(49), 5199–5208. Cole, O. W., & Sambhi, P. S. (1998). The Sikhs: Their religious beliefs and practices. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. Crooke, W. (1912). The veneration of the cow in India. Folklore, 23(2), 275–306. De Silva, K. M. (2008). A history of Sri Lanka. Colombo: VijithaYapa Press. Dogra, R. C., & Manuskhani, G. S. (1995). Encyclopedia of Sikh religion and culture. Delhi: Vikras Publishing House. Douglas, M. (2002). Purity and danger: An analysis of the concept of pollution and taboo. London: Routledge. Dundas, P. (2003). The Jains. London: Routledge Press. Engler, S. (2003). “Science” vs. “Religion” in classical Ayurveda. Numen, 50(4), 416–463. Flood, G. (2004). An introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fowler, J. (1997). Hinduism: Beliefs and practices. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. Fuller, C. J. (1979). Gods, priests and purity: On the relation between Hinduism and the caste system. Man, New Series, 14(3), 459–476. Fuller, C. J. (2004). The camphor ﬂame: Popular Hinduism and society in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gandhi, M. (1993). Gandhi: An autobiography. Boston: Beacon Press. Ghassem-Fachandi, P. (2012). Pogrom in Gujarat: Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim violence in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gombrich, R. (2006). Theravada Buddhism: A social history from ancient Benares to modern Colombo. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis. Gombrich, R. (2009). Buddhist precept and practice: Traditional Buddhism in the rural highlands of Ceylon. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis. Gombrich, R., & Obeyesekere, G. (1988). Buddhism transformed: Religious change in Sri Lanka. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gravers, M. (2005). Nationalism as political paranoia in Burma: An essay on the historical practice of power. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis. Gurumurthy, K. G. (1980). Ecology of uprooted people: A case study of the Tibetan refugees. Indian Anthropologist, 10(1), 27–35. Special Period Harvey, P. (2000). An introduction to Buddhist ethics: Foundations, values and issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hayami, Y. (2011). Pagodas and prophets: Contesting sacred space and power among Buddhist Karen in Karen State. The Journal of Asian Studies, 70(4), 1083–1105. Horner, I. B. (1967). Early Buddhism and the taking of life. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. Houtman, G. (1999). Mental culture in Burmese crisis politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League of Democracy (Vol. 33). Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages & Culture of Asia & Africa. Islam, N. (2009). Reviving Ayurveda in modern India: Prospects and challenges. International Review of Modern Sociology, 35(1), 137–147. Jaini, P. S. (2007). Jain Sectarian debates: Eighty four points of contention between Svetambaras and Digambaras (text and translation). Journal of Indian Philosophy, 36, 1–246. Jha, D. N. (2002). The myth of the holy cow. London: Verso Books. Kapferer, B. (1991). A celebration of demons: Exorcism and the aesthetics of healing in Sri Lanka. Washington, DC: Smithsonian University Press. Lang, K. C. (2015). When the Vindhya Mountains ﬂoat in the ocean: Some remarks on the Lust and Gluttony of Ascetics and Buddhist Monks. International Journal of Hindu Studies, 19(1–2), 171–192. Levine, N. E. (1987). Caste, state, and ethnic boundaries in Nepal. The Journal of Asian Studies, 46(1), 71–88. Mayer, A. C. (1970). Caste and kinship in central India: A village and its region. Berkeley: University of California Press. McLane, J. R. (1977). Indian nationalism and the early congress. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Mueller-Dietz, H. E. (1996). Stone ‘Sarcophagi’ and ancient hospitals in Sri Lanka. Medizinhistorisches Journal, 31(1/2), 49–65. Obeyesekere, G. (1963). The great tradition and the little in the perspective of Sinhalese Buddhism. Journal of Asian Studies, 22, 139–153. Obeyesekere, G. (1976). The impact of Āyurvedic Ides on the culture and the individual in Sri Lanka. In C. M. Leslie (Ed.), Asian medical systems a comparative study. California: University of California Press. Peebles, P. (2001). The plantation Tamils of Ceylon. London: Leicester University Press. Rippin, A. (2011). Muslims: Their religious beliefs and practices. London: Routledge. Sheehan, H. E., & Hussain, S. J. (2002). History, theory and contemporary practice in South Asia. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 583, 122–135. Singh, P. (2008). Origin of agriculture in the middle Ganga plain. In D. P. Chattopadhyaya, L. Gopal, & V. C. Srivastava (Eds.), History of science, philosophy and culture in Indian civilization: History of agriculture in India (up to c.1200 AD). New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, Concept Publishing. 2237 Smith, B. K. (1990). Eaters, food, and social hierarchy in ancient India: A dietary guide to a revolution of values. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LVII (1/2), 177–202. Spencer, C. (1996). The Heretic’s feast: A history of vegetarianism. Hanover: University Press of New England. Spiro, M. (1982). Buddhism and society: A great tradition and its Burmese vicissitudes. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stewart, J. J. (2010). The question of vegetarianism and diet in Pali Buddhism. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 17, 100–140. Stewart, J. J. (2015). Vegetarianism and animal ethics in contemporary Buddhism. London: Routledge. Stuart, T. (2007). The bloodless revolution: A cultural history of vegetarianism from 1600 to modern times. New York: Norton & Co. Tidrick, K. (2013). Gandhi: A political and spiritual life. London/New York: Verso. Ulrich, K. E. (2007). Food ﬁghts: Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain dietary polemics in south India. History of Religions, 46(3), 228–261. US Department of Labor (2014). 2014 ﬁndings on the worst forms of child labor. Sri Lanka: United States Department of Labor Report. Ven der Veer. (1994). Religious nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India. Berkeley: University of California Press. Vijayapalan, Y. (2015). Endless inequality: The rights of plantation Tamils in Sri Lanka. United Kingdom: Mayan Vije Limited. Warrier, M. (2016). Modernised Ayurveda in India and the west. In K. A. Jacobsen (Ed.), Routledge handbook of contemporary India. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis. Weiner, M. (1991). The child and the state in India: Child labor and education policy in comparative perspective. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Young, R. F. (1995). The Carpenter Preta: The eighteenth century Sinhala folk tale about Jesus. Asian Folktale Studies, 54, 49–68. Space ▶ Food and Place Space and Place ▶ Food and Life Chances Special Period ▶ Cuban Agriculture S 2238 Speciesism ▶ Peter Singer and Food Spirit of Capitalism ▶ Max Weber, Food, and Agriculture Spiritual Farming ▶ Biodynamic Agriculture Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics Erica von Essen1 and Hans Peter Hansen2 1 Department of Urban and Rural Development, Division of Environmental Communication, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden 2 Department of Bioscience – Wildlife Ecology, Aarhus University, Rønde, Denmark Synonyms Human-nature reconciliation; Self-sufﬁciency; Status; Sustainable food production; Wildlife management Introduction Ancient petroglyphs around the world testify to hunting being one of the oldest food procuring practices among humans. Tracking, trapping and killing wildlife have shown continuity as cultural practices from the earliest nomadic hunters and gathers, over agricultural settlements, and the domestication of wild animals, to the industrialized societies of modern times (Geist 2010). Speciesism Although hunting no longer constitutes an indispensable practice for our survival of human beings in general, it remains a widespread phenomenon in most parts of the world. Indeed, while ratio of hunters to nonhunters has declined, some parts of the world have seen hunting increases in popularity, attracting new hunters across several demographic axes, including urban residents and women (Hansen et al. 2012). The development constitutes an ostensive paradox. Since foods are conveniently available to us in the nearest supermarket, one might wonder why some people still ﬁnd it worth the effort to go hunting. In Roman culture, it was a common refrain that hunting was a waste of time, largely to be conducted out of necessity by shepherds defending their ﬂocks or by professional trappers (Geist 2010). With even less need to hunt today, the perseverance and popularity of hunting is anachronistic (Cahoone 2009). Its anachronism as a food-procuring practice is accentuated by the fact that hunting embodies an inherent tension between its approximation of preagrarian atavistic rituals and its contemporary praxis. As contemporary hunting detaches from subsistence-grounded food consumption to embrace more sport elements into its remit, ethical codes around killing and harvesting change. The gradual transition of hunting into a leisure or sport has been both facilitated and, one might argue, simultaneously circumscribed by continuous technological development enabling more efﬁcient harvesting. When the technological revolution presented hunters with advantages that greatly increased harvest rates, such long range and high precision weapons, and vehicles enabling practices across previously untraversable terrains (Gutiérrez et al. 1979; Pauley 2003), the balance between prey and hunters dramatically shifted. As a corollary of this, ethics of restraint were codiﬁed to conserve wildlife stocks for future use. This codiﬁcation took broadly two pathways: formal laws enacted by authorities to limit excessive outtakes of game, i.e., regulation from above, and informal norms and customs pertaining to fair chase. Hunting ethics were thus subject to two parallel domains of rules: a legal and a moral-cultural. Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics Through most of the history, these two domains have operated in a complementary fashion as the norms that undergirded hunting were also shared by majority society. Most people had some embodied or familial connection to hunting. With time, however, society’s formal institutions and the scrutiny of an increasingly skeptical public opinion have enacted prohibitions around customary hunting practices and game. That the freedoms characteristic of hunting have increasingly been restricted, by everyone from feudal lords to colonial powers to successive ways of environmental regulation and animal rights, is now a common concern among hunting proponents. Hunting has often responded to this outside threat by re-asserting its autonomy and tradition, whereby outside regulation for how to harvest and kill is taken as encroachment in its domain (Thompson 1975; MacDonald 2005). We use the following space to illuminate the most crucial political and social issues emerging from the place of hunting in modern society. We review the drivers of modern hunting as a food procuring and emancipatory practice in industrialized society, the ethics of hunting, and examine how hunting evolves in a dialectic with modern society, sometimes contradicting and sometimes afﬁrming values or meeting new needs that emerge from the comforts of city life. Using concrete examples, we illustrate how hunting is practiced in an ambivalent mode that transcends itself and reﬂects some the social and political ambivalences of modern society. Drivers of “Modern” Hunters The number of card-carrying hunters varies internationally depending on available statistics, methods of calculations, hunting traditions, national legislation, and accessibility to game and ﬁrearms. Using Europe as an example, the registered hunting percentage of the population varies from less than 1% to more than 5%. According to FACE, The European Federation of Associations for Hunting & Conservation, approximately 11 million hunters are registered across 35 countries in Europe, not including a 2239 number of Eastern European countries, such as Russia. In the United States, hunters total approximately 16 million, broadly equivalent to 6% of the population (US Fish and Wildlife Service 2011). The relative exclusivity of hunting can sometimes be traced to historical accessibility of wildlife across socio-economic classes in society. Hence, the grammar of contemporary hunting is often a legacy of historical class antagonisms pertaining to property rights. In England and in Germany, for example, hunting is associated with aristocracy, whereas in Finland, Norway, and Sweden there is a stronger “killing-for-the-table” tradition that today implicates the working class or transcends class altogether. In most countries, however, hunting is an amalgam of multiple class cultures where at best distinct forms of hunting are associated with different classes. Wild game meat enjoys a high status and is currently shown to promote the nonhunting public’s acceptance of hunting (Ljung et al. 2012). Game meat takes on different statuses depending primarily on three factors. First, the amount of edible meat per unit killed confers higher status to big game. Second, in some indigenous cultures, the consumption of certain meat is seen associate the consumer with the qualities of that animal; that is, if one eats bear one is said to channel the bravery and strength of the bear, or else subsume the masculinity associated with wild game meat (Hell 1996). Third, the status of game meat is often correlated with the difﬁculty of hunting the animal and its relative scarcity, promoting the appeal of exotic animals. Why do people today choose to hunt to the extent that they do? The answer may be approached from three different directions. The ﬁrst approach is a genetic one, based on the premise that hunting is an instinctual outlet (Causey 1989). The second sociological approach predicates on the assumption that hunting now serves as a response of the individual to social needs that emerge within contemporary society. The third approach is based on what the hunters themselves argue to be the reasons why they hunt, which include both utilitarian and esoteric motives, such as the excitement, the challenge, the trophy, the embodied connection with nature, the S 2240 relaxation, working with hunting dogs and social value of being together (Good 1997). Analyses of motives are often based on a combination of the two latter approaches. Studies also show correlations between demographic variables and distribution of hunter motives and preferences. One dominant empirical ﬁnding across diverse contexts has been that hunters graduate through different phases where motives and ways of relating to the quarry correspond broadly to life stages (Kellert 1978; Kaltenborn et al. 2013). On these studies, young hunters typically emphasize excitement; hunters between ages 30 and 40 emphasize the relaxation of the experience, hunters aged 50–60 emphasize the trophy aspect, while elderly hunters value the social dimension to hunting. Another empirical ﬁnding has been to correlate hunting preferences with the hunter’s demographic background, whereby urban residence and the lack of familial ties with hunting correspond to a stronger preference toward big game hunting (Hansen et al. 2012). Possible reasons for such correlations may involve the fact that whereas small game hunting typically requires transferred knowledge and experience, big game hunting is an accessible ﬁrst-port to new hunters (Decker et al. 1984). Further, such hunters are increasingly recruited among urban residents who start out with little or no personal hunting experience, and more and more hunters appear to be introduced to hunting scholastically. Hence, the proﬁle of the contemporary hunter, including his or her knowledge, ethic, and preferred type of game, might not be the same as that of the “classical” hunter a few decades back. That is not to say the contemporary urban hunter is out-of-touch with hunting ethics. Indeed, the return to hunting in postmodernity may be taken as a counter-reaction to the alienation between man and nature in our society that can bridge the gap between our food procurement and instant needs. Our urban lifestyle is now critiqued by proponents of sustainability for detaching from standards of self-sufﬁciency. Some scholars have characterized this as contemporary society having become a Risk Society (Beck 1992), to which the return to hunting can be seen as a conscious or Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics unwitting response by urban populations to reconnect with nature. This much is reﬂected in the discourse of hunting associations, which promote hunting as a modern virtue that cultivates competences lost in modern society (Luke 1997). On this view, hunting has been presented as a neoprimitivist approximation of our heritage and as a cure for the “disease” of agricultural society, delivering us sanity through a mended connectivity with nature and wildlife (Swan 1995). Indeed, hunting defenders often pit the practice against modern agricultural production, which is taken as a greater threat to animal welfare, killing “. . .more animal than deer hunting per unit of nutrition” (Cahoone 2009, p. 81). It might be asked whether or not the present situation demonstrates that hunting is successfully bridging the gap between man and nature created by our modern urban lifestyle. While on the level of the individual hunter self-accomplishment may be realized through a hunting lifestyle, there are also ways in which contemporary hunting has moved further from its pre-agrarian roots. The inﬂux of new demographics and values, for one, has meant hunting has been infused with a commodity dimension: trophy and canned hunting have become stronger trends, where both the materials harvested and the experience itself are commodiﬁed for the hunting client. Given the nonhunting public’s generally low tolerance for such hunting, evidenced not least recently in the global outcry of Cecil the Lion, commodiﬁcation brought about from urban hunters also undermines the status of hunting in modern society by severing ties with its basis in killing-for-the-table. As a result of this, hunting associations today typically devote extensive resources to cleaning up contaminating events and discourses within hunting to project a more virtuous representation to the outside. Not surprisingly, then, role of hunting ethics as regards the wildlife and harvest has received renewed importance. The Need for an Informal Ethical Code Many hunting communities globally have retained ancient codes of conduct for their Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics hunting, including ethical standards around killing, harvesting, honoring kills, and sanctioning peers that violate such norms (Krange and Skogen 2007). Even before the inﬂux of urban hunters and technology, hunters may be said to have worked with proto-ethics of restraints, in the form of enacting fairness principles and rituals around the taking of animal lives. As Hell (1996) argues, no hunting historically has ever been “. . .free from constraints and no spilling of blood is ever regarded as a banal act” (p. 209). Many totem species, for example, were or remain considered taboo in traditional subsistence cultures; many modes, seasons, or dispositions of killing have been characterized as dishonorable, and failure to make use of the material resources harvested may still be sanctioned as unethical and wasteful. Fairness principles vary globally. In many Native American tribes, hunters have operated with the refrain that nature “willed” sacriﬁces to man, provided he undertake the proper rituals to display his gratefulness (Hettinger 1994). This could involve explaining to the animal why it needs to be sacriﬁced, asking of its forgiveness and mourning its death, in addition to the complete usage of every part of it (Gunn 2001). Excessive or wasteful outtakes, on this view, are violations of this exchange with nature and were linked to nature sanctioning man with natural disaster, poor harvest, and decreasing stocks of wildlife in the future. The frontier mentality of settling Europeans in North America imposed a decidedly less restrictive ethic as far as hunting was concerned (Kerasote 1994). At the same time, norms were also cultivated on sportsmanship conduct that continues to bear on hunting ethics today. These norms were predominantly associated with the emergence of ﬁeld sports in Europe and the stratiﬁcation of the hunting institution into lower class subsistence hunters and gentlemanly sportsmen (Nurse 2013). Fair chase became the guiding principle on which this stratiﬁcation and, later also, neo-colonialism, turned in hunting. This is still reﬂected globally, where visiting sportsmen are held as more ethical hunters than indigenous people, who may be characterized as slob poachers or wasteful natives (Wall and McClanahan 2015). 2241 Hunters’ ethic of fair chase necessarily raises the question: “fairness to whom?” Scholars note that the origin of fair chase may have been less about protecting the integrity of wildlife, and more as an anthropocentric ethos of civility for paying dues to the institution of hunting (List 1998; Van de Pitte 2003). Bag limits are followed, ﬁrst and foremost, to that others can enjoy the activity. Codes are often ostensibly about not offending others’ sensibilities by inappropriate displays of the quarry. The anthropocentric character to hunting ethics may be partly attributed to the intensely social enterprise that characterizes hunting, one that has required cooperation and reciprocity to offset the hit-and-miss nature of hunting as a food procurement tactic (Gaus 2015). Scholars however observe that the extant fair chase ethic may provide a cover for a “ruthless efﬁciency” pursued behind many trophy hunting clubs like Boone and Crocket and Pope and Young (List 1998; Peterson 2000). But the ethic has also been infused with sustainability thinking, extending from proximate peers to the disembodied future generations or, even, to respect the integrity of sentient animals or the biotic community. Leopold’s Land Ethic provides a seminal articulation of the latter. As part of nature reconciliation, hunters appear to become more pious about the value of nature as urbanization proceeds (Samuel 1999; Scruton 2000) and display ambivalence toward killing as well as an often profound respect for wildlife (Luke 1997). The Place of Hunters in Contemporary Society Today, the institution of hunting negotiates its social legitimacy by highlighting the multifunctional basis for hunting in modern society. That is, hunting can be legitimated both utilitarian grounds for the common good and more esoteric ones of self-actualization. Not only does it constitute therapeutic wildlife management by sustainably regulating wildlife stocks, but it also provides heurism, the promotion of virtues like selfreliance and prudence, and a sustainable food procurement (Loftin 1984; Curnutt 1996; S 2242 Shepherd 1996; Paulson 2012; Kover 2014). Hunting proponents present the hunting of animals as the more natural, local, and honest alternative to modern food production with its factory farming and global importing scheme (Luke 1997). It means the huntable quail, to name an example, has a higher status of meat than does chicken when it comes to ﬁne dining. Cahoone (2009) formulates this as a form of responsible carnivory which, unlike capitalist-driven agricultural enterprise, reconciles workers with the product of their labor in a very direct sense. Industrialized slaughtering, by contrast, requires a suppression of empathy for animal suffering by taking place in a compartmentalized, desensitized manner (Berreville 2014). The extent to which hunting provides an honest and direct food consumption in the ways characterized above, however, is contested by ecofeminists (Kover 2014). They observe the hunter actually goes to great lengths to mask the connection to killing what were once live animals by masking their identities even on the level of language: as deer/venison and calf/veal (Adams 1991). While hunting may thus qualify as part of a growing locavore discourse (Cope 2014), its logic is held to reproduce the same separation of people from the sources of their food of which hunters routinely accuse capitalist food production (Kheel 1995). As to the more utilitarian argument of wildlife management, the value of stewarding wildlife populations through hunting often turns on the notion that it is supposedly less painful for an animal to die from a swift gunshot than to perish from disease, starvation, or interspecies predation in the wild (Loftin 1984; Cahoone 2009) – to say nothing of their fate in factory farms. On this view, hunters have been said to seek legitimacy by presenting themselves as “Florence Nightingales with riﬂes” (Kerasote 1994), as stewards caring enough to intervene in nature’s grisly drama (Samuel 1999). Their ethical status also derives from trophic responsibility from occupying the role of apex predator overseeing cascade effects in ecosystems and regulating them through feedback when required. It is signiﬁcant that in some parts of the world, the word for wildlife Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics management as undertaken by hunters is equivalent to “wildlife care,” imparting a feminist care undertone to an otherwise masculine institution that is predicates on a separatist and controlling logic (Curtin 1991). To this end, a number of developments threaten the legitimacy of hunting by presenting challenges to its guiding principle of fair chase and undermining its fundamental justiﬁcation of selfreliance, connectivity to nature and responsible wildlife stewardship. While essential for its continued survival, the inﬂux of urban outsiders into the community of hunters also involves changes to the internal logic of hunting. The sport and commercial dimensions to hunting arguably present the biggest obstacles to its survival, because they violate received notions of fairness as anchored in a subsistence basis. Poaching natural resources like rhino horns and ivory is declared immoral, and the killing for sport in game ranches (“canned hunting”) has been characterized as “The single most alarming trend in hunting today” (Loftin 1984, p. 249). Collectively, these developments reﬂect the commodiﬁcation of hunting in contemporary society, turning hunters into clients, wildlife managers into brokers, and wild animals into domesticated trophies. The preferred internal line of defense toward this has been to de-label these people as hunters and the enterprises as hunts. Rather, they are slaughterhouses (Pauley 2003), brothels, or amusement parks in which hunters are encouraged to hunt less with their “boots, brains, and hearts” than with their gadgetry and wallets (Peterson 2000). The aversion to commodiﬁcation of hunting has been explained by the symbolic contamination that takes place when money, as opposed to goods, services, and relationships, becomes the transactional currency at hunts (Gezelius 2002). Money, greed, and excess are seen to lead to a loss of social control in the hunting context, enabling anonymous transactions between strangers where before cultural custom and norms of fair chase informed the code of conduct by hunters. Insofar as canned hunts and urban hunters are taken to stretch hunting ethics, they do so in particular following the characterization of hunting as a game rather than Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics subsistence. Additionally, failing to harvest the resources of a killed animal contaminates that act by severing the connection to subsistence and food. Conclusion To conclude from the above, hunting is subject to a dense undergrowth of informal ethical codes around killing, one that has grown in complexity with environmental legislation and pressure from animal rights activism. Yet it is striking how hunting has retained relative continuity in the face of societal change, at heart being about embodied food procurement in nature. We suggested multiple forces continue to challenge this: commoditization and sport hunting being the principal threats. Hunting must thereby strive to survive in contemporary society by maintaining a delicate balance between “killing for the table” and “playing the game.” Cross-References ▶ Eating Invasive Species ▶ Hunting ▶ Industrial Food Animal Production Ethics ▶ Industrialized Slaughter and Animal Welfare ▶ Meat: Ethical Considerations ▶ Sustainability and Animal Agriculture References Adams, C. J. (1991). The sexual politics of meat: A feminist-vegetarian critical theory. New York: Continuum. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. New Delhi: Sage. Berreville, O. (2014). Industrialized slaughter and animal welfare. In P. B. Thompson & D. M. Kaplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of food and agricultural ethics (pp. 1234–1241). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Cahoone, L. (2009). Hunting as a moral good. Environmental Values, 18(1), 67–89. Causey, A. S. (1989). On the morality of hunting. Environmental Ethics, 11(4), 327–343. Cope, S. (2014). Local food procurement. In P. B. Thompson & D. M. Kaplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of food and 2243 agricultural ethics (pp. 1352–1358). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Curnutt, J. (1996). How to argue for and against sport hunting. Journal of Social Philosophy, 27(2), 65–89. Curtin, D. (1991). Toward an ecological ethic of care. Hypatia, 1, 60–74. Decker, D. J., Provencher, R. W., & Brown, T. L. (1984). Antecedents to hunting participation: An exploratory study of the social-psychological determinants of initiation, continuation, and desertion in hunting. Ithaca: Cornell University. Gaus, G. (2015). The Egalitarian Species. Social Philosophy and Policy, 31(02), 1–27. Geist, V. (2010). The carnivorous herbivore: Hunting and culture in human evolution. In N. Kowalski (Ed.), Hunting philosophy for everyone: In search of the wild life (pp. 121–132). London: Wiley-Blackwell. Gezelius, S. S. (2002). Do norms count? State regulation and compliance in a Norwegian ﬁshing community. Acta Sociologica, 45(4), 305–314. Good, S. P. (1997). Wilderness and the hunting experience: What it means to be a hunter. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 25(2), 563–567. Gunn, A. S. (2001). Environmental ethics and trophy hunting. Ethics and the Environment, 6(1), 68–95. Gutiérrez, R. J., Howard Jr., R. A., & Decker, D. J. (1979). Hunting ethics, self-limitation, and the role of succinylcholine chloride in bowhunting. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 7(3), 170–172. Hansen, H. P., Peterson, M. N., & Jensen, C. (2012). Demographic transition among hunters: A temporal analysis of hunter recruitment dedication and motives in Denmark. Wildlife Research, 39(5), 446–451. Hell, B. (1996). Enraged hunters: The domain of the wild in north-western Europe. In P. Descola & G. Pálsson (Eds.), Nature and society: Anthropological perspectives (pp. 205–217). London: Routledge. Hettinger, N. (1994). Valuing predation in Rolston’s environmental ethics: Bambi lovers versus tree huggers. Environmental Ethics, 16(1), 3–20. Kaltenborn, B. P., Andersen, O., & Linnell, J. D. C. (2013). Predators, stewards, or sportsmen – How do Norwegian hunters perceive their role in carnivore management? International Journal of Biodiversity Science Ecosystem Services & Management, 9(3), 239–248. Kellert, S. 1978. Characteristics and attitudes of hunters and anti-hunters. Paper read at North American Wildlife & Natural Resources Conference. Kerasote, T. (1994). Bloodties. Nature, culture, and the hunt. New York: Kodansha International. Kheel, M. (1995). License to kill: An ecofeminist critique of hunters’ discourse. In C. J. Adams & J. Donovan (Eds.), Animals and women: Feminist theoretical explorations. Durham: Duke University Press. Kover, T. R. (2014). Hunting. In P. B. Thompson & D. M. Kaplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of food and agricultural ethics (pp. 1203–1210). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Krange, O., & Skogen, K. (2007). Reﬂexive tradition: Young working–class hunters between wolves and modernity. Young, 15(3), 215–233. S 2244 List, C. J. (1998). On the moral signiﬁcance of a hunting ethic. Ethics and the Environment, 3(2), 157–175. Ljung, P. E., Riley, S. J., Heberlein, T. A., & Ericsson, G. (2012). Eat prey and love: Game-meat consumption and attitudes toward hunting. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 36(4), 669–675. Loftin, R. (1984). The morality of hunting. Environmental Ethics, 6(3), 241–250. Luke, B. (1997). A critical analysis of hunters’ ethics. Environmental Ethics., 19(1), 25–44. MacDonald, K. I. (2005). Global hunting grounds: Power, scale and ecology in the negotiation of conservation. Cultural Geographies, 12(3), 259–291. Nurse, A. (2013). Animal harm: Perspectives on why people harm and kill animal. Farnham: Ashgate. Pauley, J. A. (2003). The value of hunting. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 37(2), 233–244. Paulson, N. (2012). The place of hunters in global conservation advocacy. Conservation and Society, 10, 53–62. Peterson, D. (2000). Heartsblood: Hunting, spirituality, and wildness in America. Boulder: Johnson Books. Samuel, D. (1999). Know hunting: Truths, lies and myths. Cheat Lake: Know Hunting Publications. Scruton, R. (2000). Animal Rights and Wrongs. New York: Claridge Press. Service, U.S.F.a.W. (2011). National survey of ﬁshing, hunting, and wildlife-associated recreation. Shepherdstown, West Virginia: U.S. Census Bureau. Shepherd, P. (1996). The others: How animals made us human. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Swan, J. (1995). In defense of hunting. New York: Harper Collins. Thompson, E. P. (1975). Whigs and hunters: The origin of the Black Act. London: Breviary Stuff Publications. Van de Pitte, M. (2003). The moral basis for public policy encouraging sport hunting. Journal of Social Philosophy, 34(2), 256–266. Wall, T., & McClanahan, B. (2015). Weaponizing conservation in the ‘heart of darkness’: The war on poachers and the neocolonial hunt. In A. Brisman, R. White, & N. South (Eds.), Environmental crime and social conﬂict contemporary and emerging issues. Farnham: Ashgate. St. Nicholaos Cabasilas Stakeholders ▶ Responsible Innovation in the Food Sector Standardization ▶ Political Consumerism: Consumer Choice, Information, and Labeling Standards ▶ Ethics of Agricultural Development and Food Rights in International Organizations Standards for Animal Care ▶ Trade Policies and Animal Welfare Starvation ▶ Food Risks ▶ Food Security and International Trade ▶ Hunger State Intervention ▶ Agricultural Subsidies: Ethical Issues St. Nicholaos Cabasilas State Sovereignty ▶ Christian Mysticism and Food ▶ Food and Agricultural Trade and National Sovereignty St. Symeon the New Theologian Status ▶ Christian Mysticism and Food ▶ Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics Stoicism and Food Stockfree ▶ Veganic Farming 2245 history of the ancient Stoa is typically divided into the early (Zeno through Antipater), middle (Panaetius and Posidonius), and late (Roman) periods. Since the vast bulk of the surviving texts about Stoicism come from the late period, the Roman Stoics’ views about food will dominate here. Stoicism and Food The Early Stoics William O. Stephens Department of Philosophy, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA Synonyms Abstaining from animal food; Roman Stoics; Stoics and food; Vegetarianism Introduction The ancient Stoics believed that virtue is the only true good and as such both necessary and sufﬁcient for happiness. Accordingly, they classiﬁed food as among the things that are neither good nor bad but indifferent. These indifferents included health, illness, wealth, poverty, good and bad reputation, life, death, pleasure, and pain. How one deals with having or lacking these things reﬂects one’s virtue or vice and thus determines one’s happiness or misery. So, while the Stoics held that food in itself contributes nothing to a person’s happiness, how one obtains, prepares, and serves it, and both what and how one eats, all reveal a person’s character as good or bad. Thus, understanding the purpose of food, the necessity of frugality, and the virtue of temperance are all important in Stoicism. Stoicism was the most important and inﬂuential school of Hellenistic philosophy. It became the foremost philosophy among the educated elite in Greece and Rome. Stoicism exerted a profound inﬂuence on Christianity and a pervasive impact on the history of western philosophy and culture through the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and up to modern times. The Around 301 BCE, after being stranded by shipwreck, Zeno of Citium, a merchant from the isle of Cyprus, began philosophizing in the Painted Colonnade (Stoa) of the great piazza of ancient Athens. The members of the school he founded were called Stoics. To help illustrate the art of living described by this philosophy, the early Stoics developed a model of the perfect human being called the wise man or sage. The sage represented a theoretical ideal which aspiring Stoics could strive to approach. One of the few surviving sources on the early Stoics, Diogenes Laertius (D.L.), reports that the Stoics attributed many perfections to the sage. They said the sage will never form mere opinions, will never assent to anything false, is infallible, does all things well, and does no harm to others or to himself. D.L. adds that the Stoics say that the sage “will even turn cannibal under stress of circumstances” (Laertius 1925, vii. 121). Such circumstances could perhaps have been during a siege, for example, when starvation would be the only alternative to anthropophagy. The idea seems to be that the sage would infallibly recognize those (rare) circumstances in which eating human ﬂesh would be wise. Thus, the early Stoics evidently believed that cannibalism is not absolutely prohibited for the wise. Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoa, supposedly reasoned that since the body is of as little importance to us as our nails or hair, it requires minimal attention, and so we should use the simplest method to bury our parents when they die. If human ﬂesh is useful as food, he argued, then people should make use of it. Our amputated limbs should not be buried or discarded but rather eaten so that they will S 2246 give being to our other parts (Avramescu 2003). If a motive implicit in Chrysippus’ view of anthropophagy is to conserve edible food and avoid waste, then he shares the value of frugality with the Roman Stoics. The Stoics of the Roman Empire Food and banquets were highly signiﬁcant in Roman culture, religion, literature, and law. Roman sumptuary laws regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and moral norms by restricting food, clothing, and luxury expenditures, often according to a person’s social rank. Accordingly, the Roman Stoics praised frugality, simplicity, self-control, and strategic abstinence, while condemning indulgence and worries about either eating or starving. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BCE to 65 CE) The philosopher, statesman, orator, tragedian, and satirist Seneca the Younger was the leading intellectual of Rome in the mid-ﬁrst century CE. Born to a wealthy family in Cordoba, Spain, he pursued a career in politics and law in Rome. In 41 CE, emperor Claudius charged Seneca with committing adultery with Claudius’ niece and banished him to the island of Corsica. After Claudius was murdered in 54 CE, Seneca and his friends grew powerful. He became tutor and then adviser to the emperor Nero. In 65 CE, his enemies accused him of being an accomplice in the conspiracy of Piso to murder Nero. Ordered to commit suicide, Seneca met death with courage and calm. His vast wealth colored his perspective on food. Seneca is clear that the purpose of food is to relieve, not arouse, hunger (Seneca 2015, 95.15–18). He argues that a human being’s frontal part is virtue itself, whereas the unserviceable and unstable ﬂesh attached to it is a mere repository for food (Seneca 2015, 92.10). Seneca believes that virtue calls for limiting our wants to our basic needs. Our needs are established by nature, and nature desires nothing except a meal. Hunger, he infers, is not ambitious. Hunger is satisﬁed to stop, and it does not much care what Stoicism and Food makes it stop. Once hunger is stopped, only the torments of a wretched self-indulgence look for ways to stimulate hunger after it is sated. Thus, only the vice of self-indulgence drives a person to keep stufﬁng his ﬁlled stomach (Seneca 2015, 119.13–14). By comparing the size of human beings to those of larger animals, Seneca reasons that we can and should feed ourselves more easily than they do. “Has nature given us such an insatiable maw that although the bodies we are given are of modest size, we yet surpass the largest, most ravenous eaters of the animal world? That is not the case, for how small are our natural requirements! It takes only a little to satisfy nature’s demands. It is not bodily hunger that runs up the bill but ambition. Therefore let us regard those who, as Sallust says, ‘heed the belly’ as belonging to the race of animals rather than of humans” (Seneca 2015, 60.3–4). Ambition causes vicious eating, and to eat viciously is to degenerate from a human being into a beast. Thus, Seneca advises indulging the body only to the extent that sufﬁces for health. One must deal sternly with one’s body, lest it fail to obey one’s mind. “Let food be for appeasing hunger, drink for satisfying thirst” (Seneca 2015, 8.5). Food is more welcome to one who is hungry (Seneca 2015, 78.22). Thus, it is wise to know when to stop eating and drinking, as nonhuman animals do (Seneca 2015, 59.13). We ought to eat moderately (Seneca 2015, 114.26–27), not greedily (Seneca 2015, 94.22). Seneca believes that meals ought to be eaten during the customary times of the day (Seneca 2015, 122.9–10) and in the company of others. He recommends reﬂecting carefully beforehand with whom you are to eat and drink, rather than what you are to eat and drink, for feeding without a friend is the life of a lion or a wolf (Seneca 2015, 19.10). Seneca notes that luxurious eating causes many complex, manifold diseases and disorders. He criticizes gourmandizing and fancy foods like mushrooms, delicately prepared oysters, mussels, sea urchins, garum (fermented ﬁsh sauce), and ﬁlleted, deboned mullets (Seneca 2015, 95.25–29). Seneca reports that he abstains from Stoicism and Food eating oysters and mushrooms because “These are not food; they are only tidbits meant to entice those who are full to eat some more (which is what the glutton wants, to stuff himself beyond capacity), for they go down easily, and come back up easily too” (Seneca 2015, 108.15). The most shameful scourge that assails fortunes is the kitchen (Seneca 1989, Ben. 1.10.2). Seneca deplores spending lots of money on delicacies. He tells the story of two men bidding against each other to buy a 4½ lb mullet. The winner paid the extravagant sum of 5000 sesterces for the ﬁsh (Seneca 2015, 95.42). Even worse, the emperor Gaius Caesar demonstrated supreme vice combined with supreme power when he dined one day at the astronomical cost of ten million sesterces (Seneca 2014, Helv. 10.4). “How wretched are the people whose appetite is stimulated only by costly foods! But what makes them costly is not their exquisite ﬂavor or some pleasant sensation in the throat but their rarity and the difﬁculty of obtaining them. Otherwise, if these people would willingly return to sanity, what need of so many professional skills that serve the belly? What need of imports, or of devastating forests, or of scourging the sea? All about us lie the foods which nature has made available in every place; but these people pass them by as if blind, and they roam through every country, they cross the seas, and though they could allay their hunger at a triﬂing cost, they excite it at great expense” (Seneca 2014, Helv. 10.5). Exotic seafoods and mushrooms require great time, effort, and resources to obtain. Garum requires much time, labor, and resources to produce and import. So, Seneca condemns all such foods as decadent luxuries. In contrast, he praises Gaius Fabricius Luscinus for happily dining on those very roots and grasses he picked clearing his ﬁelds. “Would he have been happier if he had crammed into his belly ﬁsh from distant shores, and exotic birds? If he had roused his slow and sickened stomach with shellﬁsh from the upper and lower [Adriatic and Tyrrhenian] seas? If he had arrayed a huge pile of fruits around highly sought-after beasts caught at great loss of hunters’ lives?” (Seneca 2014, Prov. 3.6). Importing foods from afar is entirely 2247 unnecessary, and hunting dangerous animals is reckless because locally grown crops are readily available. Thus, only wasteful, dissipated fools demand exotic, imported foods. Seneca believes that the needs of the body greatly outnumber the needs of the mind. “For the body needs many things in order to thrive, but the mind grows by itself, feeds itself, trains itself. Athletes require a great deal of food and drink, much oil, and lengthy exercises; but virtue will be yours without any supplies or expenses. Anything that can make you a good person is already in your possession” (Seneca 2015, 80.3). The Stoics highly valued self-sufﬁciency. Seneca commends the mind’s pursuit of virtue because it costs no money and requires no equipment, whereas to build an athletic body requires much food, drink, and time-consuming exercises. He thinks that bodybuilding and the heavy diet that goes with it don’t beﬁt an educated man, because a brawny, bulky body burdens the mind and makes it less agile (Seneca 2015, 15.2–3). Instead, he instructs his friend to set himself a period of days in which he will be content with very small amounts of food, and the cheapest kinds, in order to dispel his fear of frugality (Seneca 2015, 18.5). Seneca contends that fearless, frugal eating makes you a better person than a muscular physique does. Seneca writes: “I like food that is neither prepared nor watched by troops of servants, not something ordered many days ahead and proffered by many hands, but available and easily so, with no exotic or precious ingredients. This will not run out on any occasion, or be a burden to my budget or my body, or be brought up in vomiting” (Seneca 2014, Tranq. 