Food, Ethics, and Global Society Fall 2016, University of Vermont (Food Systems Graduate Seminar: FS 355) Office Hours: Tues 1pm-2pm, Weds 3:15-4:15pm, and by appointment: Room 209, 70 S. Williams St. Course Description This course introduces some leading literature on ethics, sustainability, and nutrition that is relevant to evaluating food systems. Unusual emphasis will be placed on thinking like a philosopher, thinking like an economist, ethical worries about research and publications, and leading literature on global food systems issues that are underrepresented in local discussions. Students will also
gain experience running a leading global integrated assessment model,
DICE, and using other methods for making decisions at the
food-water-climate-energy 'environmental nexus'. "Unless we understand how the numbers are put together, and what they mean, we run the risk of seeing problems where there are none, of missing urgent and addressable needs, of being outraged by fantasies while overlooking real horrors, and of recommending policies that are fundamentally misconceived." - Angus Deaton Required Text 1. Gordon Conway, One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?, Cornell UP (Comstock), 2012Optional background: Angus Deaton, The Great Escape, Princeton UP, 2013 Readings (only numbered readings are required) August 31: Sustainability, the tragedy of the commons, virtues and vices of free markets 1. Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons", Science, 1968 Optional: Elinor Ostrom, "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems", Science, 2009 Optional: James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State, Yale UP, 1998 Optional: Robert Frank, "Market Efficiency", Chapter 18 of Microeconomics and Behavior, 7th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2008 September 7: Nutrition, health, other human values -- and the importance of early childhood environment 1. Angus Deaton, Introduction and chapter one of The Great Escape, Princeton UP, 2013 2. Douglas Almond and Janet Currie, "Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis", Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2011 3. Janet Currie and Ishita Rajani, "Within-Mother Estimates of the Effect of WIC on Birth Outcomes in New York City", Economic Inquiry, 2015, pp. 2-7. (Note: only the first three pages of the pdf are required; you need focus only on the problems with previous studies regarding WIC efficacy and the authors' method for overcoming them.) Optional: Max Roser, "Global Economic Inequality", Oxford Our World in Data, 2016 September 14: Population and global hunger Optional background: Kenneth Weiss, "As the world's population grows, hunger persists on a massive scale", LA Times, 2012 1. Conway, chapter 2 2. Jonathan Foley, "A Five-Step Plan to Feed the World", National Geographic, 2014 3. Paul Ehrlich, "Overpopulation and the collapse of civilization", MAHB blog, 2013 Optional: Matthew Connelly, Fatal Misconception, Harvard UP, 2008 Optional: Will Masters, "How the Race Against Malthus is Changing", video September 21: Adequate food supply, negative impacts of ag on the environment and humans, sustainable intensification 1. David Tilman et al., "Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture", PNAS, 2011 (incl. supplementary information) 2. Conway, chapters 3, 5, 6, and 7 Optional: Norman Borlaug and Christopher Dowswell, "Feeding a world of ten billion people: A 21st century challenge", 2005 (esp. pp. 1-8) Optional: David Tilman at al., "Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices", Nature, 2002 Optional: Verena Seufert et al. "Comparing the Yields of Organic and Conventional Agriculture", Nature, 2012 Optional: Tara Garnett et al. "Sustainable Intensification in Agriculture", Science, 2013 Optional: Tara Garnett, "Plating Up Solutions: Can Eating Patterns be Both Healthier and More Sustainable?", Science, 2016 Optional: "With an eye on hunger, scientists see promise in genetic tinkering with plants", New York Times, 17 November 2016 September 28: Food security, global hunger, reliable entitlements to food 1. Conway, chapters 4, 8 2. Amartya Sen, "Hunger and Entitlements", UN brochure, 1987 3. Amartya Sen, "Famines and Other Crises", in Development as Freedom, Knopf, 1999 Optional: Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, "More than 1 Billion People are Hungry in the World: But what if the experts are wrong?", Foreign Affairs, 2011 Optional: Angus Deaton and Jean Dreze, "Food and Nutrition in India: Facts and Interpretations", EPW, 2009 October 5: Water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition -- and real-world challenges for development 1. Diane Coffey and Dean Spears, Sanitized