Food production and bioethics

Marijan Jošt- Agricultural College, Križevci, Croatia
 and Thomas S. Cox -  The Land Institute, Salina, KS, USA

Natura, esse cupit, non esse ergo refugit et abhorret.
(Nature desires to be, therefore she shuns and hates not to be.)
Franciscus Patricius, 1581


S u m m a r y
The problems connected with food production aimed at satisfying the needs of a rapidly growing
human population are complex and paradoxical. From the accessible facts, often quite opposite
conclusions can be made. The optimists, excited by increased food production based on
achievements of contemporary science, neglect the Malthusian forecast of hunger. On the other side,
the pessimists insist that environmental pollution and land degradation caused by industrial food
production hold dire consequences for the human race. The principles of bioethics are closely
connected with the professional ethics of our scientists and decision-makers, which should be
recognised as a very serious issue. The final conclusion: our decisions should be based on common
sense, knowledge, high ethical standards, and democratic mechanisms to make agriculture a way of
life and not simply an investment for corporations. We are responsible to our offspring.



Ethics, the study of the standards of conduct and moral judgement, could be a branch of
science or, in its broader sense, knowledge about morality (Čović, 1979). However, ethical laws are
entirely different from scientific laws. Ethical laws are prescriptive, not descriptive. They say what
should be, not what must be, or even what is. They are normative, asserting a standard or ideal, a
goal or principle, not necessarily an actual state of affairs. Every ethical argument can apparently be
confronted with an equally strong-sounding counter-argument. This is probably the reason why
some practical people have little respect for ethics (Ferré, 1994). Often, most of us see a sense of
ethics as something that is good to have but not to deal with in our daily life (Ruehr, 1994).

In this paper, agricultural ethics are considered as a part of bioethics. While we all have a
pretty good idea of what agriculture is, agricultural ethics may be a different matter. We can accept
that agricultural ethics could be a basis for judging why something in agriculture is good or bad,
right or wrong. According to the definition of Hartel (1994), agricultural ethics looks at the
philosophical, social, political, legal, economic, scientific, and aesthetic aspects of agricultural
problems and provides guidance for decisions about these problems when they involve competing
values. The major point in agricultural ethics is that social responsibility goes hand in hand with
scientific responsibility (Smith, 1990). Because of its growing importance in agriculture, at least
fourteen universities in the USA have offered or are currently offering courses in agricultural ethics
(Ruehr, 1994).
According to Hartel (1994), the major conflict between conventional and alternative
agriculture in the coming century will involve the concern for environmental degradation. To
preserve the integrity of the environment, we should be able to apply a holistic approach (which
stresses love, reverence, compassion and respect for nature) instead of utilitarian (“pesticide use
increases yields”), or rights-based ones (“we have the right to use water just as we have always
done”). The methodology of a typical research scientist is based upon scientific reductionism -
attacking a scientific problem by first breaking it into its smallest segments. His or her way of
thinking does not include the interdisciplinary, holistic approach. In contrast, agricultural ethics is a
holistic way of thinking. Today some scientists have begun to look holistically at agricultural
research, and they do not like what they see. Wherever they look, they are witnessing undesirable
change, much of it a consequence of our past and present agricultural practices.

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