1.6). He reports taking a trip with a friend during which his frugal habits included lunching on dried ﬁgs, sometimes with bread (Seneca 2015, 87.3). Seneca’s thoughts about and experience with vegetarianism were complex. The belief that it is wrong to eat animals was shared by the prominent ancient Greek philosophers Pythagoras, Empedocles, Theophrastus, and perhaps Plato. In his youth, Seneca was taken with the philosophy of Pythagoras. Seneca’s teacher Sotion explained both Pythagoras’ and Sextius’ reasons for S 2248 abstaining from animal food. “Sextius held that a person could get enough to eat without resorting to butchery; and that when bloodshed is adapted to the purposes of pleasure, one develops a habit of cruelty. He also used to say that one should pare away the resources of self-indulgence, and he offered reasoning to show that variety in food is alien to our bodies and detrimental to health” (Seneca 2015, 108.17–18). Pythagoras, on the other hand, believed in the kinship of all living things and held that souls never die but only transmigrate from one animal’s body, when it dies, into the next, whether it be that of a human or a nonhuman. “Pythagoras instilled in humankind a fear of wrongdoing – more speciﬁcally, of parricide. For if some spirit related to them happened to be dwelling in a given body, they might, without realizing it, assault the soul of their parent with the knife or with their teeth” (Seneca 2015, 108.19). Sotion reasoned that if these beliefs are true, then abstaining from animal foods means not harming anyone. If they are false, then vegetarianism is economical. Seneca, persuaded by Sotion of the savagery of eating ﬂesh as lions and vultures do, adopted the habit of abstaining from animal food. He says this diet became easy and pleasant for him and made his mind livelier. Later, however, abstinence from animal food was seen as adherence to religions of foreign origin banned by the emperor. So, when his father asked him to give up his vegetarian diet, Seneca complied. He returned to a temperate but nonvegetarian diet. For Seneca, then, Stoicism calls for simple, simply prepared, frugal meals of foods that are close at hand. “Our aim is to live in accordance with nature, is it not? This is contrary to nature: tormenting one’s body, swearing off simple matters of grooming, affecting a squalid appearance, partaking of foods that are not merely inexpensive but rancid and coarse. A hankering after delicacies is a sign of self-indulgence; by the same token, avoidance of those comforts that are quite ordinary and easy to obtain is an indication of insanity. Philosophy demands selfrestraint, not self-abnegation” (Seneca 2015, 5.4–5; cf. 78.22–24). Seneca concludes that moderate, unfussy eating does not require selfdeprivation or fasting. Stoicism and Food Gaius Musonius Rufus (c. 20–30 to as late as 101 CE) Born in Volsinii, Italy, Musonius was a Roman knight (eques), the class of aristocracy ranked second only to senators. He taught and practiced Stoicism in Rome and was exiled ﬁrst by Nero upon discovery of the conspiracy led by Piso, and later by Vespasian. He had a considerable following during his life. His teachings survive as 32 apothegms and 21 longer discourses, all preserved by others. Emphasizing the importance of daily practices, Musonius held that mastering one’s appetites for food and drink is the basis for self-control, a vital virtue. He agrees with Seneca that the purpose of food is to nourish and strengthen the body and to sustain life, not to provide pleasure. Digesting our food gives us no pleasure, and the time spent digesting food far exceeds the time spent consuming it. It is not consumption but digestion that nourishes the body. Therefore, he reasons that the food we eat serves its purpose when we’re digesting it, not when we’re tasting it (Rufus 2010, Lecture 18). Musonius argues that the proper diet is lactovegetarian. These foods are least expensive and most readily available: raw fruits in season, certain raw vegetables, milk, cheese, and honeycombs. Cooked grains and some cooked vegetables are also suitable for humans, whereas a meat-based diet is too crude for human beings and is more suitable for wild beasts. Musonius thought that those who eat relatively large amounts of meat seem slow-witted (Rufus 2010, Lecture 18). We are worse than nonhuman animals when it comes to food, Musonius believes, because we are obsessed with embellishing how our food is presented and fuss about what we eat and how we prepare it merely to amuse our palates. Moreover, too much rich food harms the body. So, he judges that gastronomic pleasure is undoubtedly the most difﬁcult pleasure to combat (Rufus 2010, Lecture 18). Consequently, he, like Seneca, rejects gourmet cuisine and delicacies as a dangerous habit. He regards craving gourmet food to be most shameful and to show a lack of temperance. Musonius thinks that those who eat inexpensive Stoicism and Food food can work harder; are the least fatigued by working; become sick less often; tolerate cold, heat, and lack of sleep better; and are stronger, than those who eat expensive food (Rufus 2010, Lecture 18). He concludes that responsible people favor what is easy to obtain over what is difﬁcult, what involves no trouble over what does, and what is available over what isn’t. These preferences promote self-control and goodness. Epictetus (c. 55 to c. 135 CE) Epictetus was born a slave in Hierapolis in what is today southwestern Turkey. He traveled to Rome where his master permitted him to attend the lectures of Musonius. After he was freed, Epictetus practiced and taught Stoicism. When the emperor Domitian, who suspected them of republican sympathies, expelled all philosophers from Rome, Epictetus moved to Nicopolis on the northwestern coast of Greece. There he founded a school which earned an outstanding reputation. His student Arrian recorded Epictetus’ teachings in the Discourses, four books of which survive, and a compendium titled the Handbook. Epictetus’ experiences as a slave inform his views of Stoicism and food. Real slavery, he believes, is living in fear. So, he urges his students to get rid of all fears regarding eating. When a student frets about being too poor to be able to eat, Epictetus scolds him for lacking conﬁdence in being able to fend for himself as successfully as slaves and runaways do. A worrywart who fears starving must believe he is stupider and less resourceful than irrational beasts, all of whom are self-sufﬁcient and provided with food and a mode of survival adapted to and in harmony with their nature (Epictetus 2008, Disc. 1.9.8–9). Epictetus notes that neither runaway slaves nor old beggars starve, so we have no good reason to worry that our food will run out. Instead, we should concern ourselves with becoming good. “Does any good man fear that food may fail him? It does not fail the blind, it does not fail the lame. Shall it fail a good man?” (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 3.26.27). For Epictetus “dishonor does not consist in not having anything to eat, but in not having reason enough to exempt you from fear or 2249 sorrow” (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 3.24.116). A good person uses reason to overcome fear and sorrow. Epictetus believes that god (nature) both provides and takes away all our material possessions. “It is another who gives you food, and property, and can also take them away, and your paltry body too. You should, then, accept the material you are given and set to work on it” (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 2.5.22). And if god no longer provides food, then this could only mean that, like a good general, god has given the signal to withdraw, god is sounding the recall, opening the door, and saying to “Come” (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 3.13.13–14). Epictetus says he will obey while speaking well of his leader and praising his works (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 3.26.29). If starvation ever does become inevitable, the Stoic accepts it calmly. In contrast, the non-Stoic weeping about going hungry foolishly makes himself a slave to his fear. “No sooner have you eaten your ﬁll today than you sit and start worrying about where tomorrow’s food will come from. Look, if you get it, slave, then you will have it; if not, you will depart this life: the door is open. Why complain? What place is there left for tears?” (Epictetus 2008, Disc. 1.9.19–20). Thus, Epictetus sees no reason to fear starving to death. God will either provide us food or not. If so, then there’s nothing to fear. If not, then there’s no dishonor in exiting life when god decides it is our time to die. After all, only mortals need food. Epictetus agrees with Seneca and Musonius that the purpose of eating is not to feel pleasure (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 3.24.37–38). We should take only what the body strictly needs in food, drink, clothing, and shelter and eliminate luxury and ostentation altogether (Epictetus 2008, Ench. 33.7). Each gift in our lives is granted to us only for the time being, neither irrevocably nor forever, “like a ﬁg or a bunch of grapes in the appointed season; and if you long for it in the winter, you are a fool” (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 3.24.86). We must adapt our desire to what is available when it is available. Also, Epictetus denies that the conﬂicting opinions concerning food of Jews, Syrians, Egyptians, and Romans could all be right (Epictetus 2008, Disc. 1.11.12–13). Those who have truly digested their philosophical principles show it by eating, drinking, dressing, S 2250 marrying, having children, and being citizens, as a human being should (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 3.21.1–5). Epictetus does not share Musonius’ vegetarianism. He declares that “god created some beasts to be eaten, some to be used in farming, some to supply us with cheese, and so on” (Epictetus 2008, Disc. 1.6.18). He mentions that dinner guests ought to take only their polite share of the roast (Epictetus 2008, Disc. 2.4.8). Like Seneca, however, Epictetus commends strategic abstinence in order to discipline one’s desires. “Practice living as an invalid at one time, so that you may live like a healthy man at another. Abstain from food. Keep to water. Abstain from desire altogether for the present, to exercise it later, in accordance with reason” (Epictetus 1995, Disc. 3.13.21). Thus, Epictetus calls for eating and drinking only what is strictly necessary, eliminating all luxuries, and vanquishing all worries about food. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 to 180) Born in Rome to a prominent family of Spanish ancestry, Marcus’ father died when he was young. Frank, sincere, sensitive in character, and austere, Marcus impressed the emperor Hadrian, who nicknamed him Verissimus, “the most truthful.” Hadrian arranged for his successor, Antoninus Pius, to adopt Marcus. He learned rhetoric, grammar, philosophy, and law from the best teachers of his day. His thought was deeply inﬂuenced by Epictetus. Marcus reigned as emperor from 161 CE until his death. During years on campaign on the empire’s northern frontier, he wrote a series of private reﬂections on time, transience, selfimprovement, and his place in the universe. These exercises in philosophical therapy came to be called the Meditations. In the Meditations, Marcus often reminds himself to strip away the illusions that beguile people into craving fame, riches, luxuries, and carnal pleasures. For example, when beholding a fancy plate of meat or a pricey glass of wine, some see fabulous delicacies and swoon. But Marcus cautions himself to see what they really are. “Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead ﬁsh. Stoicism and Food A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice. . .. Perceptions like that – latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the time – all through our lives when things lay claim to our trust – to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them. Pride is a master of deception: when you think you’re occupied in the weightiest business, that’s when he has you in his spell” (Aurelius 2003, vi. 13). To gourmandize meat is to fool yourself into believing that it is more than a corpse. To glorify sumptuous food and drink is to be bewitched into cherishing calories. According to Marcus, calories are garbage compared to a sound, righteous mind. Summary The Stoics deﬁned the goal in life as living in agreement with nature. For human beings, this means especially living in agreement with reason. The perfection of reason is virtue, which includes the virtues of wisdom and temperance. Living wisely and temperately, they reasoned, rids us of fears, including fear of poverty, illness, hunger, and not getting what we want to eat. The wise and temperate know that simple, inexpensive foods in moderate amounts produced locally are easy to get and prepare, healthy for the body, and good for the mind. Thus, Stoicism dictates frugality of diet and the rejection of ambitious eating, gluttony, luxuries, delicacies, and gustatory extravagance. Some Stoics favor vegetarianism. All Stoics think it wise to limit eating and drinking to strict bodily need and to eradicate all food anxieties. Cross-References ▶ Cannibalism ▶ Eating Disorders ▶ Epicureanism and Food ▶ Food-body Relationship ▶ Gluttony ▶ Gustatory Pleasure and Food ▶ Hunting Sub-Saharan African Agriculture ▶ Meat: Ethical Considerations ▶ Plato and Food ▶ Poverty and Basic Needs ▶ Vegetarianism References Aurelius, M. (2003). Meditations, translated, with an introduction, by Gregory Hays. New York: Modern Library. Avramescu, C. (2003). An intellectual history of cannibalism (trans: Blyth, A. I.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Epictetus. (1995). The Discourses, The Handbook, Fragments, edited by C. Gill, translation revised by R. Hard. London: J. M. Dent. Epictetus. (2008). Discourses and selected writings (trans. & ed.: Dobbin, R.). London: Penguin Books. Laertius, D. (1925). Lives of eminent philosophers, in 2 vols. (trans: Hicks, R. D.). London: W. Heinemann. Rufus, M. (2010). Lectures and Sayings, translated with an introduction by Cynthia King, edited with a preface by W. B. Irvine. Lulu. Seneca, L. A. (1989). Moral essays, in 3 vols. (trans: Basore, J. W.). vol 3. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Seneca, L. A. (2014). Hardship and happiness (trans: Fantham, E., Hine, H. M., Ker, J., & Williams, G. D.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Seneca, L. A. (2015). Letters on ethics, translated with an introduction and commentary by M. Graver and A. A. Long. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Stoics and Food ▶ Stoicism and Food Structural Inequality ▶ Resource Conﬂict, Food, and Agriculture Styles of Farming ▶ Farmer Types and Motivation 2251 Sub-Saharan African Agriculture Steven Haggblade Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Synonyms Africa; Agriculture Introduction Agriculture employs two-thirds of Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) workforce and a majority of the continent’s poor (IFPRI 2004). As a result, agricultural productivity growth offers a singularly powerful lever for raising incomes and reducing poverty across the continent (Thirtle et al. 2003; de Janvry and Sadoulet 2010; Christiaensen et al. 2010). Recent estimates from Kenya and Rwanda, for example, indicate that a 1% increase in national income coming from the agricultural sector leads to three to four times as much poverty reduction as comparable income gains in nonagricultural sectors of the economy (Diao et al. 2012). Agricultural growth is, likewise, a key driver of economic growth and structural transformation. Because agriculture accounts for 25% of SubSaharan Africa’s gross domestic product, and up to 50% in poor countries, productivity gains in agriculture translate directly into broad-based per capita income gains (IFPRI 2004; Diao et al. 2012). Over the long run, improved agricultural technology, agronomic practices, and marketing systems will enable a minority of well-managed smallholder farms to transition into high-value commercial agriculture. In contrast, the majority of today’s smallholder farmers will follow an alternate pathway, as elsewhere, gradually exiting agriculture in favor of nonfarm occupations. But in Africa, as in other settings before, this exit will require prior broad-based agricultural S 2252 Sub-Saharan African Agriculture productivity growth on small family farms (Lipton 2005). Even the continent’s many noncommercial, primarily subsistence farmers require early, sustained productivity gains in agriculture so they can free their children from farm labor obligations, generate the surpluses necessary to send them to school, and help them transition into successful nonfarm career trajectories over the next generation (Chapoto et al. 2013). Despite the importance of agricultural growth to African economies and to the welfare trajectories of its people, farm productivity remains generally low in SSA. Labor productivity, as measured by the value of agricultural output per worker, stands at roughly two-thirds of the level prevailing in developing Asia. Land productivity, as measured by cereal yields, lies closer to one-half of the levels attained in Asia and Latin America (Table 1). Why has African agriculture underperformed? In part, Africa’s historical land abundance has allowed African governments to underinvest in agricultural research, extension, and other key drivers of agricultural productivity growth. For many decades, African leaders have spent half as much (per $100 of agricultural output) as Asian countries on the core public goods that drive agricultural growth – rural roads, irrigation systems, agricultural research, and extension (World Bank 2007). Donors have, likewise, contributed to low agricultural spending, cutting aid ﬂows for Sub-Saharan African Agriculture, Table 1 Productivity differentials across regions SubSaharan Africa Value of agricultural production (US$) Per agricultural worker Per hectare Cereal yields (tons/ha) Developing Asia Latin America 315 457 3018 140 1.4 1111 3.1 381 3.9 Source: FAOSTAT (http://faostat.fao.org/site/339/default. aspx) African agriculture in half, from over US$2 billion to around $US1 billion per year between the mid-1980s and the early 2000s (GAO 2008). Recent world events have restored interest in Africa’s agricultural potential. Back-to-back world food crises – in 2008 and 2011 – have focused the attention of African leaders, donors, and outside investors on the considerable potential and importance of Africa farming. Food riots from West Africa to Mozambique have reminded African political leaders that food security remains critical for political stability, lending new urgency the African leaders’ Maputo commitment of 2003 to increase their budget allocations for agriculture from 6% to 10% of total spending as part of the AU’s Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) (AU/NEPAD 2003; Fan et al. 2008). Donors have likewise placed agricultural growth at the top of the aid agenda. After two decades of neglect, when global aid for African agriculture fell roughly in half, the 2009 Group of Eight (G-8) meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, committed $20 billion over 3 years for agricultural development and related efforts to reduce world hunger (G-8 2009; G-20 2010). Private investors have also piled onto the bandwagon. In 2009, large agribusiness investors laid claims to nearly 40 million hectares of African farmland, greater than the agricultural land of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland combined (Deininger and Byerlee 2012). Highly publicized large-scale land investments in Africa by institutional investors have focused world attention on Africa’s considerable unexploited agricultural potential and on the ethical issues involved in allocating these valuable resources among domestic and international constituencies. As policy attention returns to focus on African agriculture, this entry aims to explore key opportunities and key challenges facing African farmers and policy makers. The entry begins by highlighting two key opportunities that will likely drive future interest and investments in Africa’s agricultural and food system growth. Discussion then turns to a series of structural and ethical challenges that policy makers and stakeholders will need to address in order to realize Africa’s considerable yet under-exploited agricultural potential. Sub-Saharan African Agriculture Seizing Opportunities Growing Urban Markets Africa’s food markets will grow rapidly over the coming decades. Projections suggest that Africa will be become a majority urban continent by 2030 when urban population surpasses that in rural areas (UN 2012). As a result, marketed food shares will grow more rapidly than overall population. Consumption patterns will also change dramatically. Rising urbanization and growing per capita incomes will translate into dramatically increased demand for processed, packaged, and prepared foods. Because of increasing urban demand for marketed foods, the post-farm segment of Africa’s food systems will grow twice as fast at farm production over the coming 40 years (Haggblade 2011). Demand for nutrient-dense high-value foods such as dairy products, meat, fresh fruits, and vegetables will increase as well. Food products, which accounted for about three-fourths of total agricultural output in the year 2000, will increasingly dominate agricultural markets (Diao and Hazell 2004). As a result, domestic and regional food markets within Africa offer farmers their largest single market opportunity over the coming decades. Spatially, growing domestic food markets will trigger rapid growth in the rural towns that house assembly markets linking agricultural production zones with major urban centers. In terminal markets, the often uncontrolled growth of Africa’s large cities rapidly engulfs surrounding periurban zones, while growing marketed volumes and commercial trafﬁc quickly outgrow the existing capacity of urban transport arteries and market infrastructure. As a result, early investments in urban planning, zoning, road quality, and urban food market infrastructure and management systems can signiﬁcantly improve the efﬁciency of urban wholesale markets, reducing losses and improving sanitation and public health. A focus on market improvements in Africa’s rapidly growing secondary cities offers early opportunities for quick wins. Cross-border ﬂows of food commodities will, likewise, assume increasing importance as Africa’s urban food markets grow. In part, the 2253 growing opportunities for intra-African regional trade arise because the partition of Africa has left 25% of its countries landlocked. Moreover, arbitrary boundaries established during the colonial period result today in complex jigsaw puzzle of political borders that often separate breadbasket regions from the deﬁcit market they would most naturally serve (Haggblade 2013). Livestock surpluses from West Africa’s Sahel serve coastal markets across the region, while South Africa’s consistent maize surpluses serve intermittently deﬁcit markets throughout Eastern and Southern Africa. These complementarities motivate growing interest in knitting together intra-African agricultural markets through regional trade agreements and strategic development corridors (ECOWAS 2004; Hazell 2012; World Bank 2012). Expansion of the East African Community (EAC) in 2007 provides a recent example of growing African interest in regional economic integration. Supply Responsiveness: Surplus Land, Yet Growing Land Pressure in Communal Areas Historically land-surplus, Sub-Saharan Africa today contains 45% of the uncultivated potential cropland in the world (Deininger and Byerlee 2012). The continent’s 200 million hectares of uncultivated, unforested potential cropland roughly equals the 210 million hectares currently farmed. Potentially, African farmers can double cropped area. These large blocks of underutilized land have triggered a worldwide land rush since the ﬁrst world food crisis of 2007–2008, as large agribusiness ﬁrms have scrambled to secure access to fertile land. In 2009 alone, African governments allocated 39 million hectares of cropland to large institutional investors (Deininger and Byerlee 2011). Africa’s generally egalitarian land distribution and low levels of rural landlessness have historically provided a broad safety net for its rural populations. Unlike large Latin American countries, where fewer than 15% of farmers control over 80% of cropland, large farms of over 500 hectares control at most 5–10% of cropland in most SSA countries (Lipton 2012). The Republic of South Africa and other settler economies in S 2254 Kenya, Rhodesia, and Zambia are the notable exceptions due to historical policies providing preferential treatment and special land allocations for large farms. In the presence of growing demographic pressure over the past four decades, average farmland per capita in communal areas has fallen by about 40% (World Bank 2007; Eastwood et al. 2010; Jayne et al. 2012). Paradoxically, Africa’s dual land tenure system has resulted in growing land pressure inside communal areas while at the same time governments are allocating large blocks of new land, outside the communal areas, to large institutional investors. Given current low yields and surplus land, African farmers can potentially unleash an enormous agricultural supply response. Moving from yields of 1 ton per hectare to 2 tons is quite feasible (InterAcademy Council 2004). Renewed investments in agricultural research, extension, regional input supply platforms, and rural roads provide the key to closing this yield gap. The second key ingredient for enabling this supply response revolves around land consolidation in communal areas and the opening up of new lands in ways that facilitate farmer transitions from small-scale holdings in communal areas to medium and large farms on existing or newly developed state lands. Much of the recent furor surrounding “land grabs” by large institutional investors revolves around ethical concerns, particularly the perception that outsiders may be receiving special access to large land blocks, while progressive smallholder farmers in communal areas do not enjoy comparable opportunities to graduate to larger-scale farming (Deininger and Byerlee 2011). Several possible models exist for making new farmland available to successful smallholders. Development of new farm blocks with roads, electricity, and communications infrastructure and with mixed farm sizes offers one model under which large farms serve as anchor tenants enabling cost-effective recovery of initial infrastructure investments while at the same time medium and small farms relieve pressure on communal lands by providing outlets for the more commercially oriented smallholders to grow. Together, investments in agricultural productivity and improved land allocation and tenure systems Sub-Saharan African Agriculture offer prospects for unleashing a substantial supply response from African farmers. Confronting Key Challenges Small Countries Africa faces an endemic small-country problem. Sub-Saharan Africa houses 49 countries, half with populations under ten million. The continent’s patchwork of highly arbitrary, inherited political borders constrains agricultural growth in several key ways: (1) hampering technology transfer and disease control; (2) cutting the continent’s many breadbasket zones from the cross-border markets they would most naturally serve; (3) increasing transport and transaction costs that, in turn, lower farmgate prices and raise input costs such as fertilizer and seed; (4) and limiting sale economies in research, input supply, and output marketing (Haggblade 2013). Research and development on improved agricultural technologies remains critical for accelerating agricultural growth. Yet new agricultural technologies spread slowly in Africa where multiple small countries partition common agroecological zones. West Africa’s root crop zone, for example, cuts across ten different countries while its millet belt transits seven. As a result, differing languages, phytosanitary controls, and seed certiﬁcation processes at each border constrain the free ﬂow of new technologies. In addition, agricultural pests and diseases – such as cassava mealybug, trypanosomiasis, and foot and mouth disease – powerfully affect agricultural productivity. Because these pests easily cross political borders, carried on the wind and wild animals, individual countries face chronic difﬁculties in raising farm productivity in the absence of effective regional collaboration. Equally constraining, political borders frequently separate Africa’s many surplus food production zones from cross-border deﬁcit markets they would most naturally serve. They separate surplus millet and sorghum producers in southern Mali and Burkina Faso from deﬁcit markets in half a dozen surrounding countries; surplus maize grown in South African from deﬁcit Sub-Saharan African Agriculture markets throughout southern and eastern Africa; breadbasket zones in northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania from intermittently deﬁcit markets in Malawi, Zimbabwe, and eastern Zambia; and livestock exporters in Mali, Mauritania, and Niger from coastal markets across West Africa. The resulting high transaction costs restrict trade ﬂows, raise transportation costs, disrupt market signals, and reduce farmer incentives to expand food production in breadbasket regions. Poor perimeter infrastructure and a high density of border controls contribute to exceptionally high transport costs in Africa, roughly four times higher per ton kilometer than in other developing regions (World Bank 2010). Along major West African trade corridors, the informal rent seeking that accompanies cross-border transactions results in cattle traders paying twice as much for crossborder shipments of cattle as for domestic transportation, despite better transportation infrastructure (Borlaug 2012). Similarly, analysis of food price differentials along the Democratic Republic of the Congo-Rwanda border suggests that border controls enlarge spatial price spreads in food prices by the equivalent of a staggering 1600 km in market distance (World Bank 2012). These high transaction costs, in turn, reduce farmgate prices, raise input costs, and increase consumer prices in cross-border markets. Economies of scale offer the potential to lower unit costs of most agricultural inputs, including electrical power, banking, insurance, transport, communications, agro-processing, and fertilizer distribution. But, conversely, diseconomies of scale result when a constellation of separate, small countries must administer, equip, and staff individual national power grids, research and agricultural education systems, and agribusiness networks. Given the considerable economies of scale in electric power generation, small African countries pay electric generation costs roughly double what would be necessary under largescale power plants, regional power pools, and regional power-sharing arrangements (World Bank 2010). Similarly, prices of imported fertilizer increase roughly 30% under the current patchwork of multiple small-country markets and small lot purchases compared to what would be attainable 2255 under regional systems of bulk fertilizer imports coupled with intra-Africa regional trade (Gregory and Bumb 2006; Morris et al. 2007). Economies of scale also exist in agricultural research and education, where investments in specialized stafﬁng and equipment all become possible. “Because of small country size, agricultural research systems in SubSaharan Africa are fragmented into nearly 400 distinct research agencies, nearly four times the number in India and eight times that in the US. This prevents realizing economies of scale in research” (World Bank 2007, p. 168). For Africa’s many small countries, “Very often, the only viable – and efﬁcient – solution is regional collaboration” (Beintema and Stads 2011, p. 28). In general, feasible solutions to the agricultural inefﬁciencies embedded in Africa’s patchwork of small countries revolve around regional collaboration in scientiﬁc research, education, trade, power generation, and corridor development programs (Haggblade 2013). Sustainable Intensification In past generations, Africa’s agricultural growth has relied on area expansion, while farmers have maintained soil fertility through shifting cultivation, natural fallows, and soil mining. Low rates of fertilizer application – less than 10 kg/ha in Africa compared to 100 kg in Asia – have led to decades of soil mining, generating annual nutrient losses of over 20 kg of nitrogen, 15 kg of potassium, and 2.5 kg of phosphorus per hectare from African soils (Smaling et al. 1997; Morris et al. 2007). Looking forward, this system will become increasingly unsustainable. Continued demographic pressure on farmland, particularly in communal areas, will stimulate incentives to intensify farm production. These growing land pressures have given rise to a growing body of research and experimentation on alternate methods for sustainable soil fertility management (Sanchez et al. 1997; Conway 1999; Pretty and Hine 2001; Morris et al. 2007; Haggblade et al. 2010). Most of these efforts involve increased doses of mineral fertilizer coupled with improved soil and water management practices, typically involving some combination of water harvesting, dry season minimum tillage, crop residue management, S 2256 leguminous crop rotations, organic soil amendments, and short, managed fallows with selected leguminous shrubs. In the past, most agricultural research in Africa has focused on breeding improved varieties of crops and livestock and delivering improved input packages to farmers. In the future, improved agronomic practices will become increasingly important. Given the diversity of farming conditions prevailing in rural Africa, future farm technology development will need to include site-speciﬁc adaptive research coupled with strong farmer involvement in design and testing. Changing Structure of Agricultural Education and Research Increasing urbanization and changing food consumption patterns hold important implications for the human skills required to manage Africa’s changing food systems. To scale up processing of local foods such as cassava, maize, sorghum, yam, and banana from artisanal to industrial scales, the food industry will need to undertake research on the biochemistry of basic food fermentations and on nutritional outcomes under alternate processing and packaging technologies. To serve increasing demand for packaged, processed, and prepared foods, Africa’s future food system will require a steady ﬂow of trained scientiﬁc and technical manpower trained in the science of increasingly input intensive farm production, feed industries, storage systems, supply chain management, and food processing industries (Haggblade 2011). In response, Africa’s agricultural education and research institutions will need to adapt in order to effectively serve this changing food system. In the past, Africa’s agricultural universities have trained primarily extension staff and researchers for the public sector. In the future, they will need to prepare students for private sector employers in post-farm segments of the supply chain. Africa’s agricultural research and education institutions will increasingly need to build expertise in the post-farm areas of food processing, storage, food biochemistry, and food safety in order to prepare students with skill sets Sub-Saharan African Agriculture required by the continent’s rapidly expanding private agribusiness ﬁrms. This institutional double pivot – from public to private sector clients and from on-farm to post-farm segments of the food system – will require a major shift in faculty skill sets, in laboratory facilities, and in systems for actively engaging with private sector employers in the food system (Minde 2012). Financing the Public Goods Required for Agricultural Productivity Growth African governments have historically underinvested in the public goods that drive productivity growth in agriculture – rural roads, irrigation systems, agricultural research, education, and extension. While transforming agricultural countries in Asia and Latin America have invested 10% of agricultural GDP in agricultural support institutions and rural infrastructure, African governments have spent less than half as much over many decades (World Bank 2007, p. 41). During the early years of their Green Revolution, India and other Asian countries spent 10–20% of their total government budgets on agriculture, investing heavily in agricultural research, extension, agricultural education, irrigation, and rural roads (Lipton 2012; Hazell 2012). In contrast, African governments currently spend an average of only about 6% of their budgets on agriculture and livestock. As a result, over the three decades between 1970 and 2000, Africa’s spending per agricultural scientist fell roughly in half (Beintema and Stads 2006). Given the high returns to public investments in agricultural research, rural roads, and related public goods, African leaders will need to substantially increase the quantity and quality of their agricultural spending (Fan 2008). While a handful of African governments have delivered on their Maputo commitment to increase public investments in agriculture, most have not yet done so (Fan et al. 2008). Summary Agricultural growth over the next generation will be critical to Africa’s efforts to accelerate Sub-Saharan African Agriculture economic growth and achieve broad-based poverty reduction. But where will the political will come from to fund regional agricultural research and regional trade corridors; reform agricultural research, education, and extension systems; and ﬁnance the additional public goods necessary for driving agricultural productivity growth? Skeptics might argue that in the year 2013, 10 years after the AU’s commitment to raise funding for agriculture from 6% to 10% of total spending, only a handful of African governments have met this goal. Donor commitments of additional billions in funding for African agriculture have likewise faltered since 2009, in the face of an international ﬁnancial crisis, recessions in the major donor countries, and severe budget crises in Europe and the USA. As a result, Africa’s public sector underinvestment in agriculture persists. In contrast, the private sector has responded with alacrity to rising food and energy prices by investing heavily in African farmland. This new scramble for African farmland by large domestic and foreign investors has raised alarm bells and elicited considerable press coverage in Africa and abroad. Many observers fear that large estates may displace opportunities for commercial smallholders to expand while at the same time diminishing rural employment opportunities through premature mechanization. These highly publicized political and ethical debates may, nonetheless, prove productive if they spur public sector action and motivate African governments and donors to deliver on their prior commitments to agriculture. African governments and donors, diverted by recent recessions, political turmoil, and budget crises, now have the opportunity to restore their funding commitments to agriculture, thereby enabling Africa’s farmers to seize the considerable opportunities available in Africa’s rich natural resource base and growing regional markets. Looking forward, a program of vigorous investment in the public goods that drive agricultural productivity growth and market development offers Africa its best chance for rapid, broad-based poverty reduction. 2257 Cross-References ▶ Conservation Agriculture: Farmer Adoption and Policy Issues ▶ Farms: Small Versus Large References AU/NEPAD (African Union/New Partnership for Africa’s Development). (2003). Comprehensive Africa agricultural development programme. Midrand: NEPAD secretariat. Beintema, N., & Stads, G.-J. (2006). Agricultural R&D in sub-saharan Africa: An era of stagnation (ASTI background paper). Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Beintema, N., & Stads, G.-J. (2011). African agricultural R&D in the new millennium: Progress for some, challenges for many. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, Texas A&M University. (2012). Livestock assessment for feed the future initiative – Mali and four coastal markets of West Africa. Accra: USAID/West Africa. Chapoto, A., Haggblade, S., Hichaambwa, M., Kabwe, S., Longabaugh, S., Sitko, N., & Tschirley, D. (2013). Institutional models for accelerating agricultural commercialization: Evidence from maize, cotton and horticulture in Zambia, 1965 to 2012. In E. Hillbom & P. Svensson (Eds.), Agricultural transformation in a global history perspective. London: Routledge. Christiaensen, L., Demery, L., & Kuhl, J. (2010). The evolving role of agriculture in poverty reduction: An empirical perspective (Working Papers UNU-WIDER Working Paper W). World Institute for Development Economic Research UNU-WIDER. Conway, G. (1999). The doubly green revolution: Food for all in the twenty-ﬁrst century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. De Janvry, A., & Sadoulet, E. (2010). Agricultural growth and poverty reduction: Additional evidence. The World Bank Research Observer, 25(1), 1–20. Deininger, K., & Byerlee, D. (2011). Rising global interest in farm land: Can it yield sustainable and equitable beneﬁts. Washington, DC: World Bank. Deininger, K., & Byerlee, D. (2012). The rise of large farms in land abundant countries: Do they have a future? World Development, 40, 701–714. Diao, X., & Hazell, P. (2004). Exploring market opportunities for African smallholders (2020 Africa Conference Brief 6). Washington, DC: IFPRI. Diao, X., Thurlow, J., Benin, S., & Fan, S. (2012). Strategies and priorites for African agriculture: Economywide perspectives from country studies. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. S 2258 Eastwood, R., Lipton, M., & Newell, A. (2010). Farm size. In P. L. Pingali & R. E. Evenson (Eds.), Handbook of agricultural economics. North Holland: Elsevier. Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). (2004). Cadre de Politique Agricole Pour l’Afrique de l’Ouest ECOWAP. Abuja: ECOWAS. Fan, S. (Ed.). (2008). Public expenditures, growth, and poverty: Lessons from developing countries. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fan, S., Johnson, M., Saurkar, A., & Makombe, T. (2008). Investing in African agriculture to halve poverty by 2015 (Discussion paper 751). Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. G8. (2009). L’Aquila joint statement on global food security: L’Aquila food security initiative (AFSI), L’Aquila, Italy. http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/summit/ 2009/statement3-2.pdf G20. (2010, June 26–27). The G-20 Toronto summit declaration. http://www.donorplatform.org/content/view/ 453/209 Government Accountability Ofﬁce (GAO). (2008). International food security: Insufﬁcient efforts by host governments and donors threaten progress to halve hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015. Washington, DC: Government Accountability Ofﬁce. Gregory, D. I., & Bumb, B. (2006). Factors affecting supply of fertilizer in Sub-Saharan Africa (Agriculture and rural development discussion paper 24). Washington, DC: World Bank. Haggblade, S. (2011). Modernizing African agribusiness: Reﬂections for the future. Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, 1(1), 10–30. Haggblade, S. (2013). Unscrambling Africa: Regional requirements for achieving food security. Development Policy Review, 31(2), 149–176. Haggblade, S., et al. (2010). Chapter 7: Sustainable soil fertility management systems. In S. Haggblade & P. B. R. Hazell (Eds.), Successes in African agriculture: Lessons for the future. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hazell, P. B. R. (2012, August). Options for African agriculture in an era of high food and energy prices. Elmhirst lecture presented to the 27th international conference of agricultural economists, Foz do Iguaçu. InterAcademy Council. (2004). Realizing the promise and potential of African agriculture: Science and technology strategies for improving agricultural productivity and food security in Africa. Amsterdam: InterAcademy Council Secretariat. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). (2004). Ending hunger in Africa: Prospects for the small farmer (Policy brief). Washington, DC: IFPRI. Jayne, T. S., Chamberlin, J., & Muyanga, M. (2012). Emerging land issues in African agriculture: Implications for food security and poverty reduction strategies. Palo Alto: Center for Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University. Lipton, M. (2005). The family farm in a globalizing world: The role of crop science in alleviating poverty (2020 Subscription Farming discussion paper 40). Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Lipton, M. (2012). Learning from others: Increasing agricultural productivity for human development in SubSaharan Africa (WP 2012–007). New York: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Regional Bureau for Africa. Minde, I. (2012, September). Food system dynamics in Africa: Anticipating and responding to change. Paper presented to the 3rd Regional Universities Forum (RUFORUM) Biennial Conference in Entebbe, Uganda, 24–29. Morris, M., Kelly, V. A., Kopicki, R. J., & Byerlee, D. (2007). Fertilizer use in African agriculture: Lessons learned and good practice guidelines. Washington, DC: World Bank. Pretty, J., & Hine, R. (2001). Reducing food poverty with sustainable agriculture: A summary of new evidence (Final report from the SAFE-world research project). Colchester: Essex University. Sanchez, P. A., Shepherd, K. D., Soule, M. J., Place, F. M., Buresh, R. J., Izac, A. N., Mokwunye, A. U., Kwesiga, F. R., Ndiritu, C. G., & Woomer, P. L. (1997). Soil fertility replenishment in Africa: An investment in natural resource capital. In R. Buresh, P. A. Sanchez, & F. Calhoun (Eds.), Replenishing soil fertility in Africa (SSSA special publication 51, pp. 1–46). Madison: Soil Science Society of America. Smaling, E. M. A., Nandwa, S. M., & Janssen, B. H. (1997). Soil fertility in Africa is at stake. Replenishing soil fertility in Africa (SSSA special publication 51). Madison: Soil Science Society of America. Thirtle, C., Lin, L., & Piesse, J. (2003). The impact of research-led agricultural productivity growth on poverty reduction in Africa, Asia and Latin America. World Development, 3112, 1959–1975. United Nations. (2012). Urban projections. http://esa.un. org/unup World Bank. (2007). Agriculture for development: World development report 2008. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (2010). Africa’s infrastructure: A time for transition. Washington, DC: The World Bank. World Bank. (2012). Africa can feed Africa. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Subscription Farming ▶ Community-Supported Agriculture Subsistence ▶ Africa, Food, and Agriculture ▶ Human Rights and Food Subsistence Orientation and Food 2259 Mother-Child Relationships Subsistence Agriculture Introduction Human life starts within a pure subsistence economy. A mother dispenses nutrients and oxygen through the placenta and the umbilical cord and the baby receives nourishment. During gestation, this giving and taking occurs free from expectations of reciprocity or compensation. Biology does not allow for any other way. The sole purpose of this gift-economy between the mother and her child is the survival and development of the fetus, the reproduction of life. While the mother may procure her own food as commodities in a market economy, once it enters her body, it decommodiﬁes and turns into a gift for the yet-tobe-born. After birth, this relationship tends to persist. The baby continues to receive nourishment for free from the mother, usually trough breastfeeding. Even when infant formula is used as a substitute, the newborn receives it as a gift. As the baby grows into the culture into which it is born, social norms start to shape the relationship between the child and its parents. While these norms differ from culture to culture, they are directed to the subsistence of everyone involved. Even within a capitalist market economy, the goods and services that are exchanged within a family do not usually come with a price tag. Toward the end of one’s life, it is customary in most cultures that children will take care of their aging parents. That way, involuntarily, every life starts within a subsistence economy, which often will be carried forth until death. Subsistence orientation is a term to describe the practice of centering economic activities around the production of subsistence, the material and immaterial conditions of human life. Food, as a basic necessity of human survival, as well as a fundamental element of identity and culture, is an essential part of subsistence. Although often associated with poverty, the production of subsistence makes up the foundation of any economy and culture, yet it is differently organized depending on the dominant relations of production (Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen and Mies 1999). Hunter-Gatherer Societies In hunter-gatherer societies, this primal subsistence economy between mothers and their children is extended to the entire community. These societies are usually made up by small communities based on kinship and social alliances. Land and other sources of subsistence are held and managed in common. Foods and other gathered goods tend to be redistributed among community members in an egalitarian fashion. Traditionally, most work afforded on a daily basis would be spent on the procurement (through hunting, ﬁshing, and gathering) and preparation of food. The ▶ Agriculture and Ethical Change Subsistence Economy ▶ Subsistence Orientation and Food Subsistence Orientation and Food Johann Strube Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Synonyms Co-sufﬁciency; Developmentalism; Do-it-yourself; Domestic labor; Feminist political economy; Gestation; Good life; Home economics; Homesteading; Hunter-gatherers; Infant feeding; Neighborly relations; Peasant farming; Reproduction of life; Self-sufﬁciency; Social struggle; Subsistence economy; Urban agriculture S 2260 accumulation of surplus beyond immediate needs in an environment that proved to be bountiful is both unnecessary and counterproductive to a nomadic lifestyle, and thus commonly avoided by reducing work hours or feasting of excessive foodstuffs. Gifting is central to the economy of most hunter-gatherer societies. Food is gifted by nature, and the recipients pass on these gifts to the members of their community who are in need of it. In the indigenous traditions of the Americas, the Earth or Nature is seen as a woman that unconditionally provides all living beings with the things they need, just as a mother feeds her baby unconditionally. Animals and plants give their life voluntarily as it is their purpose to sustain someone else’s life. From this perspective, natural products are received as gifts and to be used with gratitude and humility, rather than extracted and appropriated as resources. This gifting, then, also becomes the model for interhuman relationships, in that the abundance provided by nature can only be passed on to others as gifts (Kimmerer 2013). Although often portrayed as poor and constantly on the brink of death, Marshall Sahlins (Sahlins 1972) describes hunter-gatherers as the original afﬂuent society. Low consumption levels allowed hunter-gatherers to fulﬁll their needs with only 3–5 h of daily labor in production. While this observation has been challenged in its universalism, it was instrumental in shifting the attention of ethnographers toward the effective and culturally rich subsistence activities of hunter-gatherers. Over the course of history, most huntergatherer societies have either adopted agriculture or have commonly been dispossessed and displaced. As a result, hunter-gatherer communities today ﬁnd themselves on less productive or disturbed land, which greatly curtails their ability to subsist on it. Consequently, many huntergatherers have augmented their livelihood with agriculture and trade, while others have become dependent on government support. Peasant Farming Peasant farming is a type of agriculture that is primarily directed at the reproduction of the farm as the source of livelihood for the farm family. Subsistence Orientation and Food Being the predominant form of agriculture in many developing countries, the primary objective of keeping the farm going and feeding the family on it is pervasive even among farmers in developed countries. It has long been predicted that the peasantry would cease to exist under capitalist relations of production, yet the continued persistence of peasant farms has cast doubts on this prophecy. The relative number of people engaged in farming has plummeted and industrial farming has been steadily on the rise over the last century, in particular in industrial countries, but it is estimated that 84% of the farms worldwide are smallholdings with less than two hectares (Lowder et al. 2016) providing food to about 70% of the world’s population (ETC 2009). Although size is an imprecise predictor of subsistence orientation, it can be assumed that most of these operations are peasant farms. Focusing on Southeast Asia, James Scott (1976) describes “subsistence ethics” as a central element of the peasant worldview. He found that the overall objective to keep the farm going as a source of livelihood leads peasants to avoid risks like a new crop or technology unless proven successful in the local environment of the farm. On the community level, Scott observed that peasants regard subsistence as a “fundamental social right,” which mandates redistribution of wealth to those in need. Even on many larger farms whose products are predominantly sold as commodities, peasant farming continues to exist as an organizing principle that farmers try to approach against pressures to expand (van der Ploeg 2008). For example, many farms keep a kitchen garden or additional livestock for self-provisioning. Another common strategy is to invest in the health of the soil or one’s herd, beyond what would be necessary for short-term economic gain, with the goal to improve the reproductive capital of the farm. In recent decades, there has been a strong movement toward local agriculture in North America and Europe. Farmers’ markets, u-pick farms, and community supported agriculture are all on the rise. Community gardens bring farming into the cities and blur the lines between consumers and producers. Although the people in Subsistence Orientation and Food these new and rediscovered arrangements come from vastly diverse backgrounds, and most of them would reject the term peasant as part of their identity, the local food movement aims to put the provisioning of people with food back into the center of agriculture. Subsistence in Neighborly Communities Personal relationships among neighbors are commonly based on subsistence-oriented transactions. In many parts of the world, it is customary to ask a neighbor for help, such as looking after the children or borrowing an ingredient critical for a favored meal. Some research suggests that neighborhood ties are the strongest where people actively engage in subsistence production, which provides them with much valued goods and skills that they can share within the local community. For example, in a German rural small town, Baier et al. (2005) observed a web of mutual responsibilities and support that is based on the celebration of foods prepared at home and shared at various community events. The Appalachian Mountains in the Eastern United States of America are wellknown for their proud canning culture. The sharing of home-made preserves, such as pickled produce, jam, and jellies, is a central element of many community events, despite mass-produced alternatives being readily available. In Morocco, women in both cities and villages gather at the faraan, a public oven, to bake their bread and pastries, share the latest news, and build community ties (public bakehouses used to be common throughout Europe’s villages). Globally, the increased interest in community gardens implies a desire to build community through a traditional, food-oriented subsistence activity, within socioeconomic environments that are not conducive for neighbors to meet in any other way. As these selected examples demonstrate, subsistence practices around food are not only valued in local communities, but critical to the reproduction of social ties and the creation of social capital. Ferdinand Tönnies and Harris (Tönnies and Harris 2001) uses the term Gemeinschaft to describe such communities that are built on interpersonal ties and codependence in satisfying subsistence needs. 2261 Subsistence in the City Although the city as a form of social organization depends on a colonial relationship with rural places that provide the city with food for its subsistence, there exist spaces within the urban fabric that are directed at the subsistence of a local community. In many instances, these are responses to dire economic conditions in which subsistence techniques are used to secure survival. Especially in the slums in developing countries, but also in battered, postindustrial cities in developed countries, marginalized communities turn to urban gardening and animal husbandry to provide themselves with food. The residue of industrial overproduction is gleaned from landﬁlls and trashcans. Political movements, such as the Black Panthers or the American Indian Movement in the United States of America, started as self-help groups that intended to satisfy basic subsistence needs, such as food, for its membership in large cities. These forms of urban subsistence production are not a matter of free choice but a necessity under conditions of unemployment, poor social security, and dispossession. Yet, often they are also expressions of cultural continuity. Many of the food-growing slum dwellers in the third world are former peasants who moved to the cities and brought with them the skills to produce food and the moral obligation to provide for their community. When Puerto Rican immigrants occupied vacant lots in New York’s Lower East Side to start the city’s ﬁrst community gardens, they did so not just for the food, but also to surround themselves with plants and a community based on shared subsistence work that they grew up with but came to miss in Downtown Manhattan. The 1960s countercultural movement initiated a new set of urban subsistence networks. Linking material needs with political goals, students, and other young urban dwellers with largely middleclass backgrounds tried to redeﬁne what living in the city could be, stripping the urban economy of some of its exploitive relationships with the rural hinterland. Housing and food cooperatives were founded with the goal of providing one’s community with food outside of capitalist market relations. Urban gardens were started to shorten food miles, bring fresh produce to the city, and S 2262 commonly to point to the injustice of leaving urban space unused while human subsistence needs could be satisﬁed with it. Self-identifying dumpster divers or freegans recover discarded, yet still palatable food, in order to redistribute it and highlight the ecological and social problem of food waste and overproduction. Although many of these practices feed on the capitalist market economy, they demonstrate that subsistence production is not limited to rural places or developing countries. Subsistence Within Capitalism As in any society, a capitalist market society is built on the production of subsistence. The labor of the workers that capitalism depends on needs to be reproduced as do the lives of the capitalist class itself. For this, subsistence production is necessary, to translate the exchange-value of capital back into use-values. Meals need to be procured and prepared. The young, the ill, and the elderly need to be taken care of. Houses and bodies need to be cleaned. In a capitalist society, subsistence labor is predominately provided by women who receive little recognition and compensation for their work. At the same time, much of the subsistence work has been pressed into commodity arrangements. For example, homecooking as the main form of food preparation has been increasingly replaced by purchasing readymade meals. Although both ways may feed a person nutritionally, they are decisively different in their social and cultural implications. Where food is prepared and shared without the exchange of money, mutual social obligations and ties, in short, community is created. Meals prepared reﬂect the cultural preferences, imagination, and skill of those who cook. Where food is sold as a commodity, however, the social relations between cook and waiting staff (or factory worker and supermarket employees), on the one hand, and consumers, on the other hand, are limited to the market transaction. Meals as commodities reﬂect the preferences of many and are thus more standardized. The same observation holds for the production of foodstuffs on farms. Since the emergence of industrial agricultural and supraregional trade, the diversity of plants, Subsistence Orientation and Food plant varieties, and animal breeds on farms has plummeted. Although subsistence production continues to exists within a capitalist society, this is not a peaceful coexistence. In his description of capital’s primitive accumulation beginning in the late ﬁfteenth century, Karl Marx (1977) describes how English peasants got systematically removed from their land to turn the former into dependent wage workers in the emerging industries and the latter into a tradable commodity. In short, this created the conditions for a capitalist economy. Rosa Luxemburg (1968) goes further in arguing that this dispossession of noncapitalist classes was not just a singular precondition, but a permanent requirement to the reproduction of capitalism. While Luxemburg was mainly focusing on Europe’s colonies, she also referred to the nonmonetary labor of women, a point that later got elaborated in more detail by feminist writers such as Silvia Federici (2004) and Veronika BennholdtThomsen and Maria Mies (Bennholdt-Thomsen and Mies 1999). Federici argues that it was not just the dispossession of peasants and the colonies that laid the foundation for capitalism, but especially the systematic and violent destruction of female power, as exempliﬁed in the witch hunts. Going on since the emergence of capitalism, the subjugation of subsistence production gained new momentum after World War II, when the victorious powers pushed an agenda of development with the aim to modernize every part of the world, shorthand for forcing subsistence producers into industrial modes of production. Walt Rostow (1960) describes development as a natural occurring process, in which traditional (subsistence-oriented) societies were considered undeveloped and immature and had yet to reach the “age of high mass-consumption.” Other writers around the same time identiﬁed character deﬁciencies among traditional people that prevented them from reaching higher levels of human development that could be overcome through education and integration in the industrial production processes. Not only did this mainstream development theory build on a colonial narrative that rendered the indigenous populations of the colonies as lazy and Subsistence Orientation and Food morally inferior, it is also strongly rooted in a patriarchal tradition. The kinds of activities that are to be promoted through development, including wage labor, ﬁnancial investing, farming for proﬁt, are activities that were dominated by men; partly because women were excluded from them, partly because many women have other priorities. Consequently, the subsistence work of women was not only made invisible, but their priorities also did not ﬁgure equally in development goals and policies and the consequent allotment of resources. This development ideology became institutionalized in the Marshall Plan and the Bretton Woods program, two development programs led by the Unites States of America. These programs aimed to provide capital to developing countries to invest in their infrastructure, which would initiate a development similar to the one that the United States had undergone in the previous decades. These development funds were given out under the condition that chemical-intensive export agriculture and industrial development were promoted. At the same time, food aid, heavily subsidized grain commodities from industrialized nations, were exported to developing countries, destroying local networks of provisioning. When developing countries became unable to service their loans, the International Monetary Fund, governments of the industrial countries, and private banks agreed to debt cancelations under the conditions that social services and other government spending were drastically reduced, markets opened to the global economy, and resources privatized (McMichael 2011). These measures had devastating consequences for rural subsistence farmers. Unable to subsist on the land, millions of rural people moved to urban centers throughout the world, to either work as wage laborers or ﬁnd themselves unemployed and living in ever-growing slums (McMichael 2011). The similarities with Marx’s account of the dispossession of the English peasantry are striking. The age of developmentalism heralded a new round of primitive accumulation, now on a global scale. In many places, subsistence producers rose up against the assault on their traditional livelihoods. In Mexico, for example, an armed conﬂict 2263 arose in the state of Chiapas between the indigenous Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Mexican government which had just permitted the privatization of common land as part of Mexico’s restructuring program to become ﬁt for the global, capitalist economy. In the industrialized countries, i.e., countries that already underwent this process of primitive accumulation, the interplay between development and the subjugation of subsistence production took on similar forms. Similar to the developing world, industrial countries invested in the industrialization of their agriculture, i.e., rationalizing the cultivation process so that production was maximized and labor minimized. Governments supported commodity-producing farms with subsidies and publically funded research while more diversiﬁed farms based on human labor experienced little support. The shift toward industrial production was enabled through new, expensive technologies and chemicals. This allowed investors to put capital into agriculture like never before. Wanting to see a return on their investments, they favored the production of lucrative commodities while subsistence-oriented farms were largely ignored. Thus, farms that did not qualify for subsidies or credit found it increasingly difﬁcult to compete with bigger, commodity-oriented operations. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz (1971–1976) summarized this policy accurately when he coined the policy “get big or get out.” As a result, almost four million farms (more than half of all farms) in the United States alone got out during the decades following World War II. The picture in Europe was similar. The farms that persisted were forced to focus more strongly on a few commodities to survive. A double squeeze on agriculture (falling output prices and rising costs for inputs) gave farmers little leeway (Van der Ploeg 2008). Despite being common in the past, fewer farms kept a kitchen garden or a small number of livestock for homeconsumption besides their main commodity crops. Standardization and new regulations on food safety made it increasingly difﬁcult to sell small quantities of food products to neighbors. These are farm activities that were traditionally S 2264 controlled by women. Consequently, women were made invisible on the farms and their work became increasingly restricted to the household (Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen and Mies 1999). Ivan Illich (1982) describes this systematic conﬁnement of subsistence production as capitalism’s war against subsistence. Only the destruction of people’s ability to provide for themselves makes them so vulnerable that they have to accept the labor conditions set by the owners of the means of production. In the Eastern Bloc, subsistence-based communities did not fare better. The socialist development as outlined by the historical materialism of Karl Marx saw the peasantry as a reactionary class that had to be turned into (wage-dependent) proletarians, who alone were supposed to be able to lead the revolution. The farming methods had to be industrialized in order to develop the productive forces to the point that they would become too powerful to be contained by a capitalist society. The result was the dispossession of peasant farmers through the collectivization of their land and the industrialization of agriculture, leading to a massive displacement of rural people. Summary Food is a central to human subsistence. Besides being a necessity for survival, it is rich in cultural and, for many people, spiritual meaning. In most societies, the ritualized consumption of food is used as an occasion to get together and build social bonds. Subsistenceorientation is the economic preference to put the production of subsistence above ﬁnancial proﬁt. It has been the dominant motivation for economic activities throughout human history and continues to be the main driver for many people today. This overview has shown that every human life begins within a pure subsistence economy in the womb of the mother, when the mother unconditionally and involuntarily gives nourishment to the fetus. After birth, the relationship between close relatives, in particular between the mother and child, usually continues to be characterized by Subsistence Orientation and Food the giving of unaccounted care and foodprovisioning. In hunter-gatherer and peasant societies, the orientation toward meeting material, cultural, and spiritual needs is extended to larger social groups, such as the band, the clan, or the village. Even in societies based on wage labor and with a strong division of labor, in which personal ties have largely been replaced with anonymous market transactions, many people cultivate direct, personal relationships within their neighborhood. Often, these relationships are built around shared food. While often portrayed as rural, subsistenceorientation is not foreign to cities. Many forms of urban agriculture are destined to directly feed people with culturally appropriate food. Dumpster divers and garbage gleaners, by choice or not, salvage palatable food waste and distribute it for consumption. And in the city, too, a mother will feed her baby. Although subsistence-oriented production of food is pervasive, it occurs in an uneasy relationship to the hegemonic capitalist social order. Capitalism depends on subsistence labor (disproportionally expended by women) to secure the reproduction of the labor force, and it also limits autonomous spheres of subsistence production that might subvert the creation of commodities on which the accumulation of capital depends. Thus, the development of capitalism is based on a continued dispossession of the means of subsistence production, which are then reorganized to facilitate the accumulation of capital. Cross-References ▶ Artisanal Food Production and Craft ▶ Eating, Feeding, and the Human Life Cycle ▶ Ecofeminist Food Ethics ▶ Economy of Agriculture and Food ▶ Feeding Children ▶ Home Gardening ▶ Homesteading ▶ Hospitality and Food ▶ Hunting ▶ Infant Feeding ▶ Local and Regional Food Systems ▶ Peasant Farming ▶ Urban Agriculture Substantial Equivalence 2265 References Substantial Equivalence Baier, A., Bennholdt-Thomsen, V., & Holzer, B. (2005). Ohne Menschen keine Wirtschaft: oder: wie gesellschaftlicher Reichtum entsteht; Berichte aus einer ländlichen Region in Ostwestfalen. (German: No economy without people: or: how social wealth is created; reports from a rural region in Eastern Westphalia). Munich: oekom. Bennholdt-Thomsen, V., & Mies, M. (1999). The subsistence perspective. Beyond the globalized economy. New York: Zed Books. ETC GROUP. (2009). Who will feed us? Questions for the food and climate crisis. ETC Group Communiqué, 102, 1–34. Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the witch. New York: Autonomedia. Illich, I. (1982). Vom Recht auf Gemeinheit (German: On the right to community). Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions. Lowder, S. K., Skoet, J., & Raney, T. (2016). The number, size, and distribution of farms, smallholder farms, and family farms worldwide. World Development, 87, 16–29. Luxemburg, R. (1968). The accumulation of capital. New York: Modern Reader paperbacks. Marx, K. (1977). Capital. Critique of Political Economy (trans: Fowkes, B.) (Vol. 1–2). New York: Vintage. McMichael, P. (2011). Development and social change: A global perspective: A global perspective. Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Rostow, W. W. (1960). The stages of economic growth, a non-communist manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone age economics. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton. Scott, J. C. (1976). The moral economy of the peasant: Rebellion and subsistence in southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. Tönnies, F., & Harris, J. (2001). Community and civil society (Vol. 266). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van der Ploeg, J. D. (2008). The new peasantries. Struggles for autonomy and sustainability in an era of empire and globalization. London: Earthscan. Subsistence-Oriented Farming ▶ Peasant Farming Andrea Borghini Department of Philosophy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy Synonyms Equivalence of GM; Non-GM foods Introduction The expression “substantial equivalence” stands for a key concept introduced to evaluate the risks and the means of production and consumption of novel foods. In particular, the concept has famously been employed to evaluate the risks for human health of consuming genetically modiﬁed (GM) foods, that is, of genetically modiﬁed organisms raised for human consumption as well as foods that contain these organisms as ingredients (cfr. Andrée 2007; Gupta 2013; Shahin 2007). In a nutshell, that the GM food is substantially equivalent to its non-GM (“natural”; see entry on ▶ “Metaphysics of Natural Food”) counterpart is an important reason to regard the GM food as safe to be consumed. For instance, if a variety of GM corn is substantially equivalent to the non-GM corn variety from which it was engineered, then the GM corn is likely to be considered as safe to be consumed as the non-GM counterpart. Derivatively, and more generally, the doctrine of substantial equivalence holds that, from the perspective of human health, GM foods are as safe to be consumed as their nonGM counterparts. The doctrine has been endorsed by a number of agencies worldwide, starting with the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Food and Drug Administration; other notable endorsements include the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. S 2266 Although the doctrine owes its name and makes reference to two eminently metaphysical concepts, namely, substance and identity, metaphysicians devoted little or no attention to the underpinnings of the doctrine. The Doctrine of Substantial Equivalence GM foods constitute a particularly interesting category of novel foods. Their novelty, indeed, stems from their different genetic makeup. As the modiﬁcation of a genome takes place in a laboratory and is thus the product of human intellectual ability and artiﬁce, the resulting novel organism is oftentimes awarded a patent, in recognition of its intellectual speciﬁcity. Questions arise, however, regarding the potential threats to human health of the novel food. For instance, it is unclear whether the novel genome will alter the production of the nutrients provided by the food, such as proteins, amino acids, or carbohydrates. It is also unclear whether the novel food will contain vitamins, minerals, potential toxicants (e.g., solanine in potatoes, erucic acid and glucosinolates in canola), and allergenic proteins. Thus, before introducing a novel food into a marketplace, competent food safety agencies need to assess the food’s risks to human health. It is at this stage that the doctrine of substantial equivalence ﬁnds employment. To regard a GM food as substantially equivalent to its counterpart, a number of properties of the novel food are examined. If the properties are found to be fundamentally identical to the corresponding properties of the non-GM counterpart, then the food is regarded as safe, from a nutritional point of view. The GM food and its non-GM counterpart are “equivalent,” hence, because they are identical in some key nutritional properties. They are “substantially” equivalent, instead, because not all of the foods’ properties are taken as relevant to justify the equivalence claim: only those properties that are fundamental from a nutritional point of view are salient to determine the matter. Disagreement has risen among the international scientiﬁc community on which properties Substantial Equivalence shall constitute the basis of comparison between a given GM food and its non-GM counterpart. Typically, the fact that the GM food and its non-GM counterpart have different genomes – fact that is crucial to award a patent to the inventor of the GM food – will be deemed as irrelevant from the point of view of human nutrition and health. Thus, in light of the doctrine of substantial equivalence, it is possible that a GM food is considered a novelty within a country’s patent ofﬁce, but standard within that country’s food safety agency. Upon presenting the doctrine, it is important to clarify its scope. Ascertaining the substantial equivalence of a GM food with respect to its non-GM counterpart is only one part of the process of evaluating whether and how to produce a GM organism and to introduce it in the marketplace. Following the EU regulations circa the production and marketing of GM organisms (see entry on ▶ “EU Regulatory Conﬂicts over GM Food”; ▶ “GMO Food Labeling”), we may divide up the evaluation of a GM organism in four categories. Substantial equivalence contributes in different manners to the evaluation of a food in each of the four categories. (i) Biosafety. Substantial equivalence pertains primarily to the assessment of the biosafety of the GM organism. In particular, it concerns the safety of consumers, as opposed to – for instance – the safety of biodiversity within an area of production. The appeal to substantial equivalence has thus served to argue that GM foods raise no distinct threat to human health because they do not deliver novel nutritional constituents to the organism. (ii) Labeling. Substantial equivalence inﬂuences also the practices of food labeling. If a GM food is substantially equivalent to its nonGM counterpart, from a nutritional standpoint there is no reason why the two sorts of foods should be distinctly labeled. (iii) Traceability. The doctrine of substantial equivalence has arguably jeopardized the possibility of tracing the effects of GM foods on human health. Countries that have endorsed the doctrine, and where GM foods Substantial Equivalence are not distinctly labeled, have rendered impossible for consumers to study whether the emergence of certain allergies (e.g., food allergies and intolerances) and diseases has been inﬂuenced by the consumption of GM foods. (iv) Freedom of choice. By blurring the distinction between GM organisms and their nonGM counterparts, the doctrine of substantial equivalence has weakened the freedom of producers and consumers to choose what sort of product they wish to, respectively, eat or deliver to the market. Substantial equivalence has an underlying role also in the 2003–2006 debate within the World Trade Organization on the measures that are necessary to protect human, animal, or plant life or health. The debate eventually led to the so-called SPS Agreement – the Agreement on the Application of the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (see the entry on ▶ WTO GMO Dispute: Implications for the SPS Agreement). If GM organisms are deemed as substantially equivalent to their non-GM counterparts, then countries that buy into the SPS Agreement have no reasons pertaining to the safety of human nutrition for impeding production of GM organisms or for distinctly labeling GM foods. Empirical Evidence Against the Doctrine The doctrine of substantial equivalence is of dubious scientiﬁc rigor. In their seminal 1999 article on the topic, Millstone, Brunner, and Mayer remarked that: The concept of substantial equivalence has never been properly deﬁned; the degree of difference between a natural food and its GM alternative before its ‘substance’ ceases to be acceptably ‘equivalent’ is not deﬁned anywhere, nor has an exact deﬁnition been agreed by legislators. It is exactly this vagueness which makes the concept useful to industry but unacceptable to the consumer. Moreover, the reliance by policymakers on the concept of substantial equivalence acts as a barrier to further research into the possible risks of eating GM foods. (Millstone et al. 1999a, p. 525; cfr. also Millstone et al. 1999b for a sequel) 2267 After nearly 20 years, a good deal of empirical and theoretical evidence against substantial equivalence has been amassed. From a more practical point of view, a ﬁrst criticism concerns the looseness of the concept of substantial equivalence. Little has been done to tighten it. Rather than being treated on a par with novel chemical compounds such as food additives, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals, GM foods were regarded as safe once a few basic data on their biochemical properties had been provided. Speciﬁc data have recently been collated to show important nutritional differences between GM foods and their non-GM counterparts. In a study of the variation of nutritional values among three sorts of soybeans on the market – GM, nonGM conventionally farmed, and non-GM organically farmed – researchers were able to discriminate “all the individual soy samples . . . into their respective agricultural practice background” (Bøhn et al. 2014, p. 14). Other strategies for the analysis of transgenic foods suggest that, contrary to the prevalent view held so far, even from a nutritional standpoint, non-negligible differences exist between GM foods and their non-GM counterparts (cfr. Valdés et al. 2013). The equivalence, that is, was apparent in that the wrong cluster of properties had been selected. But, there is more to the story, which relates to broader theoretical presuppositions within the doctrine of substantial equivalence. Theoretical Evidence Against the Doctrine The doctrine of substantial equivalence employs, in an unorthodox fashion, a conceptual tool of Aristotelian descent – the theory of substance. In Aristotelian philosophy, the identity of a substance is deﬁned on the basis of some essential properties, which are selected among a larger cluster of properties, including both essential and accidental ones. Thus, for instance, a human is essentially a rational animal, while accidentally it may be tall or short, sitting or standing, and bold or hairy. S 2268 The doctrine of substantial equivalence, however, seems to adopt a double-standard approach to a given food that is questionable. In order for a food to count as both novel (at a patent ofﬁce) and standard (at a food safety agency), one of the two following views has to be held. Either what is presented to the two ofﬁces is not the same entity or, if it’s the same entity, one of the two agencies (or both) overlooks some of the food’s essential properties. Call the ﬁrst the miracle view (it multiplies entities), while the second the deﬂationary view. Both of them face considerable difﬁculties. The deﬂationary view is suitable to those that take a deﬂationary attitude regarding governmental procedures of sorting and labeling. This is an attitude that weakens the ontological presumptions of such procedures. For instance, suppose a governmental agency registers a citizen as a Caucasian male. The deﬂationist will hold that such a classiﬁcation says little with respect to the real racial proﬁle and sexuality of the citizen. Analogously, suppose a food safety agency claims that a GM food is substantially equivalent to its non-GM counterpart. The deﬂationist will regard such a claim as saying little real with respect to what the food is. While “Caucasian male” and “substantially equivalent” may partially capture the real identity of a person or a food, their role is to serve a speciﬁc practical purpose for a government and its citizens. The deﬂationary attitude has two signiﬁcant drawbacks. First, it promotes a form of skepticism towards food labels. The skepticism runs against those who take food labels seriously. Second, in the debate over the palatability of the doctrine substantial equivalence, the deﬂationist leaves open a worrisome possibility: that the double standard applied by the patent ofﬁce and the food safety agency is motivated by practical purposes, which run against the purposes of the citizens, who demand that the label be as close to describing the real food as possible. The shortcomings of the miracle view, on the other hand, are more obvious: it is in striking contradiction with ordinary talk. The miracle view can be savaged only by suggesting that the judgments of the patent ofﬁce is not on the food, but rather on a speciﬁc DNA sequence, while the judgment of the food safety agency pertains to the Substantial Equivalence food and not to the DNA sequence. While such an analysis may be accurately describing extant practices, at once it points out the lack of a comprehensive and systematic treatment of regulations pertaining to GM foods (cfr. Andrée 2007). The theoretical tenability of the doctrine of substantial equivalence has been criticized from another signiﬁcant angle. The claim, in this case, is that the doctrine leaves no room for certain qualitative considerations of the food that are of importance to consumers. As Sylvie Pouteau writes in a classic paper: The misuse of equivalence points to the fact that food quality cannot be restricted to mere substance and that food acts on human beings not only at the level of nutrition but also through their relationship to environment and society. Besides chemical, toxicological, and immunological issues, ethical issues should also be addressed. Beyond substantial equivalence, “qualitative equivalence” and “ethical equivalence” are to be found as ethical counterparts. (Pouteau 2000, p. 276) According to Pouteau, the doctrine of substantial equivalence should be replaced by a doctrine of ethical equivalence (cfr. Pouteau 2000, 2002; Madsen et al. 2002). What matters to citizens and consumers is that GM foods and their non-GM counterparts are equivalent from an ethical standpoint. Judgments of ethical equivalence will be based not solely on the biochemical properties of the foods, but on additional properties of the foods that are ethically relevant. Pouteau’s position has been rounded off by studies that point out the importance of familiarity, risk, and method of production in assessing the equivalence of GM foods and their non-GM counterparts (cfr. Siipi and Launis 2009; Meghani 2009; Gupta 2013). The suggestion, ultimately, is that governmental agencies should base their respective guidelines regarding the production and marketing of GM foods not simply upon some (disputable) biochemical properties of the foods, but also upon relevant ethical properties. Through appropriate labeling requirements, consumers should be consented to make an informed choice about their diet: a choice that allows tracing back potential sources of allergies, intolerances, and diseases and a choice that reﬂects the consumer’s ethical commitment to a tradition, to a system of production, and to a speciﬁc risk-taking conduct. Superfoods Summary According to the doctrine of substantial equivalence, from the perspective of human health, GM foods are as safe to be consumed as their non-GM counterparts. While a number of governmental agencies and institutions worldwide have endorsed the doctrine, important criticisms have been raised against it. After rehearsing the key tenets of the doctrine, the entry surveys its major practical and theoretical shortcomings. From a practical point of view, not only is “substantial equivalence” loosely understood in national and international regulations, but some recent studies point out to some nutritional differences between GM foods and their non-GM counterparts too. The theoretical shortcomings of the doctrine, then, rest on its problematic use of some classic metaphysical concepts (i.e., substance and identity) as well as on its lack of consideration for ethical properties that are of importance to consumers, such as risk, familiarity, tradition, and method of production. 2269 Meghani, Z. (2009). The US’ food and drug administration, normativity of risk assessment, GMOs, and American democracy. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 22, 125–139. Millstone, E., Brunner, E., & Mayer, S. (1999a). Beyond substantial equivalence. Nature, 401, 525–526. Millstone, E., Brunner, E., & Mayer, S. (1999b). Seeking clarity in the debate over the safety of GM foods. Nature, 402, 575. Pouteau, S. (2000). Beyond substantial equivalence: Ethical equivalence. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 13, 273–291. Pouteau, S. (2002). The food debate: Ethical versus substantial equivalence. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 15, 291–303. Shahin, B. (2007). Consumers and the case for labeling genfoods. Journal of Research for Consumers, 13, 1–7. Siipi, H., & Launis, V. (2009). Opposition and acceptance of GM-food and GM-medicine. The Open Ethics Journal, 3, 97–103. Valdés, A., Simó, C., Ibáñez, C., & García-Cañas, V. (2013). Foodomics strategies for the analysis of transgenic foods. Trends in Analytical Chemistry, 52, 2–15. Sugarcane Cross-References ▶ EU Regulatory Conﬂicts over GM Food ▶ GMO Food Labeling ▶ Metaphysics of Natural Food ▶ WTO GMO Dispute: Implications for the SPS Agreement ▶ Cuban Agriculture Sunna ▶ Islam and Food and Agricultural Ethics S References Andrée, P. (2007). Genetically modiﬁed diplomacy: The global politics of agricultural biotechnology and the environment. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Bøhn, T., Cuhra, M., Traavik, T., Sanden, M., Fagan, J., & Primicerio, R. (2014). Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in roundup ready GM soybeans. Food Chemistry, 153, 207–215. Gupta, A. (2013). Biotechnology and biosafety. In R. Falkner (Ed.), The handbook of global climate and environmental policy (pp. 89–106). London: Wiley. Madsen, K. H., Holm, P. B., Lassen, J., & Sandøe, P. (2002). Ranking genetically modiﬁed plants according to familiarity. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 15, 267–278. Superfoods Jessica Loyer Food Studies, School of History and Politics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia School of Humanities, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia Synonyms Health foods; Medicinal functional foods foods; Naturally 2270 Introduction Superfoods are an increasingly signiﬁcant category of health foods that are celebrated for their supposed extraordinary nutritional and/or medicinal properties, their histories of traditional use by ancient or indigenous communities, and their “natural” and “authentic” qualities (Loyer 2016). There is no standard deﬁnition of the term “superfood”; it is not a legal or regulatory category such as “organic” or “fair trade,” nor is it used by scholarly convention as is the term “functional food” (Lunn 2006). It can be considered a subcategory of the latter because superfoods are marketed for their health beneﬁts and are referred to in the marketing literature as “naturally functional” (Mellentin 2014). The term appears prominently on product packaging, in marketing, and in the media, where tentative scientiﬁc ﬁndings regarding a food’s healthfulness, often funded by economically interested parties, are frequently exaggerated (Weitkamp and Eidsvaag 2014). While little academic attention has been paid to the category, media stories about superfoods abound; these articles tend to either promote particular superfoods or attempt to “debunk” superfood health claims. However, ethical aspects of producing, promoting, and consuming superfoods are rarely mentioned. Given that these foods are deeply embedded in contemporary global food provisioning networks and nutrition discourse and politics, their production and consumption raise ethical questions regarding their social, environmental, and public health impacts. Superfoods can be understood both as a popular discourse about food and health and as a group of food products marketed for their “natural” health beneﬁts. As such the category is pulled between critique of contemporary food production, provisioning, and consumption, on the one hand, and commodiﬁcation of traditional food and culture, on the other. This tension leads to ethical ambivalence in their production, representation, and consumption, as producers and consumers alike attempt to navigate the difﬁcult terrain of what constitutes “good” and “healthy” food, at the same time that these contested qualities are commodiﬁed. This entry explores these tensions and the ethical Superfoods quandaries they raise by examining superfoods as popular discourse, agricultural outputs, global food commodities, and health food products. Superfoods Discourse: Between Commodification and Critique The concept of superfoods is a composite of ideas about food, health, and nutrition and their associated politics, deeply embedded in Western thought and practice. Superfoods have emerged and developed at the intersection of discourses of functional nutritionism, nutritional primitivism, and critical consumption (Loyer 2016). The convergence of these discourses in superfoods forms a critique of contemporary food and nutrition culture, yet this critique is ﬂawed because of the tendency for the values it promotes to become commodiﬁed as superfood products are produced, marketed, and sold for proﬁt. Functional Nutritionism Superfoods are both a product of and a backlash against the dominant food and health discourse of nutritionism, characterized by “a reductive focus on the nutrient composition of foods as the means for understanding their healthfulness, as well as. . .a reductive interpretation of the role of these nutrients in bodily health” (Scrinis 2013: 2, italics from original), often at the expense of other ways of understanding the complex relationship between food and health. Nutritionism not only guides nutritional research and its application but also is deeply embedded in the way that the lay public communicates about food and health: a basic understanding of calories, fats, carbohydrates, and proteins is common knowledge, and in casual conversation, we talk about foods as being low GI, high ﬁber, nutrient dense, or a good source of omega-3. In recent decades, foods are increasingly represented as vehicles for nutrients, and nutrients are represented as a means of optimizing both general health and speciﬁc bodily processes. In this “era of functional nutritionism” (Scrinis, 2013: 4), foods are not only marketed for their health beneﬁts but are also frequently fortiﬁed, enriched, or otherwise Superfoods altered to improve their nutrient proﬁles. Superfoods enter this ﬁeld in a somewhat ambivalent position: they can be considered a type of “functional food” because they are marketed for their nutrient contents and health beneﬁts, but they are also associated with “natural” and “authentic” qualities that formulated functional foods lack. Nutritional Primitivism Superfoods also draw upon a discourse of “nutritional primitivism,” deﬁned as “the pursuit of ostensibly simpler, more natural and authentic ways of eating as part of a quest for health through diet” (Knight 2015: 442). Within this discourse, superfoods are desired because they are not modern. This places a strong emphasis on foods that have a long history of indigenous culinary and medicinal use, often in remote locations, and thus are seen as traditional and authentic. It also emphasizes foods that are “natural,” that is, perceived as not obviously altered by technology in either the ﬁeld or the factory and placed in binary opposition to foods produced through blatant technological intervention. These associations provide an alternative way of validating the healthfulness of superfoods through a framework of folk and indigenous wisdom, which suggests that they are healthy not because they have been tested by nutritional science but because they have been safeguarded within traditional and “untainted” food and medicine practices. In this sense, superfoods discourse implicitly critiques both modern food production and nutritional science. Dissatisﬁed with the medicalization of food and health and the techno-ﬁxes offered by big food manufacturers, those involved in the productionconsumption circuits of superfoods look toward the primitive for more intuitive and natural ways of pursuing health through foods. There are two ethical problems with the discourse of nutritional primitivism in regard to superfoods. The ﬁrst is that there are a range of production practices behind various superfoods, some of which are not particularly “natural” – picture a large monocrop of cranberries, for example. The second is that associating superfoods with “primitive” populations casts remote producers as “Others” who exist in a timeless, imaginary geography, when in reality 2271 they are real people in real places faced with a range of contemporary challenges. Critical Consumption A third theme that has acquired signiﬁcance within superfoods discourse is that of critical consumption, “a way of participating that renders consumption behaviour conscientious and diligent, over a multitude of political and ethical agendas” (Yates 2011: 192). Critical considerations about social welfare and environmental impacts have become an increasingly signiﬁcant part of the way in which superfoods are produced, represented, and consumed; for example, certiﬁcations such as “organic” and “fair trade” frequently appear on product packaging. This theme has become more prominent as superfoods have gained popularity and ever more new, exotic superfood products have appeared on the market. Thus, the discourse has evolved to emphasize not only the healthfulness, naturalness, and authenticity of superfoods but also their socially and environmentally responsible provisioning. Through the synthesis of discourses of functional nutritionism, nutritional primitivism, and critical consumption, superfoods media and marketing forms a critique of contemporary food and nutrition culture. This critique addresses problems with Western mal- and overnutrition, questions the limitations of nutritional science, indicts a range of modern food production and processing practices, and seeks greater environmental care and social equity. Yet the difﬁculty with this critique is that it is found prominently on the packaging and websites of companies involved in selling superfood products, who clearly have a strong interest in presenting their products as the obvious solution to the above problems, when indeed other solutions to these problems might be considered, such as growing one’s own food or buying direct from local farmers. Even seemingly neutral superfoods diet and recipe books are often authored by those who seek to proﬁt from selling superfood products – for example, David Wolfe, author of Superfoods: Food and Medicine of the Future (2009), owns a company that sells such products, and Julie Morris, author of Superfood Kitchen (2012) and other related titles, is the S 2272 executive chef for the US superfoods company Navitas Naturals. These potential conﬂicts of interest, as well as the tendency for values to be co-opted by capital, ultimately make it hard for consumers to trust superfood knowledge claims. Production: Environmental and Social Impacts Environmental and Sustainability Concerns Superfoods are often portrayed as ecologically friendly products, set in opposition to the environmentally destructive practices of industrial food production. For example, in Superfood Kitchen, Morris argues that we need ancient superfoods because “efforts to increase food production have resulted in natural food that is less nourishing,” but “most superfoods have not been subjected to this methodology, as they have never been popularized by Big Agriculture” (2012: 14). She encourages her readers to purchase superfoods not only for their own health but also “to send a monetary message to the companies who use chemicals at the expense of public health” (2012: 13). However, this line of reasoning is problematic because it obscures the range of production practices employed across different superfood production-consumption networks, as well as the impacts of increased demand on the ways in which superfoods are produced. Further, it does not sufﬁciently address the controversial question of the potential environmental impacts caused by transporting products around the world (frequently referred to as “food miles”). For example, the Peruvian root maca, a popular superfood celebrated for its high nutrient density and supposed fertility supporting properties, is often labeled “certiﬁed organic,” yet this does not absolve its production from all environmental impacts. As demand has increased for this central Andean root vegetable, some growers have begun to practice shorter fallow periods, leading to increased soil degradation and the need to use fertilizers. Increased demand has also lead many growers to expand production beyond those regions Superfoods historically used for its cultivation, impacting on the grazing range of vicuñas, a native camelid. Local residents of these areas claim that the skittish animals display signs of stress, such as hair loss, which they attribute to the increased presence of noisy tractors and trucks in the region as well as a change in diet as the animals nibble the maca leaves (Loyer 2016). Further, the maca boom has led to several international biopiracy cases, including the controversial ﬁling of patents for maca extracts and pharmaceutical usages by some renowned organizations, and the illegal importation of unprocessed maca root and seed into China, where it is currently being grown and presents a threat to Peruvian intellectual property and market share (Hermann and Bernet 2009; Neuman 2014). Social Impacts Increased demand for superfoods also has social impacts on producer communities beyond those addressed through fair trade certiﬁcations. The most famous example in this regard is quinoa in Bolivia. As demand for quinoa has increased, so has its economic value, resulting in the paradox of providing land-based livelihoods for farming communities and repopulating rural regions while simultaneously pricing it out of reach for many of its traditional consumers. Increased demand has also led to community tensions between long-term rural residents and recent returning migrants seeking to proﬁt from the quinoa boom, controversial “land grabs” of formerly communal land, and even violent conﬂicts as potential growers argue over the ownership of prime production land. As with maca, the growing international demand for quinoa has led to the expansion of its cultivation outside of traditional areas, decreased fallow periods, increased use of pesticides, and, in turn, soil degradation. The shift of production practices to include tractors and favor relatively ﬂat land has also disrupted the ancient symbiosis between humans, quinoa, and llamas, who not only provided meat and wool but also fertilized the land upon which quinoa was then grown. This “rupture in the ‘quinoa-camelid complex’” has disturbed an ancient and delicate Superfoods “ecological balance between crops and animals” (Kerssen 2015: 496). Marketing: “Othering” and Health Claims Representing the Other Associations with ancient or indigenous cultures are a key part of superfoods discourse and feature heavily in marketing and media accounts. Many superfoods are marketed as healthy or even medicinal based on their histories of traditional use by particular indigenous populations, often situated in remote or “exotic” locales such as the Amazon. Examples include the following: Açai, used by the Caboclo population of Brazil. Camu camu, used by the Mazamari people of Peru. Maca root, domesticated by the Pumpish people of the central Andes but often associated with the legendary Inca. Goji berries, associated with the romantic Himalayas. Chia seeds, an Aztec staple that became marginalized under Spanish colonial rule. Most recently, gubinge or Kakadu plum, a native “bush food” harvested by indigenous peoples such as the Nyul Nyul of northwestern Australia. Marketing materials and product packaging often employ primitivist discourse and imagery that depicts superfood production taking place in idealized exotic locales by timeless native people. The packaging of popular Australian superfood brand Power Super Foods provides a good example (Loyer 2016). Their maca powder is sold in plastic packages featuring a stylized image of indigenous women, dressed in colorful traditional Andean costumes including identical skirts, shawls, felt hats, and black braids, plucking round vegetables from the earth by hand and placing them into woven baskets as they work against a backdrop of snow-capped peaks and bright blue sky dotted with ﬂuffy clouds. Text declaring maca to be “the Inca superfood” 2273 contributes to this primitivist representation by linking it to the Inca, when it was, in fact, the lesser-known Pumpish who domesticated the root. This representation differs in several ways from observations of maca production practices. Maca harvest workers are not only women; men and children also engage in this work. Harvesters are more likely to be dressed in contemporary clothing, such as jeans and sweaters, than in traditional dress. Maca is not placed into woven baskets, but collected in large plastic sacks. It is not picked by hand, but with the aid of small hand tools, and modern machinery, such as tractors that turn over the soil, is frequently employed, as is modern agricultural science oriented toward increasing efﬁciency. Finally, the landscape, while striking, is not always so idyllic, and harvesters frequently labor on steep mountainsides at dizzying altitudes above 4,000 m in extremely cold, wet, and windy conditions. The problem with such primitivist representations is the way in which they depict maca production as a timeless practice done by a timeless people. By casting maca production and the people involved in this process outside of intersubjective time and space, they are rendered as imaginary “Others” in the mind of the consumer, instead of recognizing that these are real people who exist in the contemporary real world and must contend with forces of colonialism, cultural imperialism, economic survival, and the inﬂuence of global ﬂows (Loyer 2016). Health Claims Another ethical problem with superfood marketing is the use of health claims. The use of the term “superfood” on product packaging or in marketing is not regulated in the United States or Australia, but it has been banned in the European Union since 2007 under Regulation (EC) 1924/2006. Certain types of health beneﬁt claims and nutrient content claims are allowed in the United States, Australia, and other countries including Japan, and some superfood products make use of such claims (Heasman 2008; Williams and Gosh 2008). However, a number of potential problems exist with the use of both formal, regulated health claims and vague, S 2274 informal claims such as the use of the superfood label. Such claims may place disproportionate emphasis on the consumption of particular foods or nutrients at the expense of an overall healthy diet including a variety of foods and nutrients. They may also lead consumers to expect results from a particular food that are unrealistic. Another problem is the question of dosage: how much of a particular food does a consumer have to eat, and how often, in order to receive a health beneﬁt? This information is frequently excluded in superfood marketing, media, and product packaging. Consumption: Ambiguity, Equity, and Access Both superfood products and the discursive concept of superfoods reach Western consumers loaded with knowledge claims regarding their healthfulness, authenticity, and production practices. Superfoods are often positioned as ambiguously straddling the categories of food and medicine and thus may confuse consumers regarding just what a food with such a label promises. In blurring the cultural boundaries between food and medicine, superfoods present many conundrums to consumers, such as what constitutes an appropriate “dosage” and the frequency of consumption required to actually achieve a health beneﬁt. Many superfoods were traditionally consumed as daily staples in their regions of historical consumption, while new consumers may consume them haphazardly and therefore not see measurable results. Further, superfood products are often relatively expensive, which may limit their frequency of use among Western consumers. The high price point also raises the question of access, which is particularly pertinent in an age when wealth disparities are increasingly associated with health disparities. Further questions of equity and access arise as superfoods gain popularity worldwide and often become economically unattainable for traditional consumers, as previously noted in the case of quinoa. There is a paradox here, whereby wealthy Western consumers fetishize superfood products Superfoods because of their associations with “healthy” indigenous people not beset by the diseases of excess that haunt contemporary Western food and nutrition culture, while many of the (largely) indigenous people who produce these foods increasingly consume less and less of them because they are either ﬁnancially inaccessible or culturally scorned in favor of more fashionable “Western” foods such as pizza, fried chicken, and heavily processed snack foods. It may seem easy to place the blame for this paradox on Western consumers, but it is important to remember that many of these products have arrived on the global market as a result of neoliberal economic development and trade programs and policies that encourage developing countries to export distinctive products rather than to develop strong local economies, thus undermining efforts that support food security and food sovereignty in such regions (Crabtree 2002). One alternative to the export of such products is the development of superfood crops in the new consuming countries, such as chia seed which is now an important agricultural product in Australia. However, this raises the ethical issue of whether such international cultivation projects violate the intellectual property rights of the traditional producers and consumers of these foods. Conclusion Some superfoods may, indeed, offer superior nutritional and perhaps even medicinal beneﬁts to global consumers. However, in the current market-driven scenario, it remains hard for consumers to differentiate between those products relying on overblown claims backed by limited (and perhaps even biased) scientiﬁc studies and primitivist representations and those that may genuinely improve consumer health. Further, serious questions remain regarding the environmental and social impacts of superfood production and consumption and whether such products reinforce notions of cultural difference and patterns of global inequality. Additionally, the emphasis on the production of distinctive products for export in the developing world may negatively affect food Sustainability security and food sovereignty efforts. Finally, the move toward specialized superfoods, functional foods, and other supplements in an age ﬁxated by nutritionism and characterized by the individualization of diet, health, and medicine presents a public health challenge in terms of communicating concepts of holistic health. Cross-References ▶ Authenticity in Food ▶ Fair Trade in Food and Agricultural Products ▶ Food Marketing ▶ Food Miles ▶ Food Security ▶ Food Sovereignty ▶ Food Sovereignty and the Global South ▶ Functional Foods ▶ Functional Foods as Commodities ▶ Land Grabbing ▶ Natural Food ▶ Political Consumerism: Consumer Choice, Information, and Labeling ▶ Regulating Health Foods References Crabtree, J. (2002). The impact of neo-liberal economics on Peruvian peasant agriculture in the 1990s. Journal of Peasant Studies, 29(3–4), 131–161. Heasman, M. (2008). The regulatory context for the use of health claims and the marketing of functional foods: Global principles. In C. M. Hasler (Ed.), Regulation of functional foods and nutraceuticals: A global perspective (pp. 37–54). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Hermann, M., & Bernet, T. (2009). The transition of maca from neglect to market prominence: Lessons for improving use strategies and market chains of minor crops (Agricultural biodiversity and livelihoods discussion papers 1). Rome: Bioversity International. Kerssen, T. M. (2015). Food sovereignty and the quinoa boom: Challenges to sustainable re-peasantisation in the southern Altiplano of Bolivia. Third World Quarterly, 36(3), 489–507. Knight, C. (2015). “We can’t go back a hundred million years”: Low-carbohydrate dieters’ responses to nutritional primitivism. Food, Culture & Society, 18(3), 441–461. Loyer, J. (2016). Communicating superfoods: A case study of maca packaging. In Proceedings of the Oxford 2275 Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2015, Oxford, UK (in print). Lunn, J. (2006). Superfoods. Nutrition Bulletin, 31, 171–172. Mellentin, J. (2014). Key trends in functional foods & beverages for 2015. Nutraceuticals World, 17(9), 33–41. Morris, J. (2012). Superfood kitchen. New York: Sterling Epicure. Neuman, W. (2014, December 7). Vegetable spawns larceny and luxury in Peru. The New York Times, A10. Scrinis, G. (2013). Nutritionism: The science and politics of dietary advice. New York: Columbia University Press. Weitkamp, E., & Eidsvaag, T. (2014). Agenda building in media coverage of food research. Journalism Practice, 8(6), 871–886. Williams, P., & Ghosh, D. (2008). Health claims and functional foods. Nutrition & Dietetics, 65(S3), S89–S93. Wolfe, D. (2009). Superfoods: The food and medicine of the future. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Yates, L. S. (2011). Critical consumption. European Societies, 13(2), 191–217. Supermarket Design ▶ Grocery Store Design Supplements ▶ Regulating Health Foods Surplus Food ▶ Edible but Unmarketable Food Sustainability ▶ Agricultural Science and Ethics ▶ Agricultural Science and Values ▶ Gender Norms and Food Behavior ▶ Multifunctionality of Agriculture and International Trade ▶ Sustainability and Animal Agriculture S 2276 Sustainability and Animal Agriculture Jose M. Peralta, James Reynolds and Corrie V. Kerr College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Welfare and Veterinary Ethics, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA, USA Synonyms Animal production; Animal welfare; Environment; Food safety; Public health; Sustainability Introduction The sustainability of current global agricultural practices is an ethical issue that is attracting greater public awareness. There is increased societal concern regarding the crucial harmonic balance between feeding an ever-growing human population and minimizing environmental damage for the planet’s future inhabitants (Broom 2010). Sustainability refers to the long-term success of a system. In order to keep animal agriculture sustainable, changes must be implemented to allow animal production to continue in an efﬁcient and environmentally conscious manner. Such strategies should assess the potential beneﬁts and consequences for all stakeholders involved. These considerations will help to ensure the viability of animal agricultural systems in the years to come. The overall sustainability of animal production reﬂects the collective viability of a variety of agricultural aspects including animal welfare, food quality, the environment, and human health. Ethical concerns pertaining to the quality of life for the animals arise from the visible suffering and unnatural behaviors exhibited in intensive farming conditions. Food quality and safety considerations associated with certain agricultural practices have resulted in decreased consumption of animal products by the general public. The concept that a healthy environment is a vital aspect of sustainability has become signiﬁcantly Sustainability and Animal Agriculture more widespread, and a larger population of consumers is beginning to demand responsible practices that minimize contamination and preserve the quality of the earth, water, and air. A scientiﬁcally established correlation between the consumption of certain animal products and public health has garnered more attention as chronic metabolic problems, such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease, threaten the public ideal of reaching old age in a healthy state. With these concerns, comes the need for change. In order to maintain a sustainable system, the animal agriculture industry must ﬁrst reﬂect on its responsibilities owed to the public, as well as its negative effects exerted on the environment. Modiﬁcations in the use of both new and existing resources should be continually reevaluated in an effort to limit the impact of the industry on the planet and its foreseeable future. Sustainable Animal Agriculture Sustainable animal agriculture must address important issues in the production, marketing, and consumption of livestock, poultry, and ﬁsh. The concept of sustainability refers to the pressing need to feed a growing human population without damaging the environment beyond repair for future generations, while doing so in a manner that guarantees both functional and moral longterm acceptance (Broom 2010). An animal production system is sustainable if it can be continued successfully in its current form without the need for future modiﬁcation. A system becomes unsustainable once it begins to use methods that are environmentally, economically, socially, or ethically unviable. Historically, the use of animals for food complemented the harvesting of crops in ways that added value to plant agriculture and improved the continuous supply of protein for humans. Harvesting of plants is a seasonal event, and thus it presented difﬁculties associated with the storage of produce prior to modern preservation techniques. The use of animals was advantageous because animals could be harvested over extended periods of time in contrast to plants. Grazing Sustainability and Animal Agriculture animals, which consume available vegetation, were essentially viewed as storage units of plant nutrients that could be collected by humans at a later time. The possibility of hunting animals was seen as a strategy to supplement both plant and animal agriculture. The year-round availability of animals to hunt presented a more promising supply of protein and nutrients throughout all seasons. With the arrival of animal agriculture, humans no longer depended exclusively on the animals they hunted. Adequate protein sources could also be provided to society beyond the narrow window of harvest season by storing milk from sheep, goats, and cattle as cheese or yogurts and preparing ﬁsh and livestock meat as dried or salted. Animals have been used to convert plant products unﬁt for humans into desirable food products, thus broadening the use of plant material and prolonging the availability of food. Ruminants eat grasses and parts of plants such as stalks and shells and can utilize spoiled plant materials that otherwise are not suitable for human consumption. The extension of food availability throughout the different seasons via animal intermediates, along with the primitive desire for animal products, created added value to plant agriculture. Animals have also been used for purposes other than food, such as providing power for work and transportation. Animal skins and ﬁbers have been used for clothing and shelter. Due to the aforementioned reasons, animal agriculture has been market driven ever since its initial establishment during early civilization. In modern times, concern about the sustainability of animal agriculture in developed countries has increased as animal production systems have transitioned from extensive to intensive systems. Driven by market forces, competition, regulation, and economic subsidies, the intensiﬁcation of animal agriculture has resulted in the more efﬁcient consolidation of production systems over the last century. Subsequent cost reductions have made the availability of abundant and cheap food of animal origin possible. Increased productivity, however, has not come without a price, and oftentimes, the animals’ interests are hampered. In the majority of cases, it is the 2277 animals that are forced to carry most of the burden, which results in a decreased quality of life for animals and the subsequent increased ethical concerns of humans. Small farms typically have multiple crops and livestock types integrated into production and harvest systems that maintain income over seasons by utilizing natural and seasonal resources. Historically, small farms have remained pasture based or have relied on local sources of feed for livestock, which has limited the livestock density in an area to the carrying capacity of the local environment. Large farms often produce one or two crops and a single type of animal and have competitive advantage in commodity food production through the economic strategies of scale and more efﬁcient use of capital. By sourcing feed from outside the region, large farms can accommodate more animals but consequentially produce more manure than the local environment can handle without strict environmental regulations. The consolidation of farms has occurred in response to decreased marginal proﬁtability in commodity food production, increased consumer demand due to population growth, and heightened public awareness about food quality and safety. Issues regarding the sustainability of contemporary intensive animal agriculture have been brought to light because the management of animals and animal waste in large-scale animal farming conﬂicts with the values and ethics of certain sectors of society. While animal production may still add economic value to crops, like corn and soybeans, the historical need to maintain protein in the human food supply over different seasons via the use of animals as intermediates is now a lesser concern due to the development of enhanced long-term storage techniques for grains and other plant protein sources. Recent improvements in the storage of healthy and nutritious foods have resulted in an increased ability to transport food products globally. While upgrades have been made, such systems are not ﬂawless and inadequate storage continues to contribute to resource wastefulness. Approximately one third of the food produced around the world is never consumed because it is instead spoiled or S 2278 destroyed by pests during transport (Gustavsson et al. 2011). Concentrated housing of large numbers of animals burdens local environments and can exceed the buffering capacity of ecosystems to utilize nutrients from manure and control pathogens. While fecal matter from a relatively small number of animals can be absorbed into a local ecosystem, feces and urine from a large number of animals can result in local environmental damage and runoff to surrounding ecosystems. Concentrated animal housing can also promote an increased pathogen load of both animal and zoonotic pathogens, which results in potential health hazards to humans and other animals. The primary challenges regarding the sustainability of contemporary intensive animal production systems are concerns in the areas of animal welfare, environmental conservation, and resource competition. Sustainable Animal Agriculture and Animal Welfare Each animal species has its own biological limitations and needs. If pushed beyond certain physiological limits, animals will start to suffer. Dairy cows, selected for high milk yields and fed a highenergy diet to meet the demands of production, experience decreased immune function and decreased metabolizable energy, which leads to the increased presence of health problems such as mastitis, lameness, and infertility. Sows are social animals and, in natural conditions, live in stable sow groups. When housed in solitary gestation crates, the ability to engage in natural social behavior is prevented. This negatively impacts a sow’s emotional state, causing frustration. A manifestation of such frustration is the development of stereotypies, such as bar biting or weaving, which are repetitive obsessive behaviors that serve no clear purpose. The housing of laying hens in tightly conﬁned battery cages inhibits the expression of natural behaviors, like nest building or dust bathing, and can actually lead to the development of unwanted behaviors such as feather pecking or cannibalism. The presence of any of Sustainability and Animal Agriculture these examples suggests a decreased quality of life for the animals. Increasing public concerns about animal welfare and the care of captive animals, particularly agricultural species, affects whether or not the use of animals for these purposes is considered sustainable (Broom 2010). A rise in productivity over the last 50 years has occurred hand in hand with a decreased quality of life for farm animals and an increased societal awareness of industrial farming systems (Harrison 1964). Certain husbandry practices, such as gestation crates or battery cages, are becoming more unacceptable to consumers. As a result, these farming methods become unsustainable, forcing the agricultural industry to modify current systems in order to adapt to consumer demands. In a market-driven economy, public opposition to the consumption of a certain product diminishes the market success of that particular product. Consumer surveys completed in recent years have demonstrated that the general public is willing to pay more and change traditional shopping habits in order to speciﬁcally purchase animal products manufactured using animal welfare conscious practices (Special Eurobarometer 2007). Recent reports indicate that animal welfare concerns extend beyond consumer intent to change shopping habits and have actually resulted in decreased demand for certain foods such as poultry and pork products (Tonsor and Olynk 2011). The proliferation of faux-meat products over the last few years has presented an additional threat to animal agriculture. These meat analogs use plant proteins to create animal-free products that look and taste similar to meat. With the existing uneasiness about current production standards, the availability of these imitation meat products may create a shift in market trends and further impact the sustainability of certain practices and the future of animal agriculture. Sustainability of Food Quality and Safety In addition to animal care and well-being, consumers have expressed concerns about food quality and safety. Decline in the consumption of food Sustainability and Animal Agriculture goods believed to be unhealthy or unsafe has caused certain products to become less sustainable. An example of this is the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in 1980s, which resulted in decreased beef consumption in Germany and other European countries (Becker et al. 2000). If a certain practice or system is deemed unacceptable, consumers will boycott the purchase of items produced by such means, consequently limiting the viability of a given farming system. Legislation and food vendor standards for farm animal care directly reﬂect the impact of consumer concerns regarding acceptable food quality and safety. Dismissing and neglecting to address such concerns can have a detrimental effect on a particular sector of the agricultural industry, making it unsustainable. In market-driven economies of democratic societies, sustainable animal products are those that are manufactured in a manner consistent with consumer acceptance rather than sciencebased facts and ﬁndings. Public perception of agricultural practices, whether accurate or not, determines what standards are considered adequate, and thus, sustainable products are those that are produced in line with the morals, values, and ethics of the consumers who purchase them. Sustainability of Environmental Impact Increasing public interest in environmental ethics has popularized the idea that animal agriculture should have a minimal impact on climate and the environment while still providing for the basic needs of the animals. As a whole, the public remains generally accepting of the use of animals for food, but the overall consensus is that production should meet certain standards of both food safety and animal welfare. The negative impacts that many agricultural practices have on the environment and wildlife contribute to societal uneasiness. Increased production of greenhouse gases, soil erosion, and contamination of waterways are examples of detrimental outcomes that the general public may ﬁnd troubling and ethically difﬁcult to accept (Tilman 1998). 2279 There is increasing discussion about sustainable balance – a harmonic interaction between animals, caretakers, producers, consumers, general public, and the environment. While such a balance is ideal, it may prove challenging to accomplish in some locations. For instance, it would not be sustainable to raise large numbers of farm animals near highly populated areas due to the competition associated with the coexistence of both populations in relatively close quarters (McGlone 2001). Biodiversity is an important conservational tool, and the presence of monocultures can result in catastrophic disease outbreaks and adverse environmental conditions. When acres of land are dedicated to a limited number of species, problems more frequently result in damage that is difﬁcult to repair. Similarly, the concentration of a limited variety of farm animal species in a single geographic region may increase the potential for disease transmission as well as other management problems. These outcomes can have a devastating impact on the agricultural industry and its sustainability. Excessive use of fertilizers and management of manure associated with large-scale production have lead to exacerbated nitrogen and phosphorus contamination of the environment in certain parts of the world (Foley et al. 2011). Contamination of the underground water table with these waste products has long-term consequences that are not sustainable for the environment. There are also documented concerns about the presence of genetically modiﬁed organisms in food products (Burton et al. 2001). Regardless of whether or not this uneasiness is based on scientiﬁc evidence related to product safety, it still possesses the ability to make a particular production model undesirable to the public. A stressful environment impairs immune function, and thus, providing less stressful farming conditions for animals can indirectly prevent pathogen proliferation (Rostagno 2009). Humane husbandry and treatment help lessen the risk of both disease development and spread through a farm. Not only do humane practices address ethical concerns regarding the well-being of farm animals but are also important to ensuring public safety. S 2280 Many animal pathogens such as Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli O157:H7 are zoonotic. Even on farms where antibiotics are not routinely administered, enhanced biosecurity measures can help control the levels of such microorganisms and subsequently reduce the likelihood of transmission to humans. The expansion of agriculture over the last few decades has resulted in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions (Foley et al. 2011). Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere help maintain the surface temperature on earth by acting like a blanket that traps warm air close to the surface. This form of environmental temperature regulation is essential for all life on the planet. As concentrations of greenhouse gases increase, more solar radiation becomes trapped within the blanket of gases causing temperatures to rise. This results in global warming, which has been documented to adversely affect environmental living conditions (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007). There is a deﬁnitive need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (United Nations 1998). Agriculture as a whole is responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and livestock farming alone accounts for 18% of such emissions (Food and Agricultural Organization 2006). Considering the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming, it is clear that current practices of animal agriculture are both environmentally and ethically unsustainable. Energy is lost in the form of heat when animals convert protein from vegetables to meat or other forms of animal protein, which is an inefﬁcient use of resources (McMichael and Butler 2010). Development of land to grow corn or other grains, which can be directly and adequately consumed by humans, is not sustainable when such crops are instead used to feed animals. Simply put, there is a two-step process that must take place in which (1) animals eat the crops and (2) humans eat the animals. The addition of a “middle man,” which in this case is the animal, creates another outlet for energy loss when instead those plant resources could be utilized directly and more efﬁciently by humans. Swine and poultry are food animals that may be considered less sustainable from a production Sustainability and Animal Agriculture standpoint. These animals act more in direct competition with humans when it comes to plant energy because neither species contains a specialized digestive system that allows for the breakdown of unique plant material. Alternately, ruminants graze pastures or browse bushes that cannot be directly utilized by humans. While ruminants play a minor role in the release of methane, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases (via eructation), the fact that humans and ruminants do not use the same energy sources makes the production of these animals a more sustainable practice (Murgueitio et al. 2011). In this context, animal agriculture allows plants to be metabolized by humans (Bradford 1999). Sustainability of Public Health Population expansion brings with it an increased demand for food and water. A rise in meat consumption occurs in areas of sustained economic growth. The shift from plant to animal protein that occurs as countries develop is referred to as a nutrition transition (Popkin 2003). This transition does not come without consequences, as human health is affected by excess consumption of saturated fats of animal origin. The American Heart Association currently recommends a daily amount of less than 6 oz of meat, including ﬁsh and chicken (American Heart Association 2013), when in reality, average intake is much higher. Signiﬁcant levels of saturated fats acquired through meat consumption have been linked to the development of chronic health problems like obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes (World Health Organization 2003). Increased public awareness has resulted in greater concerns involving the possible contamination of animal products with antibiotics and hormones that are routinely administered to most farm animals for nontherapeutic reasons. Consumers may begin to rely on nonanimal sources of protein in order to avoid the potential health risks associated with the consumption of foods contaminated with such chemicals. There may also be a trend shift in what consumers ﬁnd acceptable from a health standpoint. An example Sustainability Ethics is the possibility of using more natural feed additives, from chicken manure to restaurant waste, instead of chemicals, antibiotics, or hormones. Summary Changing societal values are forcing those involved in animal agriculture to reassess certain practices that have become standard over the last few decades. Intensiﬁcation of animal production has resulted in increased public awareness regarding the ethics of such practices and the potential effects on the environment, animal welfare, food quality, and human health. The long-term sustainability of animal agriculture relies on the industry’s ability to respond to consumer concerns and maintain practices that are socially, economically, and environmentally sound. References American Heart Association. (2013). Eat more chicken, ﬁsh and beans than red meat. http://www.heart.org/ HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/WeightManagement/ LosingWeight/Eat-More-Chicken-Fish-and-Beansthan-Red-Meat_UCM_320278_Article.jsp. Accessed 12 Aug 2013. Becker, T., Benner, E., & Glitsch, K. (2000). Consumer perception of fresh meat quality in Germany. British Food Journal, 102(3), 246–266. Bradford, G. E. (1999). Contributions of animal agriculture to meeting global human food demand. Livestock Production Science, 59, 95–112. Broom, D. M. (2010). Animal welfare: An aspect of care, sustainability, and food quality required by the public. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 37(1), 83–88. Burton, M., Rigby, D., Young, T., & James, S. (2001). Consumer attitudes to genetically modiﬁed organisms in food in the UK. European Review of Agricultural Economics, 28(4), 479–498. Foley, J. A., Ramankutty, N., Brauman, K. A., Cassidy, E. S., Gerber, J. S., Johnston, M., Mueller, N. D., O’Connell, C., Ray, D. K., West, P. C., Balzer, C., Bennett, E. M., Carpenter, S. R., Hill, J., Monfreda, C., Polasky, S., Rockström, J., Sheehan, J., Siebert, S., Tilman, D., & Zaks, D. P. M. (2011). Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature, 478, 337–342. Food and Agricultural Organization. (2006). Livestock’s long shadow. Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/ 010/a0701e/a0701e.pdf. Accessed 12 Aug 2013. 2281 Gustavsson, J., Cederberg, C., Sonesson, U., van Otterdijk, R., & Meybeck, A. (2011). Global food losses and food waste. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/ United Nations. mb060e/mb060e00.pdf. Accessed 12 Aug 2013 Harrison, R. (1964). Animal machines. London: Vincent Stuart. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). Climate change 2007: Synthesis report. Contribution of working groups I, II, and III to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (core writing team, R. K. Pachauri, & A. Reisinger, Eds.). Geneva: IPCC. http://www.ipcc.ch/ pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf. Accessed 12 Aug 2013. McGlone, J. J. (2001). Farm animal welfare in the context of other society issues: Toward sustainable systems. Livestock Production Science, 72, 75–81. McMichael, A. J., & Butler, A. J. (2010). Environmentally sustainable and equitable meat consumption in a climate change world. In J. D. D’Silva & J. Webster (Eds.), The meat crisis (pp. 173–189). London: Earthscan. Murgueitio, E., Calle, Z., Uribe, F., Calle, A., & Solorio, B. (2011). Native trees and shrubs for the productive rehabilitation of tropical cattle ranching lands. Forest Ecology and Management, 261(10), 1654–1663. Popkin, B. M. (2003). The nutrition transition in the developing world. Development and Policy Review, 21, 581–597. Rostagno, M. H. (2009). Can stress in farm animals increase food safety risk? Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, 6(7), 767–776. Special Eurobarometer. (2007). Attitudes of EU citizens towards animal welfare. Brussels: European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/welfare/survey/ sp_barometer_aw_en.pdf. Accessed 24 Oct 2013. Tilman, D. (1998). The greening of the green revolution. Nature, 396, 211–212. Tonsor, G. T., & Olynk, N. J. (2011). Impacts of animal well-being and welfare media on meat demand. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 62(1), 59–72. United Nations. (1998). Kyoto protocol to the United Nations framework convention on climate change. New York: United Nations. http://unfccc.int/resource/ docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf. Accessed 12 Aug 2013. World Health Organization. (2003). Joint WHO/FAO expert report on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic disease. Geneva: World Health Organization. http:// Accessed whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/who_trs_916.pdf. 12 Aug 2013. Sustainability Ethics ▶ Agrarianism and the Ethics of Eating S 2282 Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption Lisbeth Witthofft Nielsen Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore Synonyms Climate change; Convention on Biological Diversity; Economic impact; Environmental impact; Food miles; Kyoto protocol; Social impact Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption principles for sustainability outlined in the CBD and its protocols. Section “Climate Change as a Challenge to Sustainable Development of Food Production and Consumption” addresses the challenges of climate change to sustainability in food production and consumption and examines these in light of the objectives of adaptation and mitigation set out in the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol; different governance approaches with view to promote climate sustainability in food production and consumption including the concept of food miles and carbon footprint are discussed. The entry concludes with a suggestion of some key principles for governance of importance to sustainability in food production and consumption in the future. Introduction The modern use of the concept of sustainable development refers to management of the use of natural resources aimed at balancing availability of natural resources with consumption with a view to promote economic growth and social wellbeing. Sustainable development has played a central role in international governance of food production and consumption throughout the last 25 years. The concept of sustainable development is implemented in two international governance frameworks: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The scope of this entry is to examine the concept of sustainability and sustainable development and its role in governance and policy of food production and consumption. Section “Sustainable Development as an Ethical Ideal in International Policy” examines the concept of sustainable development as an ethical ideal and how different environmental ethics approaches together with cultural and political values inﬂuence the task of determining the focus of a sustainable development and how it should be obtained; section “Three Dimensions of Sustainability: The Convention on Biological Diversity” examines the complex interrelation between economic, social, and environmental sustainability in food production in light of the governance Sustainable Development as an Ethical Ideal in International Policy The term sustainability, as it is used today, has its origin in the outline of sustainability in Limits to Growth, a report for the Club of Rome’s project on the Predicament of Mankind from 1972 where sustainability is described as “a world system that is: (1) sustainable without sudden and uncontrolled collapse; and (2) capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all of its people” (Meadows et al. 1972, p. 158). While the industrialization of agricultural and livestock production in the 1960s brought tremendous economic growth, the negative impacts on the environment and their long-term consequences for social and economic development became a growing concern among scientists, philosophers, and policy makers during the1970s and 1980s. In 1987 the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development published the report “Our Common Future” (the Brundtland Report). The report examines the relation between societal development and degradation of species and genetic resources. The Brundtland Report argued in favor of a “sustainable development,” which was deﬁned as a development which seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption the future (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, p. 84). The Brundtland Report laid the ground for the adoption of Agenda 21 at the Earth Summit on environment and development held in Rio in 1992. Agenda 21 (http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/ agenda21/) is an international agreement of actions to achieve sustainable development. The Rio Earth Summit also led to adoption of the Rio Declaration on environment and development (http://www.unesco.org/education/information/ nfsunesco/pdf/RIO_E.PDF). Furthermore, the CBD was opened for signature during the Rio meeting, and the UNFCCC was agreed. Both conventions play an important role aiming at environmental sustainability in food production and consumption with a view to ensure economic growth and promote social wellbeing. The Brundtland Report’s deﬁnition of sustainability/sustainable development plays a central role in these frameworks. The concept can best be described as an ethical ideal concerned with the ethical relation (a) between humans and nonhuman nature and (b) between present and future generations. The ethical motivation behind the concept of sustainable development reﬂected in the Brundtland Report echoes an anthropocentricoriented ethical approach to environmental protection. The idea of sustainable development is based on the common interest of humankind to protect nonhuman nature as the foundation for our human existence and well-being (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, pp. 71–86). The concept of sustainable development reﬂects the idea of inter-generational justice; it advocates an ethical responsibility of present generations to ensure that their pursuit of economic and social development, does not compromise the possibility for future generations to meet their needs and aspirations. However, the motivation for establishing sustainability and determining what sustainable development should entail depends on the cultural, ethical, and political values embedded in different worldviews or perceptions of the relationship between humans and nonhuman nature. Environmental valuebased ethics approaches such as biocentrism or 2283 ecocentrism represent an alternative to the anthropocentric approach. According to these approaches life and/or ecosystems as a whole represent an autonomous intrinsic value which human beings ought to respect in and by itself (Rolston 2012, pp. 110, 116). Thus, a biocentric or an ecocentric approach may be less prone to accept trade-offs in terms of compromising protection of biodiversity or speciﬁc habitats or endangered species for the sake of promoting social and economic sustainability, for example. Determining Sustainability: Implications of Cultural, Ethical, and Political Values The concept of “sustainable development” as it applies to governance of food production and consumption has three dimensions: an economic, a social, and an environmental dimension (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, pp. 174–175). These three dimensions are likely to conﬂict. Ideally sustainable development is to take into account all three dimensions, without compromising one over the other. In reality, however, initiatives to establish sustainability in one dimension may involve trade-offs in another. For example, food production may be sustainable in terms of providing enough food and ensuring distribution so to avoid food shortage in vulnerable regions of the world, but it may not be environmentally sustainable. Similarly there may be trade-offs within the same dimension of the concept. For example, it is not difﬁcult to imagine that a production method can be sustainable in terms of protecting speciﬁc aspects of biological diversity, but not in terms of the energy output and contribution to anthropogenic climate change. Determining what is required to establish sustainable development in a speciﬁc context and the acceptance of trade-offs does not only depend on the primary objective of sustainability, i.e., whether the goal is to establish climate sustainability or social sustainability, but also on the cultural and ethical values of the various stakeholders. Likewise, political values and beliefs play an important role for determining what governance S 2284 instruments are necessary to establish sustainable development. At least three major governance approaches to sustainability are reﬂected in international policy on food production and consumption: (1) a neoliberal approach to sustainable development in food production and consumption argues that market mechanisms can ensure sustainability because an increase in price of scarce resources is likely to encourage more efﬁcient use or use of alternative resources. (2) A conservationist approach emphasizes the necessity of living in accordance with the natural environment, respecting the limits that is set for human activity and for economic growth. A sustainable use of resources for food production in this context would include careful management of existing resources including development of environmentally friendly agricultural methods, focusing on promoting small-scale and local farming. High-tech or large-scale farm industry approaches to solve problems of food security or environmental problems are usually not associated with sustainability in this context. (3) An institutional approach emphasizes the importance of environmental protection through changes in both production and consumption patterns encouraged, for example, by market-based instruments introduced by governments. Changes in production and consumption patterns have to happen through institutional changes, which could involve regulation of multinational companies, or introduction of taxes that may push production and consumption in more eco-friendly and environmentally sustainable directions (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld 2012, pp. 41–44). Over the years the concept of sustainability and sustainable development has been criticized for being vague. However, it must be emphasized that the way the concept is implemented in the two key international governance frameworks for sustainability in food production and consumption, the CBD and UNFCCC, represents an ethical ideal, which frames international policy and requires interpretation. Ethical and political debate about sustainability including debate on governance approaches and speciﬁc strategies is crucial in order to balance actions according to different values and economic, social, and Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption environmental interests. The interrelatedness of these three dimensions of sustainability together with the complex challenge they represent to the objective of sustainability in food production and consumption is examined in the following Section. Three Dimensions of Sustainability: The Convention on Biological Diversity The development of the CBD began in 1987 and was an attempt to harmonize existing conventions with relevance to biodiversity. The convention came into force on 29 December 1993 and now has 193 parties according to its ofﬁcial website (http://www.cbd.int/). Today the CBD is the main international instrument addressing issues related to conservation of biological diversity. The CBD has three major objectives: conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of biological diversity, and fair and equitable sharing of beneﬁts from its utilization. It was established with the aim to protect global biological diversity, recognizing that natural resources necessary for economic development are not unlimited (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological 2005, Sect. 1, CBD Preamble). A number of thematic work programs are established under the convention to promote conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in speciﬁc areas including marine and coastal areas, agriculture, forests, inland waters, and dry and subhumid lands (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2005, p. xxx). The convention reﬂects a holistic approach to sustainability, where a sustainable use of natural resources can be summarized as one that takes into account the need for economic and social development through production and consumption without jeopardizing the value of biological diversity (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological 2005, Sect. 1, CBD, Article 1). The motivation for establishing sustainability is the recognition of the value of biological diversity, which is referred to as both an intrinsic value and a multifaceted value that includes the ecological, social genetic, economic, scientiﬁc, Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption educational, cultural, recreational, and aesthetic value that the diversity may represent to a nation, to a society, or to the individual. The convention reﬂects a perception of biological diversity as a collective good which is of “common concern of humankind” (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological 2005, Sect. 1, CBD Preamble). To protect this collective good, the convention sets out egalitarian governance principles for protection of biological diversity while not jeopardizing the objectives of socioeconomic sustainability. Efforts to protect biological diversity and ensure sustainable use of genetic resources are to be carried out according to principles of justice emphasizing the need for socioeconomic sustainability through a fair and equal distribution of resources and sharing of beneﬁts and costs related to protection and use of biological diversity as part of the effort to ensure human well-being through social and economic development (Schroeder and Pisupati 2010, p. 5). Two protocols have been added to the CBD since 1993:the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (adopted in 2000) and the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Beneﬁts Arising From Their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (adopted in 2011) (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2000, 2011). Both protocols illustrate the complex challenge of balancing the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability in food production and consumption. Economic Development and Environmental Sustainability: The Cartagena Protocol The central policy objective of the Cartagena Protocol (2000) is to establish a balance between the interests in exploiting modern biotechnology as a means to economic development, with the potential environmental and social impact in terms of negative risk to human health and the environment. This policy is based on the precautionary principle, which is outlined in the Rio Declaration’s principle 15 which states that Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientiﬁc certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-efﬁcient 2285 measures to prevent environmental damage (http:// www.unesco.org/education/information/nfsunesco/ pdf/RIO_E.PDF). The Cartagena Protocol sets out criteria for risk assessment of the environmental impact of new biotechnologies for use in food production, in agriculture, and in healthcare where there are potential adverse effects to human health and the environment (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2000, pp. 1–2). The Cartagena Protocol is also concerned with the socioeconomic impact of establishing biosafety. Distributive justice and justice in the exchange of knowledge and research play an important role in this context. The principles of fairness and equality are promoted both with respect to the distribution of beneﬁts from biotechnology to human health or to agricultural production among the parties of the convention and with respect to the sharing of research and know-how of importance for the establishment of the necessary precautionary measures that allows for safe use, for example, application of genetically modiﬁed (GM) crops for food and feed should include appropriate assessment of risk to human health and to the environment in local communities. When GM crops were ﬁrst introduced in the 1990s, they were promoted by large multinational companies, as a potential solution to problems of food security. Nevertheless, application of GM crops in food production has been met with skepticism among consumers in many countries and especially in the countries of the European Union, where the lack of obvious consumer beneﬁts and biosafety concerns has been the main reason for rejection of GM crops for food production (Gaskell et al. 2006). Among the major critiques are that GM crops, due to the fact that these are primarily produced by large multinational companies who protect their economic interests through patents, contribute to socioeconomic disparity and to an unsustainable development in food production altogether. However, scenarios outlined among others in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), working group II’s report from 2007 assessing The Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability including the impact of S 2286 climate change on Food, Fibre and Forest Products (Easterling et al. 2007, pp. 275–303), have given rise to renewed debate on the potential beneﬁts of GMOs to the aim of food security and environmentally sustainable food production. The necessity of policy actions to promote justice in distribution and exchange of research and technology including new ways of approaching the problem of patenting and intellectual property rights in relation to development of GM crops has been mentioned as crucial for the establishment of sustainability with respect to food production and environmental protection (The Royal Society 2009, pp. 45, 50). Environmental Protection and Economic and Social Sustainability: The Nagoya Protocol The Nagoya Protocol (2010) is concerned with the social and economic impact of technology development in food production. The protocol has as its central objective the promotion of social justice in terms of fairness and equality in access to genetic resources and their utilization. The protocol has its provision in article 8(j) and article 15 of the convention and sets out governance provisions with respect to the legal rights of providers of genetic resources and requirements with a view to promote and strengthen use of traditional knowledge and technologies that can be applied to protect biological diversity (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological 2005, Sect. 1, CBD Art 15 and 2011, p. 1). The Nagoya Protocol illustrates how the convention’s principles of justice tie in with the concept of sustainable development. The protocol emphasizes the importance of genetic resources to food security, public health, biodiversity conservation, and the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2011, p. 3). A steadily growing world population, poverty, together with local food insecurity, and lack of access to sufﬁcient food and water for nearly 1 billion people are factors challenging sustainability in global food production (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld 2012, p. 31). Ensuring availability of a variety of affordable food options is important to avoid problems with food insecurity or malnutrition among economically underprivileged Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption population groups. Even a small increase in food prices may lead to further social inequity among speciﬁc population groups or between developing and developed countries in general (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld 2012, pp. 50–51). Legal instruments for governance, such as those set out in the Nagoya Protocol, to support local and indigenous farming methods that contribute to conservation of biological diversity through sustainable production, and ensure transfer of knowledge and technology between developed and developing countries, not only set the framework for economic and social sustainability but are also crucial to obtain global food security. It is a complex challenge to govern biological diversity as a collective good with a view to protect biological diversity through conservation while at the same time ensuring food security for a growing world population with huge social disparities. This challenge is further enforced by the problem of climate change. Recent review of scientiﬁc data by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that agricultural and food production is likely to be inﬂuenced negatively by anthropogenic climate change. In particular, global warming is projected to cause an increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as increased frequency of droughts and ﬂooding, which have negative impact on both crop yield and livestock production (Easterling et al. 2007, pp. 275, 299). Expansion of land use with view to sustain or increase food crop production may lead to loss of biodiversity and resources altogether (Easterling et al. 2007, p. 275). Climate Change as a Challenge to Sustainable Development of Food Production and Consumption The problem of climate change is perhaps the most urgent environmental problem the global society faces to date. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) draws a complex image on the challenges to socioeconomic and environmental sustainability of food production and consumption over the next 50–100 years. An average rise Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption of local average temperatures between 1 C and 3 C may lead to an increase of food production overall, but an increase on average above 3 C is predicted to cause a global decrease in food production. Additionally, agricultural and livestock production is also likely to face challenges from climate change in terms of increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as drought and ﬂooding. Similarly, negative impact of climate change for distribution and productivity in the marine environment is likely to cause extinction of some ﬁsh species, which can impact ﬁshery in several regions (Easterling et al. 2007, p. 275). Climate change represents a major challenge to sustainability in food production and consumption. It is a challenge the objectives of conservation and sustainability in use of genetic resources as these are spelled out in the CBD, as well as to the objectives outlined in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (http://www.un.org/ millenniumgoals/) which were established to ﬁght poverty and hunger. There is an urgent need for climate adaptation strategies in food production to establish a sustainable development of food production and consumption. In this context, sustainability involves intensiﬁcation of production to ensure food security and socioeconomic development, conservation of biological resources, and mitigation of GHG emissions at the same time (The Royal Society 2009, p. xi). Sustainability as Mitigation and Adaptation: The Climate Convention and the Kyoto Protocol Production and consumption of food generate GHG emissions, for example, from deforestation to expansion of land use for agricultural and livestock production purposes, livestock production, use of energy from fossil fuels in food production and farming, heating of greenhouses or livestock farms, packaging, transport and cold storage, cooking, and processing of food waste (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld 2012, pp. 90–91). However, if a development in food production is to be sustainable, it must not only include mitigation and adaptation measures to protect the environment but also at the same time aim at reducing rather than increasing inequalities on a global 2287 scale with view to ensure social and economic development in production and consumption (The Royal Society 2009, p. 11). The climate convention promotes the idea of intergenerational justice as part of the ethical motivation for the conventions’ objectives of climate protection and sustainable development (United Nations 1992. UNFCCC art 3, principle). Similar to the CBD, the climate convention reﬂects a holistic approach that emphasizes the need for sustainable environmental, economic, and social development (United Nations 1992. UNFCCC preamble). However, balancing the objectives of the two conventions, i.e., conservation of biological diversity (CBD) and conservation of the atmosphere (UNFCCC), in itself is a potential challenge to sustainable development. While mitigation of GHG may contribute positively to conservation of biological diversity overall, there may be cases where the effort to establish mitigation and adaptation can involve trade-offs in terms of negative impact on conservation of biological diversity in local areas. With respect to development of economic and social sustainability, the convention implements the same egalitarian governance principles for justice in distribution and sharing of responsibilities as those included under the CBD. The principles of fairness and equality lay the ground for the Kyoto Protocol, which concerns the distribution of responsibilities in terms of GHG emission reductions according to the parties’ respective capabilities. The Kyoto Protocol was developed in light of the concerns and projections of future impact of GHG emissions outlined by the IPCC in their Second Assessment Report (AR2) from 1995. The protocol was adopted as a legal instrument under the UNFCCC in 1997 (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld 2012, p. 95). A summary of the emission goals of the Kyoto Protocol is outlined on the ofﬁcial website (http:// unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php). The protocol sets out legally binding emission reduction targets during the period 2008–2012 for the 37 developed countries who have signed up, to reduce their emission of GHG to an average of 5% compared to the emission levels from 1990. The parties of the convention have been negotiating S 2288 new targets since 2008, but different interests of stakeholders including social, economic, and environmental interests complicate the task of reaching an agreement. Citizens’ Awareness, Consumer Policy, and Sustainability: Food Miles and Carbon Footprints The Kyoto Protocol includes three major governance mechanisms: emission trading/carbon market, clean development mechanism (CDM), and joint implementation (JI), all of which are summarized on the protocol’s website (http://unfccc. These int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php/). mechanisms are to promote mitigation in production in a market-based and cost-effective way. With regard to food production, possible strategies to promote mitigation were discussed at the COP 15 climate meeting in Copenhagen and included strategies for sector-speciﬁc mitigation through establishment of collaborative research and development and implementation of technologies aiming at mitigation (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld 2012, p. 95). None of the mentioned strategies were agreed, due to concern for the impact of such governance instruments on international trade (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld 2012, p. 96). Other governance approaches may include taxation on products, introduction of standards in food production to promote sustainable and environmentally/climate-friendly food products, or regulations on wastage to promote recycling, etc. However, the successful implementation of such policy approaches relies on public support and awareness of the impact of climate change and the necessity of adaptation measures on international, national, and individual levels. Concepts such as food miles and carbon footprints have been introduced with the aim to raise consumer awareness about where food products come from and how food production impacts the environment. The concept of food miles was introduced by Prof. Tim Lang in 1996 (Lang 2005). The idea behind food miles is simple: the amount of miles that a food product has traveled gives an indication of its impact on the environment. The concept supports local farming and Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption promotes a few basic principles that may contribute to lower the negative impact of consumer patterns on the environment: (a) shop local and buy local produce as it would require less miles of traveling from farm to fork; (b) buy seasonal produce as it would require less energy to produce than food products produced in heated greenhouses, for example; and (c) buy fresh produce because it is more likely to state where it is grown. While food miles may be a useful instrument to measure sustainability, focusing on the environmental burden stemming from transport of food products, taking into account miles traveled from farm to fork, the concept also has its limits. Calculating food miles in food products with many different ingredients may be practically impossible, and the concept also does not take into account the environmental impact of the production of packaging used for food transportation (Lang 2005). Critics of the concept argue that it is too simplistic and gives a skewed picture of the environmental impact of production and consumption of food products. For example, food miles do not take into account how the product is produced or the mode of transportation used. An alternative concept, “carbon footprint” measures the contribution of emission of Co2 throughout the production chain (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld 2012, p. 98). Measuring carbon contributions only may not provide a full picture of the environmental impact, and other types of GHG, such as methane from cattle farms, would also need to be taken into account. Yet, while the measuring of carbon footprints is far more complex than food miles, it may provide a more nuanced picture of environmental sustainability in the production of speciﬁc food products. Common for these approaches is their appeal to the individual consumer’s ethical responsibility to contribute to a more sustainable development in food production and consumption. Examples of governance approaches to promote public awareness include campaigns such as “One Tonne Less” or NGO’s campaigns promoting a change to vegetarian diet. Changes towards a more climate sustainable development in food production and consumption are unlikely to happen by way of market-based mechanisms. In fact Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption such changes are unlikely to happen without regulatory measures. However, consumer and citizen awareness about the impact of climate change and recognition of the need for adaptation in production and consumption patterns are crucial for such governance instruments to be successful. Conclusion The modern use of the term sustainability or sustainable development can best be described as an ethical ideal which requires interpretation. The task of determining how a sustainable development can best be obtained is challenged by various ethical and cultural values and by different political beliefs and approaches to governance. The two major international frameworks with relevance for governance of sustainability in global food production and consumption, namely, the CBD and the UNFCCC, set out a holistic approach where sustainability refers to economic growth, promotion of social well-being, and environmental protection. What may be environmentally sustainable may not always be socioeconomically sustainable and vice versa, and thus an important part of establishing a sustainable development is to ensure that while trade-offs are to be expected, these are not to compromise justice in terms of fair and equal distribution of costs and beneﬁts from environmental protection. While the CBD and the UNFCCC set out similar principles for governance to obtain social, economic, and environmental sustainability, they are established with different objectives in mind. The scope of the two conventions is not conﬂicting; however, the urgent need for mitigation and adaptation to climate change increases an already complex challenge of ensuring economic growth and social well-being in an environmentally sustainable way. Transparency in governance approaches, research into the environmental, social, and economic impact of speciﬁc governance measures, as well as public debate and engagement are therefore founding criteria for the establishment of sustainable development in food production and consumption in the immediate and distance future. In particular there is a need for more 2289 research and debate on how mitigation and adaptation measures can be combined with already existing initiatives to promote environmental protection and sustainable use of genetic resources. Similarly there is a need for more debate about possible governance instruments to promote sustainable development. The power of consumer campaigns to promote citizen awareness about the impact of individual consumption patterns on the global problem of establishing sustainability in food production and consumption in light of the challenge from climate changes must not be underestimated in this context because the success of governance instruments that can promote changes in local production and consumption practice is reliant on citizens’ support of such instruments. Summary The idea of sustainability and sustainable development has come to play a central role in governance of food production and consumption over the past 25 years. Sustainability refers to the balancing of availability of environmental resources with consumption with a view to promote economic growth and social wellbeing. The three sections of the chapter outline the characteristics of the concept and its role in governance and policy of food production and consumption. Sustainability is described as an ethical ideal with a threefold scope aiming at economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Determining what constitutes sustainability in a speciﬁc context and how it is best obtained is subject to interpretation and inﬂuence from ethical, cultural, and political values and beliefs. The two key international governance frameworks for food production and consumption are examined: the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The three dimensions of sustainability represent a complex challenge to governance. While the motivating concern is environmental protection and sustainability, both conventions implement egalitarian principles for justice, emphasizing fairness S 2290 and equality as a mode of promoting social and economic sustainability. Climate change is addressed as the major challenge to sustainability in food production and consumption in the future, which is predicted to threaten global food security. The impact of anthropogenic climate change on the availability of genetic resources requires mitigation and adaptation to climate change if food security is to be ensured in the future. Consumer awareness of the impact of production and consumption patterns on climate change plays an important role for support and successful implementation of governance instruments with view to promote sustainability in food production and consumption. Cross-References ▶ Biotechnology and Food Policy, Governance ▶ Food Ethics and Policies ▶ Food Labeling ▶ Food Security References Easterling, W. E., Aggarwal, P. K., Batima, P., Brander, K. M., Erda, L., Howden, S. M., Kirilenko, A., Morton, J., Soussana, J.-F., Schmidhuber, J., & Tubiello, F. N. (2007). Food, ﬁbre and forest products. In M. L. Parry, O. F. Canzani, J. P. Palutikof, P. J. van der Linden, & C. E. Hanson (Eds.), Climate change 2007: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of working group II to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (pp. 273–313). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://www. ipcc.ch/index.htm. Gaskell, G., Allansdottir, A., Allum, N., Corchero, C., Fischler, C., Hampel, J., Jackson, J., Kronberger, N., Mejlgaard, N., Revuelta, G., Schreiner, C., Stares, S., Togersen, H., & Wagner, W. (2006, May). Europeans and biotechnology in 2005: Patterns and trends, Eurobarometer 64.3 (A report to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for research). Lang, T. (2005). Wednesday 3 August: “Origin unknown”. The Guardian, Environment. http://www.guardian.co. uk/politics/2005/aug/03/greenpolitics.foodanddrink? INTCMP=SRCH. Accessed online 2 Nov 2012. Meadows, D., Randers, J., & Behrens, W. W., III. (1972). The limits to growth – A report for the Club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind (2nd ed.). New York: Universe Books. Sustainability of the Beef Industry Oosterveer, P., & Sonnenfeld, D. (2012). Food, globalization and sustainability. New York: Earthscan from Routledge. Rolston, H., III. (2012). A new environmental ethics – The next millennium for life on earth. New York/London: Routledge. Schroeder, D., & Pisupati, B. (2010). Ethics, justice and the convention on biological diversity. Cape Town: United Nations Environment Programme/University of Central Lancashire. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. (2000). Cartagena protocol on biosafety to the convention on biological diversity: Text and annexes. Montreal: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. (2005). Handbook of the convention on biological diversity (3rd ed.). Montreal. Retrieved from http://www.cbd.int/doc/handbook/cbd-hb-allen.pdf Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. (2011). Nagoya protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of beneﬁts arising from their utilization to the convention on biological diversity: Text and annex. Montreal: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Royal Society. (2009). Reaping the beneﬁts – Science and the sustainable intensiﬁcation of global agriculture (RS Policy document 11/09). London: The Royal Society. United Nations. (1992). United Nations framework convention on climate change (FCCC/INFORMAL/84. GE.05–62220 (E) 200705). United Nations. (1998). Kyoto protocol to the United National framework convention on climate change. Retrieved from http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/ convkp/kpeng.pdf World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future (Australianth ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Sustainability of the Beef Industry ▶ Beef Production: Ethical Issues Sustainable Agriculture ▶ Organic Food and Agriculture ▶ Provision of Agricultural Ecosystem Services Sustainable Consumption and Gender Sustainable Consumption and Gender Miranda Mirosa Food Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Synonyms Gendered analysis of consumption patterns; Responsible consumer behavior; Sustainable consumption strategies and gender justice Introduction If population and consumption trends continue, the equivalent of two Earths will be needed to support humanity by 2030 (Global Footprint Network 2012). The social, environmental, and economic impacts of global consumptive trends are well documented in the sustainable consumption literature. This entry discusses some of the major food-related sustainable consumption trends and does so by using a gender lens to better understand the gender factors and realities within these trends. The term “sustainable consumption” is used in accordance with the United Nations Environment Programme’s working deﬁnition: “The use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the lifecycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations” (Ofstad 1994). Note that the term “consumption” is used herein in its broadest sense, including all three stages of the consumption cycle: the purchase, use, and disposal of products and services. The term “gender” refers to both the perceptual and material relations between women and men, and the term “gender analysis” is taken to mean research that aims to answer questions such as “who does or uses what, how and why?” (FAO 1997). This entry provides a background to gendered perspectives in sustainable consumption discourses before focusing on 2291 three key gender aspects of sustainable food consumption. It then ﬁnishes off by looking at gender-sensitive strategies for promoting sustainable food consumption. Background of Gendered Perspectives in Sustainable Consumption Discourses History to Gender Studies as a Source of Information In order to understand how gender has permeated the sustainable consumption discourses over the years, it is ﬁrst useful to brieﬂy overview the history of gender studies. Four waves have been identiﬁed in the development of gender studies and a summary of these stages is presented by Casimir and Dutilh (2003). Firstly, in the early 1970s “liberal individualism” prevailed where the focus of attention was on enabling women, through education and individual support, to minimize differences with men. Secondly, in the late 1970s, the focus shifted to “liberal structuralism,” an approach which addresses the structural or environmental factors (e.g., legislative and policy responses) that prevent equal opportunities. Thirdly, “value difference” or “women’s standpoint” characterized this wave (peaking in the 1980s) and promoted feminine values and alternative ways of living and valuing things. Fourthly, in the 1990s “post equity” or “resisting the dominant discourse” drew attention to poststructuralist thinking and to the ongoing social construction of gender relations. Although gender studies as an interdisciplinary academic ﬁeld of study dates back over 40 years, it is only in the last 15 years that gender scholars have really started engaging with issues of sustainable consumption. The Institutional Context Although a review of international gender policies is outside of the scope of this entry (see Food Policy and Gender entry instead), it is important to understand that much of the agenda setting on debates about gender and sustainable consumption has happened at an international policy/institutional level. Much of this debate has taken place at United Nations world conferences, most S 2292 notably, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) that took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Agenda 21, the program for sustainability for the twenty-ﬁrst century that resulted from UNCED, concluded that environmental degradation is largely an outcome of overconsumption in the Global North, which is in contrast to the Global South, where it is largely poverty that restricts peoples’ consumption choices and leads to environmentally degrading consumption patterns. Gender-related issues were a major focus of Agenda 21, in particular, the commitment to overcome gender inequalities and to ensure equal participation from women. In terms of gender and consumption analyses focused speciﬁcally on food, one of the major institutional players has been the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the United Nations agency that is responsible for agriculture, forestry, and ﬁsheries worldwide. In 1995 they adopted the Plan of Action for Women in Development (1996–2001) (FAO 1995) which presents a framework for ensuring that gender issues become an integral part of their organizational work. The mission driving this Plan of Action was to ensure that all women and men have the support and access to resources that they need to pursue sustainable livelihoods and an improved quality of life. Following Rio, a Commission on Sustainable Development was established to report on the progress of implementations of the UNCED agreements. In 1999, a report was submitted to the Commission of Sustainable Development which explicitly focused on “Gender and Sustainable Consumption” (Grover et al. 1999). In this report the authors identiﬁed the main aspects of the gender and sustainable consumption debate of the time. For example, they state that more poor and illiterate women than men in developing countries have been left out of the “consumption explosion,” that the gender perspective has not been properly integrated into international discussions on sustainable consumption, and that the inclusion of gender indicators in sustainable consumption research is recommended. These issues, identiﬁed in the late 1999s, are still relevant today (Schultz and Stieß 2009). Part of the reasoning for Sustainable Consumption and Gender this is explained by the fact that sustainable consumption, in the Northern context at least, is still often perceived by policy makers and funding agencies to be gender-neutral, though, as gender scholars explain, this is a really a misconception (Vinz 2009). The Sustainable Food Consumption Literature A gender focus has infused the consumption literature on food choice and food practices over the years in a range of academic ﬁelds including marketing, history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and nutrition. However, much of the literature to date on gender and food is what Weller (2004) refers to as “explicit” gender analyses, that is, gender-speciﬁc disaggregated data drawn retrospectively from studies that were not in fact designed to focus speciﬁcally on gender issues. This is in contrast to works that utilize an “implicit” gender analysis to speciﬁcally address gender issues such as “what degrees of power and inﬂuence do different types of consumers have?” The following section considers data on sustainable food consumption drawn from both explicit and implicit gender analyses. Gender Aspects of Food Consumption This section is divided up into three parts: (1) the gendered division of labor-work; (2) the gendered body, health, and the social organization of intimacy; and (3) empowerment and access to decision making of women and men (Verloo and Roggeband 1996). 1. The Gendered Division of Labor-Work This ﬁrst dimension refers to “norms, rules and practices in the ﬁeld of labor, where asymmetrical distinction is produced between women and men, between paid and unpaid labor, between work inside and outside the home, and between male and female tasks and professions” (Verloo and Roggeband 1996, p. 6). Women and men have different employment patterns and socioeconomic situations, both which have direct and indirect implications on food consumption patterns. For Sustainable Consumption and Gender example, with regard to employment, in industrialized countries, the proportion of men of working age in paid employment exceeds that of women. Of the population of working women, however, considerably more work parttime hours than men. Wages are lower on average and women of working age are more likely to live in households at risk of poverty (women who live alone with a dependent child are particularly venerable). Time budget surveys conducted in European countries show that despite increasing participation of women in the paid labor market, and a resulting decrease of traditional gender roles, women still are assigned the core of housework management activities and, as a result, suffer more from time scarcity than men. Empirical research shows, for example, that on average women are responsible for 80% of the consumption decisions made in private households and are the person that is primarily responsible for meal planning, buying, and preparing food. In developing countries, it is also women who are primarily responsible for the provision and preparation of food for the family, though the tasks involved in these processes are obviously of quite a different scope and nature to that of women in developed countries. In this case, it is food poverty that leads to peoples unsustainable food consumption patterns, due to a lack of options and choices available to them. Increased participation of women in the workforce in the Western world has resulted in a sharp rise in demand for convenient foods. Meal planning is now often done late in the day, and the supermarket is increasingly used as a pantry, with consumers stopping off on the way home to get whatever they feel like having for dinner that night. As well as the obvious increased negative environmental effects on increased travel to shops, lack of meal planning is often touted as one of the key reasons for the huge amount of food that is wasted at a household level. In addition, the foods that are bought late in the day for meal that evening are often time-saving products that are quick and easy to cook but that often come with a higher environmental price tag due to factors such as increased processing, transportation, and packing. 2293 Empirical studies in industrialized countries have compared consumers’ attitudes, values, and preferences toward sustainable food products, and clear gender differences have been repeatedly detected. Women, for example, have been shown to have a higher level of environmental awareness than men, despite the fact that they tend to report that they feel less informed than men about climate change and environmental issues. Women also generally tend to express a higher level of engagement with environmental issues generally and for environmental issues surrounding food consumption more speciﬁcally. Not only do they tend to have more environmentally friendly attitudes, they also are more inclined to act in a more environmentally friendly manner in their consumption behaviors. Research in different countries has repeatedly shown, for example, that women are most likely to buy organic food products (especially middle-aged women, with dependent children, who have high incomes and are well educated). Women have also been shown to be more skeptical than men regarding new technologies and their potential impacts and risks. Research indicates that women generally do not favor genetically modiﬁed (GM) food products and that they are more willing than men to pay a premium for products that are GM-free. Early ecofeminism writings attempted to provide some justiﬁcation for such gender differences in environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviors. In such writings, women are depicted as nurturing and peaceable (due to their domestic and reproductive capacities) in contrast to men who are considered to be powerful and destructive. In fact, nature is even sometimes referred to in this body of literature as a “feminine principle.” 2. The Gendered Body, Health, and the Social Organization of Intimacy Health, reproductive health, vulnerability, and bodily needs are all important aspects in this dimension. The concept of intimacy is described as “norms and institutions around sexuality, extending to the social organization of personal S 2294 relationships, procreation and motherhood” (Verloo and Roggeband 1996, p. 6). Given that women are the both the lead providers of food and have higher care responsibilities than men in the household, they play a crucial role in managing the families nutritional status and overall health. This responsibility is reﬂected in research results which repeatedly show that women tend to pay higher attention to hygiene standards in food preparation and provision. However, development interventions, especially in the Global South, aimed to improve access to safe food, often bypass women (FAO 1997). Programs designed to suit women’s needs, education, and cultural backgrounds that provide technical information on improving the quality, nutritional status, and safety of food at the household level are needed. Such programs might focus, for example, on home gardens and livestock rearing, which improve access to suitable, low cost, good quality, safe, and nutritional foods. Foods grown at this local level not only lead to greater opportunities for food sovereignty but also increase consumption of sustainable, environmentally friendly foods (that tend to require much lower levels of pesticide and have reduced food miles than alternative products). Another issue affecting some women in the Global South is health during pregnancy and lactation. In reproductive years, women have special nutrient requirements in order to assure their own health and that of their child though many societies fail to recognize these speciﬁc needs. For example, in some societies, discriminatory practices still exist which prioritize feeding male members of the family before females (often including young girls). Such consumption patterns are obviously unsustainable (in the broad sense of the word) as they have the potential to affect health and do not contribute to improved quality of life for women. There is much literature which discusses gender-speciﬁc differences in eating behaviors (see the entry on ▶ Gender Norms and Food Behavior), though this for the most part does not have an explicit sustainability focus. Nevertheless, sustainable consumption strategies must take into account the fact that women and men Sustainable Consumption and Gender do eat in a different way. Gender differences in food preferences seem to begin during childhood. Findings from studies on this phenomenon suggest that females and males assign different meanings and values to different types of foods which results in females and males eating differently. Women tend to eat healthier, have higher nutritional knowledge, and show higher preference for eating foods that are included in common dietary guidelines, which means they tend to eat more fruit and vegetables than their male counterparts. This concern for health issues can in part be explained by the fact that women are primarily responsible for care duties. Another explanatory factor for why women are more food literate than men is due to the fact that women are often involved much earlier than men in food-related activities. Men, in contrast, are often cited as tending toward pleasure foods that taste good. They also eat more meat (both more often and in larger quantities) than women, which is signiﬁcant from a sustainable consumption viewpoint, given that meat production accounts for almost a ﬁfth of all greenhouse gasses according to FAO data. Though this is in part due to role orientation, in the cultural identity literature, this has also been explained by the symbolic meaning of meat (which infers strength and power). An interesting study that highlights an example of gendered differences toward certain food types is a study on comfort food choices (Wansink et al. 2003). Results showed that most men prefer hot meals to snacks (the three foods most men considered to be their favorite comfort foods were ice cream, soup, and pizza or pasta, which was in contrast to women for whom it was ice cream, chocolate, and cookies). Many men reported that when they ate these foods, they felt “spoiled,” “pandered,” “taken care of,” or “waited on,” indicating that generally they associated these foods with being the focus of attention from either their mother or wife. Women, on the other hand, seem to have the opposite preference for a similar reason (i.e., they liked snack-like foods that were hasslefree). 3. Empowerment and Access to Participatory Decision Making of Women and Men Sustainable Consumption and Gender The kind of aspects that are related to this third gender dimension include empowerment of women and men as consumer-citizens, participation of women and men in implementation of sustainable consumption instruments in all stages of the policy cycle, access as consumer-citizens to decision making, and participation of consumercitizens in institutional settings of implementation. This dimension is particularly relevant for changing consumers’ food behaviors (Schultz and Stieß 2009). It is important that more women become involved in decision making at both governmental level and at the level of international policy making, to ﬁnd solutions to sustainable food consumption issues. Greater representation of women is also needed in food industry boardrooms and in food companies themselves (especially in scientiﬁc positions) to help address food sustainability issues from a women’s perspective. As has been mentioned, worldwide, women are still primarily considered to be the household manager, especially in terms of food provision and preparation. As such, they continue to play a key role to controlling a considerable share of the total carbon emissions produced by a household. This means that they are, and must continue to be, key actors for sustainable consumption strategies (WEN 2007). The most obvious way that consumers can act to promote sustainable food consumption is by voting with their shopping dollars (i.e., by “boycotting” or “buycotting”) when they purchase food products and services (note that this is referred to in the literature as engaging in political consumerism). It is important to empower all consumers so that they are able to engage in acts of political consumerism in an informed manner. This can be done in many ways, the most obvious being providing them with full information about the sustainability credentials of the product on its label. Governments, industry, and consumer groups alike promote this sort of “bottom-up” approach to achieving sustainable consumption, where the consumer is positioned as the all-powerful decision-maker and the mandate is for industry to provide as wide of a choice of products as possible, so that the customer can decide which 2295 one to purchase. The problem, however, with this sort of approach is that it places the responsibility for sustainable consumption on the shoulders of individual consumers. As has been already stated, in many cases when it comes to food buying, these individuals tend to be women, many of whom are already feeling under immense time pressure due to juggling domestic, care, and paid-labor activities. The image of the confused consumer standing in front of the fresh salad section of the supermarket trying to work out if it is more “sustainable” to buy the organic lettuce, packed in a plastic bag and ﬂown in from overseas, or the conventional (nonorganic), but local, alternative is all too familiar. Without providing full information about the total amount of materials used in the production, transportation, and storage of these products (e.g., water, energy, and pesticides) and the total amount of waste outputs generated in these same process (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, food wasted), the consumer is, in reality, inadequately equipped to make this sort of decision with any accuracy. A move away from total privatization of responsibility, that is, from leaving it completely up to the consumer to bear the burden for being sustainable in their consumption choices, requires that some of the responsibility for sustainability is pushed back onto other players in the food industry. Cases of this happening can be seen already. Examples include retailers “editing out” (i.e., not stocking) unsustainable food brands and products such as cafes that choose not to stock coffee that is not Fair Trade certiﬁed and supermarkets that choose not to stock certain types of unsustainable ﬁsh. Other institutions (e.g., governmental bodies) could also take more responsibility for helping people to consume sustainably, again lifting some of the burden off the shoulders of consumers. Examples of ways they could do this include developing criteria that would allow food products to be more accurately evaluated based on sustainability criteria, devising policies that would encourage the reduction of overall consumption levels or encourage sustainable buying, or by outright banning certain unsustainable food products in some circumstances. S 2296 Gender-Sensitive Strategies for Promoting Sustainable Food Consumption and Future Research Needed Gender differences must be taken into account in order to be able to successfully implement sustainable food consumption strategies. Although strategies and campaigns promoting sustainable food consumption are often devised to be gender-neutral, research shows that gender responsiveness to these campaigns can be remarkably different. The sustainable campaigns which do contain a gendered aspect are generally targeted speciﬁcally at women because of their more environmentally friendly consumption attitudes and behaviors. Given this, it would be useful to search for and communicate speciﬁcally sustainable consumption behaviors around food that are more gender available to men (Schultz and Stieß 2009). Furthermore, these same authors argue that it is important that sustainable consumption campaigns are checked to make sure that they do not contain any implicit moralization of women’s responsibility (i.e., by fading out gendered patterns of responsibility for paid and unpaid labor and housework). There is much scope for further research on creating gender-sensitive strategies for sustainable food consumption. Areas particularly worthy of further attention include the following: • Finding ways to ensure that gender perspectives are better integrated into internationallevel discussions on sustainable consumption • Generating gender disaggregated databases and gender-sensitive indicators of food consumption • Conducting gender-speciﬁc surveys about environmental motivation and behavior in relation to food behaviors • Considering how sustainable consumption patterns are shaped by the relationship of gender with further variables such as lifestyles, values, and other sociodemographic variables (e.g., age, marital status) • Considering gendered income allocation for nutrition Sustainable Consumption and Gender • Using gender disaggregated data on food and nutrition in the design of polices, programs, and interventions for sustainable food consumption • Supporting the development of gendersensitive strategies for sustainable food consumption in order to not increase women’s workload Summary The consumer behavior literature quite clearly indicates that gender is a strong determining factor for many different types of food attitudes and behaviors. Consumption has historically been associated with women and the private sphere. Even today, women are responsible for on average 80% of the consumption decisions made in private households and are the person that is primarily responsible for meal planning, buying, and preparing food. While this does put them in a good position to be able to do something to improve the sustainability of food consumed by private households, there are a number of ethical issues which are of concern as this entry has highlighted. Three of the key ethical issues related to gender and sustainable food consumption discussed in this entry are ensuring that (1) all women and men have access and support to resources they need to pursue sustainable livelihoods and improved quality of life; (2) the responsibility for achieving sustainable food consumption is shared equally between women and men, as well between individual consumers and other players in the industry such as retailers and governmental agencies; and (3) sustainable consumption campaigns do not contain implicit moralization of women’s responsibility and that ways are found to better communicate messages about food-related sustainable consumption behaviors to men. Cross-References ▶ Gender Norms and Food Behavior ▶ Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption Sustainable Food Procurement 2297 References Casimir, G., & Dutilh, C. (2003). Sustainability: A gender studies perspective. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 27, 316–325. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.14706431.2003.00323. FAO. (1995). Plan of action for women in development (1996–2001). http://www.fao.org/sd/wpdirect/ wpre0001.htm. Accessed Aug 2013. FAO. (1997, May). Gender: The key to sustainability and food security. SD Dimensions. www.fao.org/sd. Accessed Aug 2013. Global Footprint Network. (2012). http://www. Accessed footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN. Aug 2013. Grover, S., Flenley, C., & Hemmati, M. (1999, April). Gender & sustainable consumption. Bridging Policy Gaps in the Context of Chapter 4, Agenda 21 “Changing Consumption and Production Patterns”. Report to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development 7th Session. London: UNED-UK. Ofstad, S. (Ed.). (1994). Symposium: Sustainable consumption. Oslo: Ministry of the Environment. Schultz, I., & Stieß, I. (2009). Gender aspects of sustainable consumption strategies and instruments. EUPOPP Work Package 1, Deliverable 1.1. Frankfurt/Main: Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2013). Gender and climate change. http://unfccc.int/ gender_and_climate_change/items/7516.php. Accessed Aug 2013. Verloo, M., & Roggeband, C. (1996). Gender impact assessment: The development of a new instrument in the Netherlands. Impact Assessment, 14, 3–21. Vinz, D. (2009). Gender and sustainable consumption: A German environmental perspective. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 16, 159–179. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1350506808101764. Wansink, B., Cheney, M. M., & Chan, N. (2003). Exploring comfort food preferences across gender and age. Physiology and Behavior, 79(4–5), 739–747. Weller, I. (2004). Nachhaltigkeit und Gender. Neue Perspektiven für die Gestaltung und Nutzung von Produkten [Gender and sustainability: New perspectives for the control and use of products]. Munich: Ökom Verlag. Women’s Environmental Network (WEN). (2007). Women’s manifesto on climate change. Jointly issued by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) and Women’ s Environmental Network (WEN). http://www.wunrn.com/ news/2007/09_07/09_10_07/091607_womens_ﬁles/ 091607_womens.pdf. Accessed Aug 2013. Sustainable Consumption Locations ▶ Green Restaurants Sustainable Consumption Strategies and Gender Justice ▶ Sustainable Consumption and Gender Sustainable Food Procurement Mark Stein Salford University Business School, Manchester, UK Introduction This entry endeavors to give an overview of ethical issues relating to public procurement of food for the public sector – principally schools and hospitals, as well as care homes, prisons, and ofﬁce canteens. Public procurement has multiple objectives. Procurers must seek to buy food at an affordable price and delivered in adequate quantities and at the required time. Food must meet government nutritional and food safety standards. Ethical issues are also often discussed under the concept of sustainable procurement, with reference being made to environmental, economic, and social sustainability. The most important environmental considerations include protecting biodiversity, especially by introducing organic food, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, by reducing food miles or perhaps by reducing meat consumption. The most important economic and social considerations include: • Promoting animal welfare • Supporting local food producers • Promoting better employment conditions among employees in the food chain • Buying fair trade products • Providing children with healthier school meals • Teaching children about healthy food S 2298 Ethical Objectives Are Encouraged by the New EU Public Procurement Directive The new EU Public Procurement Directives became law in March 2014. All EU member states have 2 years to pass legislation to transpose them into national law. Contracts must now be awarded not simply on the basis of lowest price but based on the “most economically advantageous tender” (MEAT). This will enable public authorities to put more emphasis in the award procedure on quality, animal welfare, environmental considerations, social aspects, or innovation while still taking into account the price and life-cycle costs of what is procured. The new regulations will beneﬁt small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by encouraging buyers to break large contracts into smaller lots. The new rules will see much simpler and more streamlined procurement processes, which could save SMEs up to 60% of bidding process costs. The new regulations will also encourage procurers to buy fair trade products (see below). Promoting Farm Animal Welfare A common way in which public procurement can aim to protect farm animal welfare is by requiring meat or dairy products to have been produced according to a system of farm assurance which guarantees certain minimum standards of welfare. In the UK Red Tractor is the leading farm assurance scheme, and public procurement tenders often specify that the meat or other produce must comply with Red Tractor standards even though it may have been certiﬁed by a different certifying body in another EU member state. The UK’s Sustainable Development Commission commissioned an analysis which gave a limited endorsement of Red Tractor, saying that its standards do a good job of assuring food safety, animal welfare and to a lesser extent, environmental imperatives. They also generally cover safe working environments and appropriate training where these relate to food safety. However they do not Sustainable Food Procurement cover. . . other key aspects of sustainable development – viable livelihoods, environmental improvements, rural cultures and economies, nutritious food and accurate information about food, and local foods. . . The levels set for some of the . . . standards are well below those that the UK Sustainable Development Commission would argue are necessary in sustainable food production. (Sustainable Development Commission 2005, p. 5) Public procurers in the UK have followed a wider change in public buying habits by switching to free-range eggs. The keeping of laying hens in battery cages has been banned throughout the EU from January 1, 2012. This decision reﬂected widespread public concern about the suffering of chickens in battery cages. Under the new rules, caged birds will have twice the space they had previously although still less than free-range chickens. The Sustainable Development Commission reviewed the reasons for the massive growth in UK consumption of free-range eggs – from 7% of total market in 1987 to 30% in 2005 – and concluded that the shift occurred due to producer response to the salmonella health scare in 1988. It was reinforced by public concerns about animal welfare. There was strong media support for change, egg quality was the same or better, and the price difference was small. Supermarkets were quick to react to the salmonella health scare and offer customers a free-range choice of eggs. Retailers and some restaurants also use free-range egg products as part of public relations activity. For example retailer Marks and Spencer, and fast food retailer, McDonalds who have a free range only offer . . . Egg producers have responded to the higher demand and higher margins offered by free-range and the mix of production methods have continued to shift towards free range year-on-year since 1988. (Sustainable Development Commission 2006, p. 14) Support for Small and Local Food Producers: The UK, Finland, and Sweden There are widespread initiatives in the UK promoting sourcing of local and organic food for school kitchens, and these have been promoted by several initiatives over the years – particularly the Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative Sustainable Food Procurement between 2003 and 2009 and the Food for Life Partnership since 2007. Finland has provided free school meals to all school children since 1943, and this has been an important dimension of the welfare state. The government’s sustainable development and procurement strategies encourage procurement of local and organic food. A telephone survey of Finnish municipalities shows that procurement of local and organic food is a widespread practice, although there are opportunities to increase such procurement. The report concluded that: If public sector kitchens really want to use local food, it requires a new kind of thinking. It would require readiness to genuinely cooperate with the producers for instance by developing their products into something that kitchens can use for their needs. Joint meetings between kitchen buyers and the producers require time initially but as the cooperation matures, there will be less need for meetings. (Muukka et al. 2008, p. 26) Sweden resembles Finland in terms of strong government sustainable development policies and a system of universal free school meals. Special distribution arrangements to assist small food producers by lifting the logistic burden of distributing to large numbers of public sector kitchens are practiced by signiﬁcant numbers of municipalities in Sweden and the UK. Division of contracts into lots is another practice which assists small producers and is quite widespread in Sweden and the UK. Support for Small and Local Food Producers: Farm to School in the USA In the USA “Farm to School” is a nationwide program which helps bring fresh, local produce to school cafeterias. The ﬁrst USDA census has revealed that 43% of US school districts – or about 38,600 schools – bought local produce for their students during the 2011/2012 school year. This reﬂects substantial growth of “Farm to School” food purchasing over previous years. Many chefs have switched away from buying in pre-prepared packaged meals toward cooking with fresh ingredients. This is seen as providing healthier and higher-quality food. 2299 Small producers may struggle to provide the volume, variety, and regularity of products required for the school kitchens. They may also struggle with the logistical challenge of delivery of food to large numbers of schools. A widespread development within the USA has been the creation of local food hubs to address the distribution problems faced by small suppliers: A major obstacle to localization is the lack of economic, organizational and physical structures of the appropriate scale for local aggregation and distribution of food. Local food hubs are emerging as an important tool for overcoming that obstacle by pooling food products from a number of smaller farms and delivering them to grocery stores, schools, hospitals and restaurants. (Cleveland et al. 2014, p. 26) Distribution of food is thus separated from supply, making it easier for smaller food producers to compete in the marketplace. Teaching Children About Healthy Food Farm to School tends to promote healthier eating habits. Visits to farms play an important role. When students have the opportunity to spend time on farms, to get to know farmers and to see, taste, touch and smell food in its natural state, they are far more willing to try it raw or prepared at mealtime, ask for it at home, incorporate it into their own diet and be willing to try new and different foods when they are offered. . .. (Davis and Hudson 2011, p. 179) Cookery classes and creation of school gardens are other ways in which Farm to School promotes children’s better understanding of food and healthy eating. Similar work is being done in the UK by the Food for Life Partnership. Persson Osowski et al. (2013) discuss the role of the “pedagogic meal” in Sweden, where school meals are intended to be a teaching occasion in which children learn about food and meals – health, nutrition, and table manners. In Finland government policy also encourages nutritional education, learning of table manners, school gardening, and cookery lessons. S 2300 Environmental Benefits of Local Food Supply The notion has become widespread that local food is better for the environment – speciﬁcally because long-distance food transport (food miles) leads to greater greenhouse gas emissions. The “food miles” concept was coined and developed by Professor Tim Lang in the early 1990s. He said in 2009 that “food miles” is woven into the language now, a shorthand for a debate, a perspective. In the early 1990s, it was very helpful to get people to realise that food wasn’t local anymore but had become globalized and industrialised, trucked about endlessly – and often needlessly – before reaching the plate. . . To some extent the Food Miles metric isn’t accurate; carbon or greenhouse gas emissions are better measured using Life-Cycle Analysis. (Harper 2009, p. 21) Some researchers have however argued that the view that food’s environmental impact depends on distance traveled is an enormous oversimpliﬁcation. Edwards-Jones (2010) shows that there is no simple relationship between local foods and lower GHG emissions. If one compares tomatoes grown in heated greenhouses in Britain with those grown without artiﬁcial heating in Spain, British produce will have incurred fewer food miles, but transportation may be quite a low percentage of the total carbon footprint. However the belief that purchasing local food is always more environmentally friendly is still held among inﬂuential decision-makers at both national and local level. The Local Trap Born and Purcell (2006, p. 195) have coined the phrase “the local trap,” referring to the tendency of food activists and researchers to assume something inherent about the local scale. The local is assumed to be desirable; it is preferred a priori to larger scales. What is desired varies and can include ecological sustainability, social justice, democracy, better nutrition, and food security, freshness, and quality. . .. [T]he local trap is misguided and poses signiﬁcant intellectual and political dangers to food systems research. Sustainable Food Procurement Winter (2003, p. 30) points out in his study of food purchasing patterns in ﬁve rural localities of England and Wales that the patterns of food purchasing revealed, with local food ﬁguring more highly than organic, illustrate a defensive politics of localism rather than a strong turn to quality based around organic and ecological production. He gives the example of a dairy farm in Devon with widespread local sales: The farm is not organic, nor are environmental and food safety considerations used to market the product. Indeed the farm is intensively managed with high inputs of nitrate fertilizer and in common with many west country dairy farms a recent shift to forage maize with attendant problems of soil compaction and/or erosion. It must not be assumed that localization of food systems necessarily equates to promotion of environmental sustainability and social justice. The opposite may be the case. The challenge is to combine food localization with environmentally and socially desirable food production methods, such as better pay and working conditions for farm workers and minimizing of environmentally destructive farming methods. Fair Trade: For the Global South Fair trade refers to the movement to secure better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. Consumer sales of fair trade products from the Global South have grown rapidly in the Global North. The main fair trade food products are tea, coffee, sugar, fruit juice, bananas, chocolate, wine, cereal bars, and biscuits. The limited purchasing of fair trade products by public authorities can be explained by two factors: • Government guidance on EU procurement rules which until very recently discouraged public authorities from giving any form of preference to fair trade products in public procurement Sustainable Food Procurement • The limited range of fair trade products available and limited demand for less healthy foods like chocolate and sugar Fisher and Corbalán (2013) predict that the forthcoming change to the Public Procurement Directives will facilitate the uptake of fair trade products by public authorities. Agricultural Working Conditions: What About Fair Trade for the Global North? The suggestion has been made that farmers and workers in the Global North should also be able to beneﬁt from fair trade – given that pay and working conditions are often very poor. There have been academic studies in the USA and Europe which have shown that some consumers are willing to pay extra for food products if they have been grown under fair labor conditions and the term “domestic fair trade” has been coined (Howard and Allen 2008). There have been attempts to develop domestic fair trade in the USA – particularly California. No widely accepted “domestic fair trade” label has yet emerged in Europe. Up till now public procurement in Europe appears to have made hardly any attempt to address the problem of poor labor conditions in farming and other food production. One exception is the Manchester Veg People (MVP) cooperative, established in 2009. MVP is a cooperative of organic growers and buyers – restaurants and caterers – created to increase access to sustainable food in Greater Manchester and create a more stable market for small local food producers. The model is based on fairness, with prices based on costs of production and the risks involved in food production shared by the members, through creating relationships of trust and understanding between growers and buyers. At present MVP operates on a very small scale. Its most important customer is from the public sector – the University of Manchester. Reducing Meat Consumption Several academic studies emphasize that of all food products, red meat has the highest carbon 2301 footprint and the greatest environmental impacts, as well as having negative impacts on human health when consumed in large quantities. In historical perspective meat consumption in the developed world has risen dramatically over the last 200 years. Ruminant animals – cattle and sheep – emit methane, which is a particularly potent greenhouse gas. A recently published study of 2,253 Dutch consumers reports that: Empirical studies of the meat-consumption frequency of Dutch consumers show that, apart from meat-avoiders and meat-eaters, many people are meat-reducers that eat no meat at least 1 day per week. . . Given the enormous environmental impact of animal-protein consumption and the apparent sympathy of consumers for meat reduction, it is surprising that politicians and policy makers demonstrate little, if any, interest in strategies to reduce meat consumption and to encourage more sustainable eating practices. (Dagevos and Voordouw 2013, p. 1) A “Meatless Mondays” movement began in 2003, and this is now promoted by many groups in Europe, Japan, the USA, Britain, Canada, Israel, and Australia. For example, the Belgian Municipality of Ghent won support of local people for its Veggie Day campaign. Vegetarian days have also been tried quite extensively in Finland and with some success. Cordts et al. (2014) describe a survey of 690 German consumers which shows that animal welfare and human health arguments are most effective in reducing meat consumption. There is strong support for vegetarian days in public catering in certain German and Swedish cities. However, the German Green Party’s 2013 General Election Manifesto included a policy of introducing vegetarian days in all public catering, which aroused intense opposition among carnivores which is thought to be one of the main reasons for the German Greens’ poor election result. Until now support in the UK for Meat-Free Mondays has also been limited. It has been adopted by a small number of individual schools in London, Buckinghamshire, and particularly Liverpool. Two local authority catering services appear to have adopted Meat-Free Mondays – S 2302 with very little publicity, as if the managers are concerned that this could be unpopular with parents. In June 2014 the UK Department of Education published a 16-page booklet providing guidance on the revised school food standards. The standards – which schools will be required to follow – will oblige them to provide meat or poultry at least 3 days a week. Following the standards, there are “top tips” which include the ﬁrst ever ofﬁcial suggestion that schools can “encourage all children to have a meat-free day each week, using alternatives such as pulses, soya mince, tofu, and Quorn” (School Food Plan 2014, p. 6). Organic Food: Environmental Benefits and Animal Welfare Organic food sales have risen worldwide and in Europe. The European organic market more than doubled between 2006 and 2015. During 2014–2015 double-digit growth rates for organic markets were seen in ten European countries. This included large countries such as Germany, France, and Italy, as well as smaller countries such as Austria and Belgium (Willer and Lernoud 2017, Fig. 84). There is considerable academic debate about whether organic food is more nutritious than conventional food – with emphatic views expressed on both sides. Proponents of organic agriculture also argue that it promotes greater biodiversity, soil fertility, and animal welfare and uses less energy than conventional agriculture. Countries with strong government policies supporting organic food in public catering include Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Organic Conversion: The Role of StreetLevel Bureaucrats Since 1995 the Danish government has been encouraging increased usage of organic food in public catering. Mikkelsen and Sylvest (2012) Sustainable Food Procurement describe organizational changes in public catering linked to implementation of this policy, focusing on 43 projects which received government grant assistance in different municipalities, eight of which involved over a hundred food service units. Three quarters of the projects succeeded in reaching their goals of signiﬁcantly increasing organic food. The study looked at the roles of the people who actually implement policy – “street-level bureaucrats”: • Organic food is signiﬁcantly more expensive, and catering managers have had to convert to organic without an increase in their food budget by making savings elsewhere. • The shock of organic conversion has stimulated catering managers to rethink kitchen organization and procedures which might otherwise have gone unquestioned and to ﬁnd savings. • Cost-cutting menu planning has in many cases resulted in more expensive meat cuts being replaced by cheaper vegetable products. • The food being served in the kitchens is more nutritious and less is wasted. • Kitchen personnel acquired new skills and experienced increased pride and engagement in their work. The article concludes that the personal preferences and attitudes of the street-level bureaucrats seem to play an important role. Similarly, Post and Mikkola (2012) carried out 46 structured telephone interviews with members of a Nordic network for healthy and sustainable catering, endeavoring to increase usage of organic food. Their article emphasizes the need for dedicated individuals, who are personally motivated to promote the sustainability agenda. Conclusions The most widely practiced ethical/sustainability theme in public procurement is supporting local food producers. Other themes which are widely practiced are: Sustainable Food Production • Promoting farm animal welfare • Teaching children about healthy food • Introducing organic food into public catering Promoting fair trade for the Global South is a minor priority for most public procurers because of the very limited range of foods which is available under the fair trade label. The pressure to buy food as cheaply as possible runs counter to any aspirations to promote better agricultural working conditions. Major ethical dilemmas relate to support for local producers and for meat consumption. Support for local producers may well imply purchasing of local produce (e.g., red meat), which has a very high carbon footprint, and its production may have major negative environmental impacts. Procurers may be aware of the environmental and health beneﬁts of reducing meat consumption but feel unable to act on this knowledge. They may be worried that local farmers would protest. A further concern is that the consumers of the public food service may well resist any reduction in meat provision, for example, by refusing to buy the meals, thereby threatening the viability of the public food service. References Born, B., & Purcell, M. (2006). Avoiding the local trap scale and food systems in planning research. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(2), 195–207. Cleveland, D. A., Müller, N. M., Tranovich, A. C., Mazaroli, D. N., & Hinson, K. (2014). Local food hubs for alternative food systems: A case study from Santa Barbara County, California. Journal of Rural Studies, 35, 26–36. Cordts, A., Nitzko, S., & Spiller, A. (2014). Consumer Response to Negative Information on Meat Consumption in Germany. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review Volume 17 Special Issue: Food demand, diet, pp. 83–106. Retrieved from http://www. ifama.org/ﬁles/IFAMR/Vol%2017/v17iA.pdf#page=91. Dagevos, H., & Voordouw, J. (2013). Sustainability and meat consumption: Is reduction realistic? Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy, 9(2), 60–69. Davis, D., Hudson, D. (2011). Going local: Burlington, Vermont’s farm-to-school program. In Robert, S. A., Weaver-Hightower, M. B. (Eds.), School food politics: The complex ecology of hunger and feeding in schools around the world. New York: Peter Lang. 2303 Edwards-Jones, G. (2010). Does eating local food reduce the environmental impact of food production and enhance consumer health? Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 69(4), 582. Fisher, E., & Corbalán, S. (2013). Fair trade and European public procurement: Legal principles and governance dynamics. Social Enterprise Journal, 9(1), 11–27. Harper, P. (2009). Values for money: Rethinking the food system (Interview with Tim Lang). Clean Slate the Practical Journal of Sustainable Living No 71 Spring 2009. http://www.cat.org.uk Howard, P. H., & Allen, P. (2008). Consumer willingness to pay for domestic ‘fair trade’: Evidence from the United States. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 23(03), 235–242. Mikkelsen, B. E., & Sylvest, J. (2012). Organic foods on the public plate: Technical challenge or organizational change? Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 15(1), 64–83. Muukka, E., Kuosmanen, L., Ylinampa, M., Blomquist, U., Kärkkäinen, I., Malaska, K., . . ., & Soininen, J. (2008). Local food in municipal catering – A survey of local food purchasing in Finnish municipalities. http://orgprints.org/15953/ Persson Osowski, C., Göranzon, H., & Fjellström, C. (2013). Teachers’ interaction with children in the school meal situation: The example of pedagogic meals in Sweden. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour, 45(5), 420–427. Post, A., & Mikkola, M. (2012). Nordic stakeholders in catering for sustainability: Chasm between ideology and practice? British Food Journal, 114, 743–761. School Food Plan. (2014). School Food Standards. A practical guide for schools their cooks and caterers. http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/ Sustainable Development Commission. (2005). Sustainability implications of the little red tractor scheme report by Levett-Therivel sustainability consultants. London: Sustainable Development Commission. Sustainable Development Commission. (2006). Looking back, looking forward lessons in choice editing for sustainability: 19 case studies into drivers and barriers to mainstreaming more sustainable products. London: Sustainable Development Commission. Willer, H., & Lernoud, J. (2017). The world of organic agriculture. Statistics and emerging trends. FIBLIFOAM report, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FIBL), Frick, and IFOAM – Organics International, Bonn. https://shop.ﬁbl.org/CHen/mwdownloads/down load/link/id/785/?ref=1. Winter, M. (2003). Embeddedness, the new food economy and defensive localism. Journal of Rural Studies, 19(1), 23–32. Sustainable Food Production ▶ Sport Hunting and Food Procurement Ethics S 2304 Sustainable Food Supply Chain Sustainable Food Supply Chain Symbolism ▶ Literature, Food, and Gender ▶ Food Democracy in Food Systems Sustainable Food Systems ▶ Local and Regional Food Systems Synthetic Biology and Biofuels Catherine Kendig Department of Philosophy and Religion, Missouri Western State University, Saint Joseph, MO, USA Sustainable Living Synonyms ▶ Homesteading Sustainable Meat Production Biodiesel; Biogas; Biological engineering; Biomass; Crop fuel; Energy; Genetic engineering; Genetically modiﬁed; GM; Green energy; Renewable; Renewable energy ▶ Replaceability Argument in the Ethics of Animal Husbandry Introduction Sustainable Tourism ▶ Culinary Tourism Swamp Taro ▶ Aroid Production and Postharvest Practices Swidden Cultivation ▶ Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Symbiosis ▶ Milk Production: Ethical Issues Synthetic biology is a ﬁeld of research that concentrates on the design, construction, and modiﬁcation of new biomolecular parts and metabolic pathways using engineering techniques and computational models. By employing knowledge of operational pathways from engineering and mathematics such as circuits, oscillators, and digital logic gates, it uses these to understand, model, rewire, and reprogram biological networks and modules. Standard biological parts with known functions are catalogued in a number of registries (e.g., Massachusetts Institute of Technology Registry of Standard Biological Parts). Biological parts can then be selected from the catalogue and assembled in a variety of combinations to construct a system or pathway in a microbe. Through the innovative reengineering of biological circuits and the optimization of certain metabolic pathways, biological modules can be designed to reprogram organisms to produce products or behaviors. Synthetic biology is what is known as a “platform technology.” That is, it generates highly Synthetic Biology and Biofuels transferrable theoretical models, engineering principles, and know-how that can be applied to create potential products in a wide variety of industries. Proponents suggest that applications of synthetic biology may be able to provide scientiﬁc and engineered solutions to a multitude of worldwide problems from health to energy. Synthetic biology research has already been successful in constructing microbial products which promise to offer cheaper pharmaceuticals such as the antimalarial synthetic drug artemisinin, engineered microbes capable of cleaning up oil spills, and the engineering of biosensors that can detect the presence of high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water. One of the potential beneﬁts of synthetic biology research is in its application to biofuel production. It is this application which is the focus of this entry. The term “biofuel” has referred generally to all liquid fuels that are sourced from plant or plant by-products and are used for energy necessary for transportation vehicles (Thompson 2012). Biofuels that are produced using synthetic biological techniques reengineer microbes into biofuel factories are a subset of these. Entry Road Map This entry begins with a short historical background that focuses on the initial ethical support and justiﬁcation for synthetic biofuel research, the impact of this research on public discussion of synthetic biology, and the distinction between it and genetic engineering. The distinction between ﬁrst- and second-generation biofuels is introduced. This is followed by a survey of current research innovations using various microbial factories, including bacteria, yeast, and oil (oleaginous) algae. Ethical considerations associated with synthetic biology research in general and its application to biofuel production in particular will be reviewed. General responses by opponents of all forms of synthetic biology include the claim that this type of technology aims to “play God” and that the unnaturalness of it intervenes in the natural world in ways that are unethical and should 2305 therefore be avoided. This justiﬁcation has been used to attempt to restrict or stop new approaches to biofuel technology that aim to control and co-opt natural selection in order to produce a stable product. Proponents of this synthetic reengineering suggest that these ethical concerns are unfounded. Synthetic biology merely extends the mechanisms by which artiﬁcial selection can be controlled and modiﬁed beyond traditional approaches to selective breeding. Ethical considerations that apply speciﬁcally to synthetic biofuel research and technology include issues in the design, construction, implementation, marketable production, and assessment of synthetic biofuel production when compared to food crop biomass-based biofuels. Motivations for synthetic applications that focus on the growing concerns over the high cost of production of crop biomass-produced biofuels and the subsequent food shortages that followed, widely framed in terms of the food versus fuel debate, will be discussed. In addition to these, the ethical issues surrounding the potential impact on human health and the environmental consequences of intentional and accidental release of synthetic products of biofuel research will also be covered. Ethical discussion surrounding synthetic biology and biofuels is, like the research and technology itself, still emerging. An outline of the current efforts of commissions and consortia set up in the United States and the United Kingdom that have promoted the scientiﬁcally informed open exchange of ideas between scientists and the public on ethical issues relating to synthetic biology research and application are discussed. Historical Background Synthetic biofuel production seeks to provide less expensive, cleaner, and greener sources of energy than currently used traditional fossil fuels. Perhaps because of this, it has been one of the most publically accepted and perhaps most promising applications of synthetic biology. In a ﬁeld of research where descriptions of the products of synthetic biology are frequently reported as S 2306 “designer organisms,” “Frankencell,” or the result of “playing God,” discussion of synthetic biofuels seems less controversial. Its potential beneﬁts are often weighed up against its potential costs: “synthetic biology poses a conundrum because of its double-edged ability to both wreak biological havoc and perhaps wean civilization from dirty twentieth century technologies and petroleumbased fuels” (Weiss 2007). Although sometimes referred to as genetic engineering, synthetic biology differs from genetic engineering in terms of scale, techniques of manipulation, and application. Genetic engineering focuses on the alteration or manipulation of a few characteristics of an organism that results in transgenic hybrids or genetic chimeras that possess genes inserted from other organisms. Whereas, synthetic biology seeks to reconﬁgure, design, and construct new pathways, whole processes, or novel systems for the purpose of achieving some desired biosynthetic activity or phenotype (Alper and Stephanopoulos 2009). First-Generation Biofuel Production Strategies Current research aims at producing a cleaner biofuel alternative to those that are currently agriculturally produced using food crops. These cropbased biofuels, often referred to as ﬁrst-generation biofuels, rely on agricultural crops as biomass to produce sugar or starch from corn, wheat, or barley and convert this to ethanol through fermentation and distillation processes or rely on oilseed crops to produce triacylglycerols that are then chemically converted to biodiesel. One of the most heated recent ethical discussions focusing on the use of ﬁrst-generation biofuel production has been the so-called food versus fuel debates. These have typically centered on discussions about the appropriate use of agricultural land – should agricultural land be used for generating fuel instead of food? The decisions of some farmers to plant food crops such as maize for the purpose of harvesting the biomass to sell to biofuel producers have been controversially linked with an increase in food cost and food shortages. Synthetic Biology and Biofuels In addition to the fuel versus food debates, discussion has also focused on the production costs themselves and their impact on the environment. First-generation agricultural crop-based biofuel production demands arable land use and water use in irrigation and provides a fuel source that may not be as cost-effective or renewable as the potential second-generation biofuels which do not require either arable land, irrigation, or the displacement of food crops (Börjesson and Mattiasson 2008; Preston 2008). Second-Generation Biofuel Research Strategies Instead of relying on food crops as the source of fuel, synthetic engineered alternatives, or secondgeneration biofuels, rely on using the redesigned microbial cell as the source of biofuel production. Synthetic biological engineering is sometimes referred to as white biotechnology due to its focus on renewable energy sources and the reduction of negative environmental effects and the potential biodegradability of its engineered products. In providing more sustainable avenues of biofuel production, these second-generation synthetic biofuel alternatives present a way to circumvent the controversial fuel versus food debates that have been widely discussed in the various news media and in local and global ethical discussions. These and other debates have led private and public support of synthetic biology research into carbon-neutral synthetic biofuel alternatives that may not only provide solutions to the energy crisis but also provide a way to circumvent the continued degradation of the environment through the burning of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions (Martin et al. 2003). Microbial Factories of Biofuel Production: Prospects and Problems Synthetic biology builds on past successes and failures – what works in terms of both modules Synthetic Biology and Biofuels that are highly interchangeable as well as methods and pathways are reused in new projects. Earlier research on another application of synthetic biology research, the production of synthetic artemisinin, provided guidance on how microbes can be used and their tolerance of different types of chemical products. Synthetic artemisinin is perhaps one of the most widely discussed success stories of synthetic biology research. Artemisinin is an antimalarial drug which is now sold commercially by Amyris Biotechnologies which now uses similar technology in the search for a scalable renewable biofuel (Amyris Biotechnologies 2013). Development of second-generation biofuel requires the use of a microbial factory organism such as the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the bacterium, Escherichia coli, or the single-celled green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, which is then redesigned to produce certain products. To do this, synthetic biology researchers use parts with known functions from a variety of organisms. A catalogue of these parts is used to choose which components can be put together in the cell to build new pathways and as a result produce new chemical products. One of the initially most promising organisms to construct a potential biofuel factory was the yeast S. cerevisiae. This is widely used to produce ethanol from sugar in the brewing of beer. As it is also an organism frequently used in genetics and synthetic biology research, its metabolic pathways and functions are well characterized. Its ability to produce ethanol made it appear to be a good beta test for a new biofuel factory. E. coli is another common organism for use in synthetic biological research in virtue of its proven ability to accept genetic modiﬁcation with the introduction of foreign genes, the tendency to maintain hybrid networks, and the production of a variety of products (Martin et al. 2003). For instance, Fuzhong Zhang, James Carothers, and Jay Keasling have successfully designed a strain of E. coli that implements a biosensor for a metabolite that plays a role in the production of biofuel products using glucose (Zhang et al. 2012). By adding the biosensor to the engineered pathway, their new strain of 2307 E. coli is capable of trebling the amount of fuel produced (Zhang et al. 2012). Relying on the knowledge of these and other microbial pathways and modules means that these parts can be both modiﬁed and transferred into other organisms to reengineer it to produce a higher ethanol yield or to produce ethanol by consuming a different sugar (such as hexose or xylose) rather than what it would normally utilize (e.g., glucose). The current research trend in publically and privately funded projects is to investigate the potential use of various species of algae for biofuel production. Algae produce lipids (oil) as a by-product of the process of photosynthesis. The hope is that once the means of harnessing this store of energy is found, algal biofuels may provide an inexpensive alternative source of fuel that can be produced with little more than sunlight, carbon dioxide, and a small amount of water. While advances in synthetic biology research and the understanding of algal alternatives increases, the scaling up of these fuels requires signiﬁcant further research resolving the problems of system optimization and photosynthetic efﬁciency as well as solving ways of producing these synthetic biofuels in quantities suitable for commercial use (Georgianna and Mayﬁeld 2012). A number of other possible organisms have also been considered as particularly suitable for research into the production of synthetic biofuels. Cyanobacteria are another that initially appears promising. Cyanobacteria, like Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, can provide a highly efﬁcient organic system for producing biofuels as they can convert solar energy and carbon dioxide into biofuel molecules (Wang et al. 2013). Cyanobacteria are particularly good candidates because they possess naturally occurring biosynthetic pathways that produce alkane (a key component of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel). At present, research into the use of cyanobacteria for synthetic biofuel production is still in the very early stages and well behind that of algae research. However, research focused on reconﬁguring these to create an organism that produces alka(e)ne at a rate that is double that of the wild type has been shown to be possible. S 2308 Synechocystis mutants have been constructed that overexpress alkane biosynthetic genes. This research demonstrates proof of concept for the potential use of cyanobacteria for biofuel production. If their photosynthetic pathways were reengineered, cyanobacteria may be able to produce alka(e)nes at a highly efﬁcient rate (Wang et al. 2013). Synthetic biofuel production relying on either cyanobacteria or algae may provide a possible alternative to fossil fuels. The ethical consequences on the environment have primarily focused on how this new technology would (by reducing the reliance on the burning of fossil fuels and anthropogenic climate change) contribute to a cleaner, greener planet. Other ethical impacts concerning the potential negative effects (to not only the environment but also on human health) have been raised by Friends of the Earth (2013). Exposure to synthetic biological materials by lab technicians raises a particular set of concerns that centers on both the kinds of products produced by synthetic biology and their potential risks. The potential for accidental ingestion (e.g., breathing aerosol versions of synthetically produced algae biofuel), the unintended transfer of genetic materials through viral and bacterial elements, the inadvertent contamination or dispersal of nanomaterials and nanoparticles by lab technicians, or the potential escape into the environment of such products has been discussed. These are a concern because of the projectible negative consequences but more so for the unexpected and potentially catastrophic impact on human health (e.g., that ingestion of synthetic materials may lead to disastrous unintentional modiﬁcations of the human genome, epigenome, and microbiome) (Hoffman et al. 2013). Production Problems and Solutions: Tricking Biological Systems to Redirect the Process of Evolution Although promising, the reengineering of biological pathways to produce high-yield microbial biofuel factories has encountered some formidable obstacles in virtue of their biological basis. Synthetic Biology and Biofuels Synthetically engineered organisms, circuits, parts, and systems, like their organic counterparts, have the capacity to adapt to new environments and to evolve over generations. Because these engineered synthetic microbes are biological systems that continue to have the propensity to evolve and mutate, understanding how to design an organism that has predictable behavior is difﬁcult. Their functioning is designed according to the interests of the particular application (e.g., biofuel production) within the lab. If these built circuits prove cumbersome for the organism once it is in the natural environment, they will be replaced by more evolutionarily suitable pathways. Engineered circuits created in them that do not provide a beneﬁt to the organism may be disposed of in subsequent generations. That is, if producing the high-yield by-products that they are designed to produce does not provide the organism with an evolutionary advantage or increased fecundity, it is likely that this pathway may be lost in subsequent generations. Once a mutation occurs in a later generation that removes part of the biologically taxing pathway responsible for the high-yield production, these mutated organisms may gain an evolutionary advantage over those with the engineered pathway (Kendig 2012, 2013). Over generations, this would eventually lead to a population that would lack the engineered pathway and one where the mutation would be common. As a consequence of this natural selection, the resulting population would produce a lower biofuel yield (Kendig 2012, 2013). To solve this problem, researchers are currently seeking ways to trick the biological system and redirect the process of evolution for the purposes of producing a higher yield product than the organism would produce (Jia et al. 2010). Finessing the organism’s circuitry so that it is stable in a variety of environmental conditions and continues to produce high-yield products is of paramount importance. Ethical and environmentally responsible release of an organism that is fully characterized in the controlled context and known parameters of the lab to a new and changing context of the environment requires prior knowledge not only of the organism or circuit’s design Synthetic Biology and Biofuels and functionality but also its potential mutability and evolvability in an uncontrolled environment. Ethical Concerns Over the Unpredictability of Potential and Irreversible Impacts on Ecosystems Evolvability and the co-opting of mutability is not just a production problem; it also opens up a number of ethical considerations. These questions make up a more nuanced set of issues that relate speciﬁcally to synthetic biofuel production. Rather than the more often broadly referred to ethical concerns mentioned when discussants claim that this kind of technology should not be advance because it involves scientists “playing God,” these concerns are directly informed through an understanding of the speciﬁcs of biofuel research and production. Much of the worry with regard to co-opting of evolvability is the downstream effects or unforeseen consequences of “meddling” with nature. A frequently used rebuttal to worries that synthetic biologists are “playing God” is the suggestion that farmers have been crossing and breeding livestock, companion breeds of animals, and food crops for a long time and that synbiology is just a technological extension of this. As such, proponents conclude ethical concerns over biologists overreaching in the creation of these synthetically reengineered organisms are thought to be unfounded. The morality of these kinds of synthetic interventions has already been treated to a long and relatively unproblematic beta test in the thousands of years of artiﬁcial breeding. Opponents counter that the new technology is dissimilar enough to cause ethical concerns unrelated to that history. Coalitions such as those that make up the undersigners of the Principles of oversight for synthetic biology (2013) – a document of the International Center for Technology Assessment, ETC Group, and Friends of the Earth – have also been instrumental in the initial ethical discussion surrounding synthetic biology research and concerns about the unpredictability of risks and worries over their possible impacts. This coalition 2309 includes civil, social, labor, as well as religious groups concerned with multiple potential impacts that include those economic and environmental. It raises concerns about the rapidity of scientiﬁc research and innovation in synthetic biology without appropriate regulation or consideration of potential risks. They advocate the explicit use of the precautionary principle, speciﬁc regulations on synthetic biology, assessment of harm to public health and environment, increased access to synthetic biology research and active participation of public fora, liability and accountability of manufacturers of synthetic biology technology, and increased effort to protect the economic interests of environmentally vulnerable groups and countries (Hoffman et al. 2013). The undersigners suggest that in order to preclude potential damage that could result from the products of synthetic biology research, “Governmental bodies, international organizations and relevant parties must immediately implement strong precautionary and comprehensive oversight mechanisms enacting, incorporating and internalizing these basic principles. Until that time, there must be a moratorium on the release and commercial use of synthetic organisms and their products to prevent direct or indirect harm to people and the environment”(Hoffman et al. 2013). This moratorium is justiﬁed by the coalition because of the potential for long-term harm to the environment. The document suggests that the risks to niche degradation may be long-lasting. For instance, synthetic organisms could be the new superinvasive species crowding out other native species within a particular ecological niche. If synthetic organism parts are highly modular, their genes may lead to the contamination of other species by virtue of their high level of transferability within the environment through horizontal gene transfer. The Shape of Ethical Discussion So Far Ethical discussion surrounding synthetic biofuels has come in two sorts so far. The ﬁrst suggests that the ethical issues that synthetic biology addresses are the same as other emerging technologies and S 2310 fundamentally contiguous with those that have been and continue to be discussed. These are the traditional ethical questions of moral behavior, rights and responsibilities, and questions of moral agency. The other suggests that emerging technologies each present fundamentally new sets of ethical issues. The latter suggests that the resolution to these issues requires consideration not only of the ethical reasoning supplied to us by reading Kant, Aristotle, Bentham, Mill, Anscombe, or Hobbes’ approaches to the questions of how should we act or questions concerning what kinds of characteristics are good for someone to have. But they also require engagement with the speciﬁc scientiﬁc research and technology itself in order to fully inform ethical reasoning. Both are required to answer questions such as the following: What are the limits of human intervention within the natural world? Should we intervene and co-opt the selective processes of evolution and bend these to our will? How should we behave as researchers? What responsibilities do we have for the society, the environment, and for the unintended effects of the new technology created? Who owns the products of these types of research or the rights to use the technology once patented? Insofar as synthetic biology is a relatively new form of scientiﬁc research and the applications to biofuel in their early stages, ethical discussion surrounding these is still in the investigative stages of development relying on panoply of reference points to gain traction on new ethical questions. The ethical discussions of synthetic biology research in general and the application to produce biofuels in particular have progressed along very different routes to that of the discussions surrounding genetically modiﬁed foods. The most striking difference has come in the public perception of this new technology and the encouraged exchange between research bodies and the public in open forums. Commissions and research units such as the aforementioned US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, the Hastings Center Ethical Issues in Synthetic Biology project (launched in 2009 and funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation), and the Synthetic Biology and Biofuels SYNBIOSAFE consortium (set up in 2007 and funded by the European Commission) have promoted scientiﬁcally informed ethical discussions that bring together key researchers, policy makers, academics, and the public with the goal that through dialogue there can be increased understanding and appropriate regulation of this new biotechnology in a way that is responsive to the interests of scientiﬁc innovation and public concern. In doing so, these cross-disciplinary bodies aim to focus less on the speculative ethical debates of the potential problematic products or misuses of synthetic biology research. Instead, their foci are on current research problems and issues with practical applications in the not-too-distant future. Open debates which inform the public about current research, objectives, and technological applications rather than spurious conjecturing based on worries derived from science ﬁction and hypothetical slippery slope arguments have been the goal of these commissions and consortia. Towards Scientifically Informed Ethical Discussion The promise of a cheaper, greener alternative to fossil fuels is an attractive application of synthetic biology research. But with the capability to construct organisms for this and other applications comes a veritable ﬂotilla of ethical considerations. Including those already discussed in the foregoing, these concern each stage of development, from research and design to the production, use, regulation, impacts on the environment, modes of release and dissemination, public perception, and marketing. In response to the J. Craig Venter Institute’s 2010 announcement that they had created “synthetic life” by digitally crafting DNA and inserting it into a living bacterium to produce a new selfreplicating bacterium, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, the US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues produced the report, New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies. This report provided guidance and consideration of policies, Synthetic Biology and Biofuels governance, and practices that would enable synthetic biology research and applications of it to be pursued in an “ethically responsible manner” but did not endorse further federal regulations on synthetic biology research (Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues 2010). In doing so, the Presidential Commission followed the recommendations already laid out by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom (Anderson et al. 2012). In the New Directions report, the Presidential Commission set out ﬁve principles to guide discussion of the ethical and social impacts of synthetic biology research and technological applications. The report’s recommendations are framed in terms of these ﬁve principles. These are as follows: intellectual freedom, democratic deliberation, responsible stewardship, and considerations of justice and fairness. With intellectual freedom, responsibility for the implications of synthetic biology research and technological applications is put largely in the hands of the researchers to self-regulate rather than promoting a top-down approach for regulating practice. The US and UK initiatives stress prudence and responsiveness with regard to the emerging area of research still in its infancy. Crucial issues mentioned within the US report focus on responsible stewardship to the world and its occupants, including considerations of nonhuman animals, plants, and future generations, as well as the environment as a whole. Consideration of these groups within the context of a discussion of obligations is not new. Although not cited, the report’s main ethical foci seem to rely signiﬁcantly on philosophical ideas similar to those laid out in 1990 by Edith Brown Weiss in her seminal article, “Our Rights and Obligations to Future Generations for the Environment.” To summarize, Weiss suggests that the rights of each generation are to receive the planet in no worse condition than did the generation that came before it. This would mean that each generation should inherit comparable natural diversity and have 2311 similar access to the environment and its resources as did the previous generation. She suggests that rights and obligations do not arise de novo, but instead derive from an intergenerational relationship that each generation shares with those in the one preceding it as well as those in the subsequent generation yet to come (Weiss 1990). Summary Scarcity of resources and the unsustainability of the continued use of fossil fuels drive the synthetic biological engineering of biofuels. The initial sources of biofuels based on collecting and fermenting the biomass of food crops (such as corn) proved highly controversial. The growth of corn ethanol producers and the increase in food shortage attributed to the subsequent worldwide backlash and contributed to much critical discussion. These ﬁrst-generation biofuel discussions concentrated on the ethical impacts of agricultural land use for biofuel crops and limited water supplies previously used to produce food that were now being used to produce fuel instead. Despite the problems with ﬁrst-generation biofuels, investment in second-generation synthetic biofuels by private companies as well as government support of research (especially in the United States) has been signiﬁcant (Tyner et al. 2011). If the demand and pursuit of liquid transportation fuels continues, synthetically reengineered alternatives which provide functional equivalents to fossil fuels may be the greenest option as they may offer a more renewable avenue to the production of fuel. Although synthetic biofuel production shows much promise as an alternative energy source that does not require the use of non-sustainable feedstocks or expensive carbon sources, its ability to replace fossil fuel consumption rests on developing the technology to produce it economically while reducing any negative environmental impacts. Despite their overuse, contribution to anthropogenic climate change, and the source of frequent international disputes, the replacement of fossil fuels will still rely overwhelmingly on S 2312 economic production of an efﬁcient, high-yield alternative source of energy (Georgianna and Mayﬁeld 2012). As synthetic biology is still a new ﬁeld of research and only some of the potential applications are just being realized, open discussion with scientists, policy makers, and the public may provide the best prospects according to many commissions and consortia in the United States and United Kingdom. Discussion of the actual scientiﬁc research and its accurate dissemination to media and the public would allow productive and democratic exchanges of a well-informed public and a responsive scientiﬁc community collaborating to evaluate the direction of new research. The goal is for these discussions to stimulate active enlightened deliberation directed towards navigating the best route (s) for ensuring the pursuit of this research, critical evaluation of its potential positive and negative impacts. Cross-References ▶ Agricultural Sciences and Ethical Controversies of Biofuels ▶ Biofuels: Ethical Aspects ▶ Hybridity in Agriculture ▶ Land Acquisitions for Food and Fuel ▶ Water, Food, and Agriculture References Alper, H., & Stephanopoulos, G. (2009). Engineering for biofuels: Exploiting innate microbial capacity or importing biosynthetic potential? Nature Reviews Microbiology, 7, 715–723. Amyris Biotechnologies. (2013). Company website at: http://www.amyrisbiotech.com/Innovation/155/Breakt hroughScience. Accessed 15 Mar 2013. Anderson, J., Strelkowa, N., Stan, G.-B., Douglas, T., Savulescu, J., Barahona, M., & Papachristodoulou, A. (2012). Engineering and ethical perspectives in synthetic biology. European Molecular Biology Organization Reports, 13(7), 584–590. Börjesson, P., & Mattiasson, B. (2008). Biogas as a resource-efﬁcient vehicle fuel. Trends in Biotechnology, 26, 7–13. Synthetic Biology and Biofuels Georgianna, R., & Mayﬁeld, S. (2012). Exploiting diversity and synthetic biology for the production of algal biofuels. Nature, 488, 329–335. Hoffman, E., Hanson, J., & Thomas, J. (2013). The principles for the oversight of synthetic biology. Declaration drafted by the Friends of the Earth U.S., International Center for Technology Assessment, ETC Group. http:// libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/ae/9/2287/2/Principles _for_the_oversight_of_synthetic_biology.pdf. Accessed 9 Nov 2013. Jia, K., Zhang, Y., & Li, Y. (2010). Systematic engineering of microorganisms to improve alcohol tolerance. Engineering in Life Sciences, 10(5), 422–429. Kendig, C. (2012). Philosophical investigations of diverse methods in synthetic biology. Presentation at the Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT) synthetic biology workshop. Ashburn: Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Campus. http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?Awar dNumber=112727. Accessed 22 June 2012. Kendig, C. (2013). How synthetic biology reconﬁgures biological understanding and ethical categories. Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT) synthetic biology workshop. Ashburn: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Farm Research Campus. http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?Awar dNumber=1127271. Accessed 28 June 2013. Martin, V., Pitera, D., Withers, S., Newman, J., & Keasling, J. (2003). Engineering a mevalonate pathway in Escherichia coli for production of terpenoids. Nature Biotechnology, 21, 796–802. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. (2010). New directions: The ethics of synthetic biology and emerging technologies. Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofﬁce. Preston, C. (2008). Synthetic biology: Drawing a line in Darwin’s sand. Environmental Values, 17, 23–40. Thompson, P. (2012). The agricultural ethics of biofuels: Climate ethics and mitigation arguments. Poiesis and Praxis, 8, 169–189. Tyner, W., Dooley, F., & Viteri, D. (2011). Alternative pathways for fulﬁlling the RFS mandate. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 93, 465–472. Wang, W., Liu, X., & Lu, X. (2013). Engineering cyanobacteria to improve photosynthetic production of alka(e)nes. Biotechnology for Biofuels, 6, 69. http:// www.biotechnologyforbiofuels.com/content/6/1/69. Accessed 11 Jan 2013. Weiss, E. (1990). Our rights and obligations to future generations for the environment. The American Journal of International Law, 84(1), 198–207. Weiss, R. (2007, December 17). Synthetic DNA on the brink of yielding new life forms. Washington, DC: The Washington Post. Zhang, F., Carothers, J., & Keasling, J. (2012). Design of a dynamic sensor-regulator system for production of chemicals and fuels derived from fatty acids. Nature Biotechnology, 30(4), 354–360. Synthetic Meat Synthetic Meat David B. Dillard-Wright Department of History, Political Science and Philosophy, University of South Carolina Aiken, Aiken, SC, USA 2313 using this process and that nutritional value could also be improved, since the composition of synthetic meat could be completely predetermined. A number of obstacles must be addressed before laboratory-based meat reaches the grocery store: the procedures must be perfected and brought up to scale, and the public must be reassured that synthetic meat is every bit as “real” as meat grown on an animal. Synonyms Cultured meat; Hydroponic meat; In vitro meat; Shmeat; Test-tube meat; Victimless meat Introduction The goal of creating viable synthetic meat in the laboratory and eventually in the factory has been driven by economic, environmental, and ethical concerns about the current state of animal agriculture. Livestock production ranks as one of the leading causes of deforestation, global warming, pollution, and water depletion, problems that will be exacerbated as the expanding middle classes in countries like China and India demand a Westernstyle, meat-heavy diet. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that “Global production of meat is projected to more than double from 229 million tons in 1999/01 to 465 million tons in 2050” and that the “environmental impact per unit of livestock production must be cut by half, just to avoid increasing the level of damage beyond its present level” (UNFAO 2006). This technology, currently in its infancy with, as yet, no viable commercial product, takes animal fat and protein cells grown on a collagen scaffold in a nutrient medium and then shapes the cells into a product resembling its predecessor in conventional agriculture. Most likely, hamburgers and nuggets would be lab grown long before steak, since growing complete muscle tissue, with its complex network of membranes and ﬁlaments, would require a three-dimensional architecture and not just a single layer of cells. Advocates suggest that animal welfare and environmental considerations would be addressed History and Technique Winston Churchill ﬁrst wrote about lab-grown meat in his 1932 book, Thoughts and Adventures, musing that it would be much more efﬁcient to simply grow a chicken breast rather than a whole chicken. Churchill had probably heard of Alexis Carrell at the Rockefeller Institute, who kept a piece of chicken heart tissue alive in the laboratory for 20 years (Levine 2008). Cultured meat has appeared in a number of science ﬁction novels, including Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants (1952), William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003). While never reaching the widespread use depicted in novels, the technology needed to produce meat in the laboratory continued to advance throughout the twentieth century. In vitro techniques have been a standard part of laboratory-based science since 1907, when Ross Harrison cultivated frog nerve cells in a lymph medium at Johns Hopkins University (Corning Life Sciences 2007). Since then, many practical and research applications for the much-improved technique have been discovered, including investigating the normal growth and development of cells, testing new drugs and products for toxicity and effectiveness, producing biological factors like proteins for therapeutic use, and growing tissues for treatment of wounds and diseases (Chaudry 2011). The chief difference between earlier forms of cell tissue and the technology needed for laboratory-based meat is the sheer scale necessary to produce food from this procedure, although industrial levels of biological compounds have been created in the past, as in the S 2314 polio vaccine of the 1950s and its other vaccine successors. Notable attempts have already been made to take in vitro cultivation of cells into the domain of food production. The ﬁrst patent on in vitro meat for human consumption was recorded by the European Patent Ofﬁce in 1999 on behalf of three citizens from the Netherlands. Several experiments have taken place to make the technology viable. Morris Benjaminson at Touro College in New York experimented with growing goldﬁsh ﬁllets in research funded by NASA, with the hope that eventually astronauts could grow their own food in space without the need for processing animal excrement in addition to human waste (Sample 2002). Benjaminson took strips of ﬂesh from very large goldﬁsh and kept them in a serum derived from fetal cows and successfully coaxed the strips of muscle into growth (Sample 2002). Benjaminson dreams of a day when countertop bioreactors, “like a coffee maker,” will produce meat for consumers right in the home (McIlroy 2006). Research conducted by Mark Post at Maastricht University in the Netherlands uses muscle stem cells in the hope that one day an artiﬁcial hamburger could be created by blending these cultured muscle cells with cultured fat cells. The already differentiated muscle stem cells, which repair muscle damage in a normal organism, do not reproduce indeﬁnitely, so new cells (harvested from living animals) would need to be added continually to make the procedure work commercially (Krijnen 2012). After some problems initially with the pale color of the experimental product, Post held the ﬁrst public taste test of a lab-grown hamburger in August of 2013. Now that the concept of lab-grown meat has been proven in labs, future generations of researchers will need to build the technology on a larger scale, ensure that the appearance and ﬂavor of the product meet consumer demand, and ﬁnd partnerships with companies and investors to bring the product to market. Especially important will be the development of serum-free techniques, as the existing fetal bovine serum presents concerns about animal ethics as well as cost. The serum substitute Ultroser G, although also Synthetic Meat costly, has shown some promise in research trials: a mushroom-based growing medium could theoretically be developed as a low-cost alternative (Dattar and Betti 2010). A Potential Solution to Inefficiency Conﬁned Animal Feedlot Operations (CAFOs) and even more traditional grazing practices have a low rate of conversion from silage or feed to the eventual meat that makes it to the dining table. Although estimates vary widely, “beef” has an approximately 8:1 feed ratio, taking 8 lb of feed to produce 1 lb of ﬂesh, with “pork” more efﬁcient at a 3:1 feed ratio, and chicken and ﬁsh falling in line at about 2:1. The eventual cost to producers will change from season to season with the cost of grain, the cost of petroleum, and prevailing interest rates. Factors like nutritional balance, air temperatures, and daily exercise also affect the amount of food necessary to produce meat. Traditional agricultural practices like rotational grazing reduce the need for processed and transported food, but such practices constitute a small minority of the meat that goes to market. Even lacking humane and environmental factors, meat producers have economic incentives to increase the bulk of the animal with a lower amount of feed. Lab-produced meat advocates suggest that an in vitro life form, devoid of the need for locomotion and sensation, would “waste” less energy compared to traditional farm animals. Sewage lagoons and other manure management problems created by intensive livestock farming would be eliminated, and with them methane pollution, a large contributor to global warming. Experts project that the process of growing lab-based meat would be faster than the time required to bring a living animal to maturity at the time of slaughter, and because such facilities could be stacked vertically, land use would also be reduced (Dattar and Betti 2010). By growing only muscle and fat cells necessary to produce a reasonable simulacrum of the meat-based products that consumers want, the amount of inputs (such as water and nutrients) needed to produce in vitro meat would be reduced. Synthetic Meat Animal agriculture has already industrialized to a great degree, and lab-produced meat continues this process even further by shifting from an animal with biological habits to industrial tissues that can be readily tailored to the needs of the factory. The labor-intensive and comparatively slow process of slaughter and dismemberment can be eliminated altogether in favor of a completely streamlined production of “steaks,” “nuggets,” and “cutlets” that resemble and taste like their predecessors in the old agriculture. Transportation costs would be reduced by bringing the growth process to the same physical location as production and packaging, eliminating the need for the shipment of live animals. Nutrient material would presumably still need to be shipped, but savings could be enacted by bringing in vitro facilities closer to grain producers who would presumably still be needed to produce the nutrient bath needed by the in vitro life form. Reduction of Animal Suffering Proponents of artiﬁcial meat consider it to be a “victimless,” harm-free form of agriculture (McHugh 2010). Indeed, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has offered a one million dollar reward to the ﬁrst lab that can produce a “real artiﬁcial” chicken nugget (PETA 2012; McHugh 2010). It should be noted that in vitro procedures are not and probably will never be fully free from ties to living animals, as the stem cells used in the process, which have already differentiated into tissue types, must be harvested from somewhere. The techniques also use serum derived from living animals in order to instruct the cultured cells to replicate. To date, labbased meat experiments actually amount to animal-intensive undertakings. The perfection of the technology may reduce this dependency but will probably not sever all ties to traditional, living organisms. PETA support notwithstanding, many vegan animal advocates will not accept the claims of lab-produced meat as “harm-free.” Vegan and vegetarian critics of animal agriculture insist that feeding something already edible to animals constitutes an inherently wasteful 2315 practice that should be eliminated. Food crops like corn and soybeans could be fed directly to humans, resulting in much less waste than converting foodstuffs into meat. The cultural habit of meat eating dies hard, however, and many animal advocates would be willing to accept lab-grown meat as a way of transitioning longterm meat eaters away from conventionally grown meat products. Lab-grown meat would likely result in the continued use of animals in its production, but nowhere near the number of animals killed in current agricultural practices. Ethical arguments about animal suffering are intrinsically linked to the above-mentioned questions of efﬁciency, as the increased efﬁciency of lab-grown meat would reduce the need for industrial farming. Containment of Disease and Reduced Use of Antibiotics Unlike conventional animal agriculture, in vitro meat could be grown in a sterile environment, reducing the risk of animal-borne pathogens and removing the need for antibiotics (Dattar and Betti 2010). Food scares like the outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, popularly known as mad cow disease) and instances of E. coli contamination have raised concerns about the safety risks of today’s food systems, which tend to aggregate plant and animal foods from many different points of origin, increasing the risk of cross-contamination (Jin et al. 2004; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2012). Lab-grown meat could be cultivated, processed, packaged, and sealed at the point of origin, significantly reducing the potential for the spread of disease. Animal agriculture currently accounts for upwards of 70% of all antibiotic use, which contributes to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria (Hielig et al. 2002). Although the exact amount of “epidemiologic ‘spillover’” from farms to humans of resistant strains is uncertain, “there is no question that the phenomenon does exist” (Hielig et al. 2002). Such heavy antibiotic use stems from feeding cattle – ordinarily S 2316 ruminants – corn and soybeans that they cannot digest easily, resulting in ulceration and infection that must be treated. The stress of crowded and unsanitary conﬁnement also renders animals more susceptible to illness. Antibiotic use makes meat production more proﬁtable, but it has a tremendous negative impact on public health (Hielig et al. 2002). Doctors and researchers must continually search for new drugs as bacteria become more and more resistant to the existing antibiotics. Nutrition and Obstacles to Public Acceptance A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, combining the results of two previous studies with over 100,000 subjects followed over decades, reported an increase in mortality from cancer and cardiovascular disease (as well as an increase in overall deaths) as a result of consuming red meat (Pan et al. 2012). Risk of mortality was slightly higher across categories for processed meat than for unprocessed meat (Pan et al. 2012). The study reported that 9.3% of deaths in men and 7.6% deaths of women in these cohort groups could be prevented if red meat consumption were kept below 0.5 servings per day (Pan et al. 2012). Parsing the exact implications of this study for synthetic meat would require additional research, speciﬁcally, an isolation of the detrimental nutritional aspects of conventional meat and a comparative nutritional study of traditional and synthetic meat. Lab-grown meat could, in principle, be manufactured according to any nutritional proﬁle, but nutrition would need to be matched against the desired ﬂavor and appearance to meet consumer demand. Reducing fat content, for example, would make the ﬁnal product tougher and less palatable, particularly for North Americans and Europeans, who have grown accustomed to corn-fed beef and pork. If the public could be sold on the beneﬁts of lab-grown meat in terms of its nutritional and ethical value (by no means a foregone conclusion), the question would still remain as to the “ick” factor of in vitro meat. Genetically modiﬁed Synthetic Meat foods still spark a great deal of controversy, even though consumers have to date largely lost the ﬁght for labeling requirements. “For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States” have contained ingredients from genetically modiﬁed plants (Harmon and Pollack 2012), a fact quietly lost on most shoppers. It could be that the inevitable ﬁght over synthetic meat would proceed initially with a great deal of bluster followed by the same grudging acceptance. Most likely, lab-grown meat would exist alongside traditional meat and plant-based meat substitutes as a new niche in the marketplace. The question remains as to whether this small segment of the market would be large enough to get the economics of artiﬁcial meat to work well enough to sustain production. Consumers have had decades to adjust to vegetable-based meat substitutes, and the available products have improved greatly in taste and texture. Meat substitutes from companies like Morningstar Farms and Gardein have enjoyed increased popularity and appear in the freezer sections of most grocery stores, although unfamiliarity with the products as well as concerns over taste and texture continue to keep meat eaters away (Hoek et al. 2011). Ethical and environmental arguments do not appear to sway meat eaters to try vegetable-based fake meat, and researchers contend that improved taste would be more likely to do the trick (Hoek et al. 2011). If lab-grown meat approximated the taste of traditional meat no better than plant-based meat substitutes, it seems unlikely to succeed in the marketplace. To overcome consumer reluctance about the newness of the product, it would have to taste virtually identical to traditional meat and compete in price, taste, and appearance with plant-based meat substitutes. These hurdles will be very high, though not impossible, to overcome, although it may take years if not decades for this to happen. Beyond questions of taste, cultural practices around food and the common table also stand in the way of an acceptance of lab-produced meat. The home and hearth are identiﬁed with the organic and the natural and a pastoral ideal that may not reﬂect the reality of today’s factory Synthetic Meat farming. The idea of producing meat in a sterile facility further removes food from the landscape in a way that many consumers would ﬁnd unsettling. The nature/culture divide may not exist in an absolute sense, but it still informs the way that people think about food. Wholesomeness of food products is tied to an imaginary sense of naturalness very much related to the family farms of the early twentieth century. Lab-produced meat has some very high, though not insurmountable, cultural barriers to be overcome. Since the public has accepted the industrialization of meat production, the transition to lab-grown meat can be viewed as the next logical step in this process. Summary Lab-grown meat has numerous potential advantages over the current practices of large-scale animal agriculture. Environmental problems like deforestation and pollution could be mitigated by a switch to synthetic meat, and the new technology has the potential to alleviate, though perhaps not eliminate, animal suffering. Additional beneﬁts include lower risk of animalborne disease and a more nutritious product. The current state of the technology relies on the cultivation of muscle cells in a collagen matrix, using fetal bovine serum as a nutrient bath. If in vitro meat is to become a mainstay, the technology must be scaled upward to produce consumer quantities at a lower cost. Many objections will have to be addressed, including remaining doubts about animal welfare, the perceived unnaturalness of the product, and anxieties about the newness and difference of labbased food. Cross-References ▶ Aesthetic Value, Art, and Food ▶ Agricultural Ethics ▶ Animal Welfare: A Critical Examination of the Concept ▶ Biopharming ▶ Climate Change, Ethics, and Food Production 2317 ▶ Fake Meat ▶ Food Risks ▶ Gustatory Pleasure and Food ▶ In Vitro Meat ▶ Meat: Ethical Considerations References Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012). E. Coli (Escherichia coli) homepage. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov Chaudry, A. (2011). Cell culture. Science Creative Quarterly, 6. Retrieved from http://www.scq.ubc.ca/cellculture/ Corning Life Sciences. (2007). Celebrating a century of cell culture (1907–2007). Retrieved from www. corning.com/lifesciences Dattar, I., & Betti, M. (2010). Possibilities for an in vitro meat production system. Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies, 11, 13–22. Harmon, A., & Pollack, A. (2012, May 4). Battle brewing over labeling of genetically modiﬁed food. New York Times, p. A1. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com Hielig, S., Lee, P., & Breslow, L. (2002). Curtailing antibiotic use in agriculture. Western Journal of Medicine, 176(1), 9–11. Hoek, A., Luning, P., Weijzen, P., Engels, W., Kok, F., & de Graaf, C. (2011). Replacement of meat by meat substitutes: A survey on person- and product-related factors in consumer acceptance. Appetite, 56(3), 662–673. Jin, H., Skriptchenko, A., & Koo, W. (2004). The effects of the BSE outbreak in the United States on the beef and cattle industry. Fargo: Center for Agricultural Policy and Trade Studies, North Dakota State University. Krijnen, M. (2012). The need for meat. Maastricht University Web Magazine. Retrieved from www. webmagazine.maastrichtuniversity.nl Levine, K. (2008, May 20). Lab-grown meat a reality, but who will eat it. National Public Radio. Retrieved from www.npr.org McHugh, S. (2010). Real artiﬁcial: Tissue-cultured meat, genetically modiﬁed farm animals and ﬁctions. Conﬁgurations, 18, 181–197. McIlroy, A. (2006, March 27). Will consumers have a beef with test-tube meat? Globe and Mail, p. A1. Pan, A., Qi, S., Bernstein, A., Schulze, M., Manson, J., Stampfer, M., Willett, W., & Hu, F. (2012). Red meat consumption and mortality: Results from 2 prospective cohort studies. Archives of Internal Medicine, 172(7), 555–563. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. (2012). PETA offers $1 million reward to ﬁrst to make in vitro meat. Retrieved from www.peta.org Sample, I. (2002, March). Fish ﬁllets grow in tank. New Scientist. Retrieved from www.newscientist.com S 2318 Synthetic Milk United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. (2006). Livestock’s long shadow: Environmental issues and options. Retrieved from www.fao.org van der Weele, C. (2010). Global food security: Ethical and legal challenges (pp. 507–512). Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers. isbn:9789086861545. Synthetic Milk ▶ Clean Milk System of Rice Intensification ▶ Political Agronomy Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing Janet McIntyre School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia Synonyms Co-determination; Interconnectedness; dependency; Interrelatedness Inter- extent that our freedom and diversity does not undermine the rights of others or future generations of life. This section provides an overview of systemic ethics, based on considering the consequences of our thinking and practice for ourselves, others, and the environment. It sums up research on systemic thinking and practice (praxis) on reframing sociocultural values imbedded in not only democratic rights but also democratic responsibilities to others (including the voiceless and sentient beings), the environment, and future generations. Caring stewardship is a process resulting from thinking and practice based on an understanding that what we do to others and to the environment, we do to ourselves and to our children. The land is placed ﬁrst by First Nations internationally (Rose 1996). Post-colonialism and Indigenous knowing is important in understanding what stewardship entails for our relationships with others, the environment, and the next generation of life. Systemic ethics underpins the case that citizenship rights need to be scaled up to enable people to think in terms of the global commons on which we all depend for our survival. Contractual rights – as deﬁned by the social contract between the citizens and the nation-state – do not go far enough to protect common needs, nor does the social contract protect the global commons (which includes air, water, soil, and the genetic code of life). The understanding of who we are and how we relate to one another is a starting point for exploring “our identity as caretakers.” Introduction Recognition of Our Dependency on the Land This section makes the case for systemic ethics to guide a new form of democracy and governance to protect the common good and the global commons, based on recognition that caretaking for well-being is “an idea whose time has come” (http://www.health.govt.nz/pub lication/idea-whose-time-has-come-new-opportuni ties-health-impact-assessment-new-zealand-publicpolicy). The axiom on which systemic ethics for caretaking is based is that we can be free and diverse to the The environment affects people through the quality of the air they breathe, water supplies, and agriculture, and people in turn affect the environment through the way they think and practice. The way we think and practice has ethical implications for the way in which this generation uses the planet’s resources and has implications for future generations of life (see Hulme 2010). We have all heard the expression “Less is more” as applied to unpretentious good taste – rather than poor taste based on ostentatious extravagance and greed Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing which leads to impoverishment – and in all probability life as we know it. The Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, South Africa (2004, p. 41), cites Rosenberg: current patterns of consumption by 20% of the world’s richest people indicate that they consume 45% of the meat and ﬁsh, own 87% of the cars, use 84% of paper and 75% of all energy resources. . .. They also generate 75% of the annual global pollution. Different interest groups have different perceptions, emotions, and values about the consumption and the nature of property and power to make decisions ranging from neo-Marxist arguments developed by Noam Chomsky(2005) and John Pilger (2002) about new forms of colonialism to arguments about the crisis and collapse of capitalism, to social democratic arguments about the reform of the market (Held 2004; Wilkinson and Pickett 2009), and to green democratic arguments about the way people can mobilize change (Dryzek 2010) and Indigenous standpoints (Atkinson 2002) on the long-term implications of inequity and greed –some of which have been taken up by communitarian (Etzioni 2004) views on global stewardship and, most importantly, critical reframing (Hulme 2009, 2011; Beck 1997). Where one places oneself on the continuum of values has implications for the governance of people and resources based on the way property and consumption are deﬁned and for the inclusion of the marginalized in policy decisions. Furthermore, Urry (2007) highlights the implications of living in a world where the majority are urban based and reliant on the carbon economy for cooling and the transport of their food to the city: . . . the world went urban on 23 May, 2007, this being ‘transition day’, when the world’s urban population exceeded the rural for the ﬁrst time. One consequence is that the proportion of the world’s population that are poor is inexorably rising, with the proliferation of massive ‘global slums’ . . .. (Urry 2007, p. 197) Urry raises the prospect of ‘failed city states: unable to cope with oil shortages and the droughts, heat waves, extreme weather events, ﬂooding, desertiﬁcation and so on. Their instabilities spread across 2319 borders, affecting neighbouring regimes through forced migrations, weakened public health and degraded conditions of life. (Paskal 2007; Urry 2010, p. 197) The Sydney Peace prize winner Vandana Shiva sums up the challenge for this century as one of preventing the commodiﬁcation of life (see http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOfM7QD7-kk, http://www.navdanya.org/news/229-awesome, http://www.vandanashiva.org/). Multinational companies and the WTO have made it possible to patent the conditions of life, thereby causing almost a quarter of a million suicides by Indian farmers who cannot afford to purchase the seeds and the pesticides that are needed (despite the claims by the manufacturers). Furthermore, the attempt to criminalize farmers who store old varieties of seed could lead to very vulnerable food monocultures. The idea that the very basis for life – seeds and genes – can be patented is part of the process of commodifying people, animals, and the fabric of life. Crish and Fayne (2010) stress the costs of declining agriculture which are felt by women and children in the cities. Most of whom survive through social support networks and informal trading – estimated to be 500,000 traders in SA (2010, p. 12) and 70% are women. They cite the International Labour Organization (2003): Street Traders and Their Organization. According to the latter, extreme poverty, prostitution, and AIDS are the result of food insecurity, and children have less protein and less micronutrients – iron, iodine, and vitamins. Agricultural production has contracted in South Africa. “Life expectancy actually declined over the past 40 years in . . . six states in . . . sub-Saharan Africa: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.” 40-year Trends Analysis Shows Poor Countries Making Faster Development Gains. UNDP 4 November 2010 http://hdr.undp. org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/news/title,21577, en.html. Accessed 2 February 2011. In South Africa, Crish and Fayne (2010) argue that cash, not rural, agriculture is the way in which the majority feed themselves in South Africa. For example, “in 2000 only 5% of all South African S 2320 households used agriculture to supplement household food. . ..” By 2020, the urban populations of less developed countries will exceed rural populations and continue to climb – three billion more will soon be in the cities of the developing world. Food can be the single largest expense in households – 39% of the average household expenses. Internationally, the global ﬁnancial crisis combined with the effects of climate change will lead to higher levels of starvation. In South Africa alone, farming jobs have contracted from one million workers in 1993 to approximately 660,000 workers at the end of 2010. The nongovernmental organization coalition found that “life is getting harder for the rural poor” and that female-headed households are amongst the poorest. Stunting and infant mortality have “risen from 48 to 54 per thousand for Africans,” while “for whites it fell from 7.4 to 7.3 per thousand.” Ethically, the focus ought not to be merely on poverty and food security, but instead on the extreme wealth of some which contrasts with the underfed and the starving two thirds of the world’s population. Overconsumption and obesity are a result of both life choices and life chances. The link between obesity and capitalism is clearly the result of resource- or time-poor people who do minimal exercise and rely on fast food. The challenge for developed and developing nations is to achieve or maintain: • Access to safe housing (including energy and water), appropriate education, and employment to enable social and environmental justice; but within • Livable cities that are in turn supported by • Sustainable regions that support agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry, and ﬁshing. The impacts of climate change (and possible actions to minimize the impacts) present a complex problem to communities and governments around the world. The challenges facing the most marginalized in the community are challenges that could be suffered more widely as the impact of systemically linked social, economic, and environmental challenges leads to accelerated changes to the livability of cities and regions on Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing which they depend. Climate change will affect the standard of living that is taken for granted by the privileged (Fiona Stanley, Hawke Oration lecture 17 November 2008). Stewardship philosophy needs to be reapplied (see Ottawa Health charter 1986, http://www. who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/previous/ ottawa/en/; Bruntland Report 1987, http://www. un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm). The social contract protects citizens within the nation-state, but those who do not vote (young people and the disabled) rely on the care of others. Those who fall outside the mantle of the nationstate remain without protection. In more equal societies, people consume less and are less status conscious. Some scholars (Dryzek 2010) propose that not achieving those simultaneous aims affects human rights and the groundswell of democracy that seeks to limit the effects of climate change through social and environmental justice. The Club of Rome research needs to be extended to engage with global citizens, which is perhaps one of the reasons it did not gain traction. Participants need to consider issues in terms of expanded pragmatism (namely, the consequences for their own children) which could have helped people develop the will to make changes in their own lives and to lobby for environmental issues. People need to want and demand “the impossible” (http://www. salon.com/2011/10/24/judith_butler_at_occupy_ wall_street/), namely, affordable food and responsible state-market and civil society coalitions. The Capabilities Approach Guides Systemic Ethics Systemic ethics (McIntyre-Mills 2010) is based on understanding the social, economic, and environmental consequences of: • The extreme luxury enjoyed by the few is at the expense of the majority in this generation (Davies and World Institute 2008) and at the expense of the next generation. • The zero-sum approach of “us/them” thinking leads to shifting responsibility and blame for resource use and resource management. Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing • The denial of the links across the social and environmental system in relation to the consumption of energy through wasteful living. We need to move beyond debate couched in mutually exclusive narratives and recognize that we can be free and diverse to the extent that our freedom and diversity does not undermine the rights of others or the next generation of life. The limits to diversity are set by our dependency on the land of which we are part. The threefold aim of systemic ethics is to make a case for: • Processes and structures that enable regional, transnational democratic dialogue on difﬁcult issues of social justice and sustainability • Enabling participants to consider the consequences of socioeconomic decisions for this generation of life and the next • Controlling rights so they cannot override responsibilities to save resources for the next generation The test for the moral law is being prepared to live with decisions if they were to be applied to oneself and one’s own children. This is the basis of social contractualism developed by John Rawls (1999) who explains in “The Law of Peoples” that this “veil of ignorance” approach is the basis for liberal democracy. The problem is that the social contract is too limited to take into account the needs of the powerless, such as the disabled, children, and animals. Compartmentalized thinking undermines accountability and risk management. ‘A priori’ means ethics based on the moral law and a sense of duty – irrespective of the consequences. Traditionally, idealism and Kantian ethics is considered to be focused on the duty of human beings. In this section, a case is made for duty – based on considering the consequences of decisions for this generation and the next. Kant’s “moral law” focused on human beings. The humanist idea of respect (based on treating people as ends in themselves and not as a means to an end) has been translated into practice in limited ways. 2321 A case needs to be made for extending the social contract, because it is inadequate to protect the environment. Furthermore, it does not address the interests of citizens who are young, disabled, or members of other species (Nussbaum 2006). The contract is not extended to noncitizens. By focusing on the future generation of life, we can extend our time frame and our sense of solidarity. Without power, the potential remains for people to be silenced or treated as commodities. Controlling consumption requires changing bad habits which in turn requires the political will to transform praxis. This has implications for transforming governance and democracy to ensure that the market is not allowed to destroy the life chances of the many for the beneﬁt of the few. Emergence is the ability to escape the trap of our own thinking, to cite Vickers (in Beer 1974, p. 252): “the trap is a function of the nature of the trapped.” According to his theory of “recursive consciousness,” we are able to emerge from our entrapment through making connections and realizing that we have the capability to achieve transcendence as we become more conscious. Consideration of the question “how should we live?” ought to be guided by considering the consequences – not only for our own life, but the consequences for our neighbors and future generations of life. What we decide, how we decide, and who we decide to include in a conversation need to be guided by careful questioning and respectful dialogue. Hulme (2011) characterizes a single focus narrative as reductionist and stresses that we need to be aware of different narratives on climate change, in order to enhance our resilience and our ability to think about our thinking. The capabilities approach takes its start from the Aristotelian/Marxian conception of the human being as a social and political being, who ﬁnds fulﬁllment in relations with others (Nussbaum 2006, p. 85). Rose (1996, 2004) argues that a ﬁrst step towards building our capability is to understand our role as caretakers. This requires recognizing the colonial mindset without adopting a naïve approach that one culture has all the answers. The challenge is to understand that “we are the S 2322 land” – and that measuring a carbon footprint is merely a response to the problems we have created through extraction of surplus from the land and labor. The economic bottom line of proﬁt needs to be replaced with well-being, based on systemic ethics, rooted in respect for personal and planetary well-being. We deny that “we are the land” and that – along with all life – we return to the elements of life when we die. We become the ancestors and nurture the land from which new life grows. Caretaking can also be assisted by the so-called Tuvalu test developed by physicists (Murray et al. 2007) which helps policymakers understand that human beings are systemically interconnected and dependent on the environment. It provides a step towards appreciating social, economic, and environmental accounting and accountability to others. The test suggests that we need to consider how our carbon choices make a difference to others. Carbon choices made in developed nations impact on rising sea levels, for example, that impact on agriculture and food security. Systemic ethics addresses emotions, values, and perceptions when making decisions, because emotions are one of the building blocks of consciousness (Greenﬁeld 2000). To be able to address complex wicked problems, we need to address values and emotions. Scenarios, narratives, and art can be used to help us explore complexity and our emotions. Ethical literacy can be assisted by asking questions, in order to draw on many kinds of knowledge (see McIntyreMills 2010, drawing on and adapting West Churchman 1979), and striving to match areas of concern to areas of knowledge that will enhance well-being by considering the following: • Subjective ideas that are brought into intersubjective processes. • Logical relationships across ideas. • Empirical data for the big (broad) and small (detailed) picture. • Idealism (not thinking about the consequences), because the moral law states we need to treat people as ends in themselves and not a means to an end and the capabilities of sentient beings (Nussbaum 2006). Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing • Intersubjectivity, based on compassion, care for the voiceless, and meaningful communication with those who can engage in dialectical relationships that explore one argument versus another argument and then cocreate shared meanings within context. • Caretaking considerations are based on considering the consequences for this generation of life and the next which leads to the best integrated response drawn from diverse ideas. As human animals, we have evolved as Homo sapiens sapiens. Human beings are the so-called ‘twice wise’ who are ‘capable of thinking about our thinking’ (Banathy 2000). We human beings are the designers – for better or worse. But our appreciation that we are co-determined by the environment no longer guides (our) designs. This also has implications for policy designs that take into account regional considerations and our systemic interconnectedness. Indigenous peoples the world over have expressed a spiritual connection with the environment based on both fear and reverence. Systemic ethics is rooted in an appreciation of our dependency on nature and recognition of Indigenous wisdom, based on an understanding of the notion of caring for the land. Culture, design, and tools must be used to adapt to the environment. Today, the human species tries to adapt the environment to the so-called needs of a deiﬁed, reiﬁed market. This is unsustainable. Instead, we must use our creativity to protect the land. Research into participatory governance for social and environmental justice is based on testing out ideas and considering “if-then” scenarios to enhance the capability of people to think about the consequences of their decisions for others and the next generation of life. “If-then” scenarios need to take into account the social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental dimensions of an issue. The ‘enemies within’ refers to human values, namely, religion, morality, politics, and aesthetics (West Churchman 1979) that ﬁlter our understanding of the world and that affect our emotional understanding of the world. Ethical decisions need to avoid polarizing emotion versus reason Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing and to accept that emotions have played an important role in enabling cooperation and communication across the evolutionary continuum. This requires the ability to ask questions and consider ‘if then’ scenarios (see Ulrich 1983). Greenﬁeld (2000, p. 21) argues that emotions and feelings are the most basic aspects of consciousness. She calls them “the building blocks,” and when we temper our emotions through thinking through implications of “acting out” passions, we are able to become more mindful or conscious. Emotions can limit our consciousness, but they can also alert us to issues that we need to think about. Passion and compassion are the ﬂip sides of one another. The more connections we can make, the better our thinking, our policy processes, and our governance outcomes will be. Nussbaum deﬁnes quality of life and development in terms of ideals, and she recognizes the emotional dimension of ethical thinking in both personal and public lives. A new form of green democracy and governance needs to be designed which takes into account both (a) a priori and (b) a posteriori approaches to promote systemic ethical stewardship (see an example of praxis to reduce consumption by the privileged living in the urban environment; click here for access to the video (http://www.dropbox.com/sh/q5750v9ilibnokc/ zEcunDKP6R)). Both increased equality and increased control could make a difference. The former requires the will to make policy that supports both democracy and sustainability. This requires ethical decisions based on both a priori and a posteriori ethics. Norms need to be institutionalized through governance. The problem of engaging large groups of diverse interest groups is threefold. The tendency to think in linear, systematic terms is exacerbated by an attempt to summarize ideas, rather than exploring and engaging with people to enable them to think about their values and about the interconnected consequences of their choices (Hulme 2009; Vickers 1983). Stiglitz et al. (2010), the past vice president of the World Bank, along with his colleagues have stressed the systemic nature of social, economic, and environmental challenges. Stiglitz et al. 2323 (2011, p. 15) use a multidimensional measure of well-being spanning: 1. Material living standards (income, consumption, and wealth) 2. Health 3. Education 4. Personal activities including work 5. Political voice and governance 6. Social connections and relationships 7. Environment (present and future conditions) 8. Insecurity of an economy as well as a physical nature Stiglitz has stressed (at the invitation of the Australian Productivity Commission) that the bottom line is well-being – this requires building stocks for the future (Stiglitz et al. 2010) to protect the basis of life. Biospheres are regions which are currently protected by the United Nations; they have the potential to be scaled up as overlapping regions. Current forms of engagement on sustainability issues involving large groups of diverse stakeholders have failed. This is evident from the failed United Nations Copenhagen Summit (COP 15) and at the Cancun Conference in 2010 (COP 16) which were unable to draw on the “wisdom of the people” (Christakis 2004) or to achieve signiﬁcant governance controls. Dahl’s (1967) pessimism about choosing nested systems of governance – because democracy was designed for the citystate – has long been overturned by the necessity to develop an understanding of our interconnectedness across many cities and that the cities are dependent upon the land. The Copenhagen Summit (2009), Cancun (2010), and Durban (2011) remain a continuing source of inconclusive discussion. It demonstrates the need to develop a means to enable large groups of people to explore the implications of complex challenges such as poverty, climate change, and competition for resources and then to reach sustainable decisions. The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit illustrates that even when organizations try to include diverse stakeholders and diverse viewpoints, the challenge remains as to how to include diverse viewpoints. S 2324 The aim of ethical governance is to ﬁnd a way to manage consumption through reducing the size of the carbon footprint of businesses, government, and domestic users, as reﬂected in governance codes that reward living in a sustainable way in each local council area. The next decade requires decisive socioeconomic intervention (Stern 2006, 2009; Lovelock 2009) to discover the processes and governance structures that enable social justice and sustainability, in order to reduce consumption and thus to enhance social and environmental resilience. Systemic Ethics for Caretaking Systemic ethics for caretaking requires developing the capability to think through the consequences of decisions for the long term within and beyond the boundaries of the nation-state. It requires extending the spatial and temporal dimensions of our thinking and practice. Furthermore, it requires protecting the next generation of life. The social contract only protects those within the boundaries of a nation-state and excludes noncitizens, those too young to vote, the disabled, and those who are voiceless, including sentient beings (Faist 2009; Nussbaum 2006). Accelerated climate change will adversely affect well-being and sustainability (Flannery 2010; Lovelock 2006, 2009; Singer 2002) if we continue to live in ways that consume at current rate. The impact is likely (Rockström et al. 2009) to have been underestimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2001) and the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (2007) (http://webarchive.nationala rchives.gov.uk/, http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/ independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_ climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm). The problem of how to control the use of scarce resources in a sustainable and democratic way is the focus of this section. The IPCC formula that addresses the implications of polarizing people versus the planet is as follows: E (emissions) = population consumption per person energy efﬁciency energy emissions (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), http://www. Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing bing.com/search?q=intergovernmental+panel+ on+climate+change&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM= IE8SRC). The IPCC has concluded that the goal of reducing the carbon footprint should be 387 parts per million of carbon, and Rockström et al. (2009) have argued that it should be less, namely, 350 parts per million. The United Nations Human Development Index (2003) and World Wildlife Fund (2007) show that (with the exception of Cuba) no country in the world has achieved both the quality of life and a sustainable ecological footprint (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009, cites Planet Ark Trust 2004). More equal societies are more sustainable in their attitudes to resource use. The attitude to what constitutes normal usage of the planet’s resources is unsustainable. Democratization to ensure a fairer use of the world’s resources needs to ensure that a redesign of living standards occurs – and in the meantime governance controls need to achieve both the contraction of resources (Beck 2010) used by the rich and the greater convergence across living standards for all. In a post consumerist world wealth needs to be re-evaluated, because, to draw on and apply Einstein’s well known aphorism: We cannot solve the problems of today with the same ideas of property and consumption that created the problem of an unsustainable way of life. Consumption choices have reached a stage where they pose an existential risk (Bostrom 2011). Furthermore, consumption is very unequal, and the gaps between rich and poor become wider and wider. The root cause of consumption is power without responsibility – so whoever comes to power needs to be held to account through mechanisms to develop social, economic, and environmental indicators that secure the wellbeing stocks for the future. The axiom for systemic ethics is that “we can be free and diverse to the extent that our freedom and diversity does not undermine the rights of others” (McIntyre-Mills 2010). The nation-state has not protected the global commons or ensured social justice for all. This has implications for representation, accountability, and sustainability and the need for a global Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing covenant to protect the global commons (Held et al. 2005). Balancing Rights and Responsibilities Too much freedom can be as bad as too much control. Balancing rights and responsibilities is the challenge for developed nations that have large carbon footprints and that seek to access the last of the nonrenewable energy supplies as a means to maintain their international positions and for developing nations that need to achieve a decent quality of life to meet the United Nations Millennium Goals (http://www.globaleducation. edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/3740). In more equal societies, people consume less and are also less status conscious. Thus, the link “between greater equality and the prevention of global warming involves consumerism” fuelled by advertising. According to their research, greater social and economic equality “gives us the crucial key to reducing the cultural pressure to consume” (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009, p. 221; Hoggett 2010). “We are part of one space ship, earth” (Buckminster Fuller 1979). We are not in “separate life boats.” The difference between these metaphors is at the heart of the systemic versus the compartmentalized “zero-sum” approach to governance. Systemic ethics requires facing up to the implications of living at the expense of others and future generations, by recognizing the limits which are set by the available resources and the “boomerang effect” (Beck 2002) of carbon emissions, excessive consumption, and greed. Us/them worldviews need to be transformed though the desire to identify with others and the environment. This will lead to enhanced wellbeing. Xenophobia could be redressed through recognizing that we are global citizens in overlapping regional areas. It is possible to address zero-sum approaches to governance if we avoid the mistaken notion that we gain at the expense of others or at the expense of the environment or the next generation of life. The environment is a living entity which codetermines our very existence. It is not a 2325 commodity from which to extract endless proﬁt. Ethical decisions ought to be translated into ethical praxis. The test for whether thinking and practice is ethical is (a) whether it advances knowledge in the area of environmental politics by addressing the tensions across communities’ participation in decision-making (i.e. democracy, human rights) and whether it advances approaches to address both the livability and sustainability of their geographical areas. One of the ways these tensions could be resolved is by applying the United Nations Aarhus Convention 1998 (see http:// aarhusclearinghouse.unece.org/resources.cfm?c= 1000069) on (a) the right for local people to participate in environmental decision making to address food security for their children (b) through invoking Local Agenda 21 1992 policy, and (c) a through an enhanced and extended form of the United Nations sponsored biosphere approach to support educational, scientiﬁc and cultural organization. Ideally people living in an area need to be enabled to take part in decision making and to extend their support for their policy concerns within the wider region. These are some of the policy challenges locally and internationally that need to be addressed, but the will to achieve sustainable human rights across nation states requires an understanding that we need to think beyond “us/them” national competitiveness for resources. Emotions have an impact on personal and public desire and the political will to make changes. Narrow pragmatism is based on thinking about the consequences only for ourselves and not others. We tend to think that social and environmental considerations are “externalities.” Expanded pragmatism (EP) provides a step towards supporting systemic ethics based on extending the capability of humanity to think in terms of the consequences of current social, economic, and environmental choices on resource management for current and future generations of life. Systemic ethics is the capability to think and practice critically, in order to match appropriate kinds of knowledge to particular areas of concern. Being able to think critically and systemically S 2326 needs to be buttressed by post-national constitutions that provide the scaffolding to support deepranging environmental changes that shape and are shaped by social, cultural, political, and economic thinking and practice. Summary To sum up, our environment shapes the life chances of human beings who in turn shape the environment in ongoing recursive cycles (Bateson 1972). Human beings have the capacity to design their relationships in such a way that they rethink representation, accountability, and sustainability in terms of the consequences for others and the next generation of life. This requires a cultural shift in the current understanding of time, space, as well as rights and responsibilities as global stewards. This has implications for democracy and governance. Wide-ranging and radical change to the structure of society is required to ensure social and environmental sustainability. Cross-References ▶ Biodiversity ▶ Environmental Justice and Food ▶ Feeding Children ▶ Food and Class ▶ Food Ethics and Policies ▶ Food Risks ▶ Obesity and Responsibility ▶ Slow Food ▶ Vegetarianism ▶ War and Food ▶ Water, Food, and Agriculture ▶ You Are What You Eat References Atkinson, J. (2002). Trauma trails, recreating song lines: The transgenerational effects of trauma in Indigenous Australia. Melbourne: Spinifex. Banathy, B. (2000). Guided evolution of society: A systems view. London: Kluwer/Plenum. Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind: A revolutionary approach to man’s understanding of himself. New York: Ballantine. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society towards a new modernity. London: Sage. Beck, U. (2009). World at risk. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Beck, U. (2010). Climate for change, or how to create a green modernity. Theory, Culture and Society, 27(2–3), 254–266. Beer, S. (1974). Designing freedom. London: Wiley. Bostrom, N. (2011). Existential risk prevention as the most important task for humanity. Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School University of Oxford. www. existential-risk.org, www.nickbostrom Bruntland Report. (1987). http://conspect.nl/pdf/Our_Com mon_Future-Brundtland_Report_1987.pdf Buckminster Fuller, R. with Applewhite, E. J. (1979). Synergetics. http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergeti cs/synergetics.html. First published by Macmillan. Cancun. (2010). United Nations climate change summit. https://unfccc.int/meetings/cancun_nov_2010/meeting /6266.php Chomsky, N. (2005). Christakis, A. (2004). Wisdom of the people. Systems Research and Behavioural Science, 21(5), 479–488. Churchman, C. W. (1979). The systems approach and its enemies. New York: Basic Books. Crish, J., & Fayne, B. (2010). Pathways to insecurity: Urban food supply and access in Southern African cities (Vol. 3). Food Security Network. Dahl, R. (1967). The city in the future of democracy. The American Political Science Review, 61(4), 953–970. Davies, J. B., & World Institute. (2008). Personal wealth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dryzek, J. (2010). Green democracy. Cunningham lecture series, Australian National University (ANU), ACT, Occasional Paper. Durban. (2011). United nations climate change summit. https://unfccc.int/meetings/durban_nov_2011/meeting /6245.php Etzioni, A. (2004). From empire to community: A new approach to international relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Faist, T. (2009). The transnational social question: Social rights and citizenship in the global context. International Sociology, 24(1), 7–36. Flannery, T. (2010). Here on earth. An argument for hope. Melbourne: Text Publishing. Giddens, A. (2009). The politics of climate change. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Greenﬁeld, S. (2000). The private life of the brain: Emotions, consciousness and the secret of the self. New York: Wiley. Held, D. (2004). Global covenant: The social democratic alternative to the Washington consensus. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Held, D., et al. (2005). Debating globalization. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Hoggett, P. (2010). Politics, identity and emotion. Boulder: Paradigm. Systemic Ethics to Support Wellbeing Hulme, M. (2009). Why we disagree about climate change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hulme, M. (2010). Cosmopolitan climates. Hybridity, foresight and meaning. Theory, Culture and Society, 27(2–3), 267–276. Hulme, M. (2011). Climate change and four narratives of growth. AHTC Workshop. University of Cambridge. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2001). www.ipcc.ch/ International Labour Organisation. (2003). Working out of poverty. In International labour conference. 91st session. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ ilc/ilc91/pdf/rep-i-a.pdf Lovelock, J. (2006). The revenge of Gaia: Why the earth is ﬁghting back – And how we can still save humanity. Santa Barbara: Allen Lane. Lovelock, J. (2009). The vanishing face of Gaia: A ﬁnal warning: Enjoy it while you can. London: Allen Lane. McIntyre-Mills, J. (2010). Wellbeing, mindfulness and the global commons. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17 (7–8), 44–72. Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, South Africa. (2004). Enviropaedia, May. Government Publication by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Murray, J., Dey, C., & Lenzen, M. (2007). Systems for social sustainability: Global connectedness and the Tuvalu test. Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 14(1), 87–105. Nussbaum, M. (2006). Frontiers of justice. London: Harvard University Press. Ottawa Health Charter. (1986). http://www.who.int/ healthpromotion/conferences/previous/ottawa/en/ Paskal, C. (2007). How climate change is pushing the boundaries of security and foreign policy. Chatham House. http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/ﬁles/9250_ bp0607climatecp.pdf. Consulted June 2011. Pilger, J. (2002). The new rulers of the world. London: Verso. Planet Ark. (2004). The recycling Olympic report. Sydney: Planet Ark Environmental Foundation. Rawls, J. (1999). The law of peoples with the idea of public reason revisited. London: Harvard University Press. 2327 Rockström, J. et al. (2009, September 24). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472–475. http:// www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/ 461472a.html Rose, D. B. (1996). Nourishing terrains: Australian aboriginal views of landscape and wilderness. Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission, BCIN Number: 236409. Rose, D. B. (2004). Reports form a wild country: Ethics for decolonisation. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Rose, D. B. (2005). Dislocating the Frontier. http://epress. anu.edu.au/dtf/html/frames.php. See http://epress.anu. edu.au Singer, P. (2002). One world: The ethics of globalisation. Melbourne: The Text Publishers. Stern, N. (2007). The economics of climate change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J. P. (2010). Mis-measuring our lives: Why the GDP doesn’t add up. New York: The New Press. The Copenhagen Summit. (2009). United Nations climate change summit. https://unfccc.int/meetings/copenha gen_dec_2009/meeting/6295.php Ulrich, W. (1983). Critical heuristics of social planning: A new approach to practical philosophy. New York: Wiley. United Nations Human Development Index. (2003). A compact among nations to end poverty. UNDP. New York: Oxford University Press. Urry, J. (2007). Mobilities. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Urry, J. (2010). Consuming the planet to excess. Theory, Culture and Society, 27, 191–212. Vickers, G. (1968). Value systems and social process. London: Tavistock Publications. Vickers, G. (1983). Human systems are different. London: Harper and Row. Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2009). The spirit level: Why more equal societies almost always do better. London: Allen Lane. World Wild Life Fund. (2006). http://wwf.panda.org/about_ our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/living_pla net_report_timeline/lp_2006/ S