Development, Harper Collins, forthcoming, pp. 1-7, 23-44, 57-81, and 149-195 Recommended: USAID brochure on the importance for food security of water, sanitation, and hygiene, 2013 Note: these public health sources agree that proper nutrition requires more than adequate intake of food; so, arguably food security should be understood as requiring more than reliably adequate dietary intake; see FAO and USDA for definitions that do not seem to require this; FAO now stipulates that food security is to be understood as including more than reliably adequate dietary intake. Optional: "Sanitation and Stunting", brochure, Research Institute for Compassionate Economics Optional: Karine Nyborg et al., "Social Norms as Solutions", Science, 2016 October 12: Hunger, poverty, global justice, effective altruism 1. Anne Barnhill et al., "Introduction to Chapter 2: Global Hunger", in Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 2. Angus Deaton, "Response to Effective Altruism", Boston Review, 2015 3. Angus Deaton, "How to Help Those Left Behind", in The Great Escape, Princeton UP, 2013 4. Bill Gates, "The Great Escape is an Excellent Book with One Big Flaw", gatesnotes.com, 2014 Optional: Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1972 Optional: Angus Deaton and Nancy Cartwright, "Understanding and Misunderstanding Randomized Controlled Trials", NBER, 2016 Optional: Shanta Devarajan, "What Will it Take to End Poverty in Africa?", World Bank blog, 2012 October 19: Global trade, neoliberalism, international institutions Recommended: Reread pages 44-47 of Anne Barnhill et al., "Introduction to Chapter 2: Global Hunger", in Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 1. Pages 10-12 and 28-29 of Andrew Guzman and Joost Pauwelyn, International Trade Law, 1st ed., Aspen, 2009 (only pages 10-12 and 28-29 are required) 2. Joseph Stiglitz, selections from Making Globalization Work, Norton, 2006 3. Action Aid, "The WTO Agreement on Agriculture", online brochure 4: World Trade Organization, "Briefing notes: agricultural issues", 2015 [after Nairobi conference] Optional: Roberto Azevedo, "After a historic success, urgent challenges face the WTO", WTO Press Release, 2016 Optional: Philippe van Parijs, "Thatcher's Plot -- and How to Defeat It", Social Europe, 2016 Optional: Robert Frank, "Market Efficiency", Chapter 18 of Microeconomics and Behavior, 7th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2008 Can you find more info on agricultural rule changes after the WTO Nairobi conference? MIDTERM EXAM: Due via email at 11:59am November 2 October 26: Water, fisheries, sustainability, market-based environmental policy 1. Pages 3-11, 28-46, 62-68, 91-96, and 122-130 of Ray Hilborn and Ulrike Hilborn, Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know, Oxford UP, 2012 (readings are a proper subset of the pdf) 2. Elinor Ostrom, selections from Governing the Commons, Cambridge UP, 1990 3. Elinor Ostrom et al. "Revisiting the Commons", Science, 1999 4. Chuck Ross, "H.35 is a Vital Step Forward in Addressing Clean Water and Agriculture in Vermont", Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food & Markets Press Release, 2015 Recommended: Conway, chapter 14 Handout on Hardin and Ostrom (from first class meeting) Optional: FAO definition of 'food security' and the 'water-energy-food nexus', in "The Water-Energy-Food Nexus", FAO brochure, 2014 Optional: Elinor Ostrom, "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems", Science, 2009 Optional: FAO, State of the World's Fisheries and Aquaculture: 2016, UN FAO, 2016 Optional: Rosamond Naylor ed., The Evolving Sphere of Food Security, Oxford UP, 2014 Optional: Bonnie Keeler et al., "The Social Costs of Nitrogen", Science Advances, 2016 Optional: Bloom, 2011 documentary film Can you think of ways that Vermont's H.35 might have tried to incorporate more market-based policy, and more self-governance of the Ostrom kind? November 2: Energy, climate change, integrated assessment models of energy-climate-wellbeing Key: Bring your laptop to class with Excel so you can run the DICE integrated assessment model in class (optional info on DICE) Midterm exam due before class (no one page response due this week) 1. Conway, chapters 15 and 16 2. Pages 37-48 of IPCC, Technical Summary on Mitigation of Climate Change (WG3TS), IPCC, 2014 (pages 37-48 only) 3. Pages 70 and 92 of IPCC, Technical Summary on Impacts of Climate Change (WG2TS), IPCC, 2014 (pages 70 and 92 only) Optional: IPCC, chapter on Agriculture and Mitigation (WG3chap11), IPCC, 2014 Optional: IPCC, chapter on Agriculture and Impacts (WG2chap7), IPCC, 2014 Optional: Robert Keohane and David Victor, "Cooperation and Discord in Global Climate Policy", Nature Climate Change, 2016 Optional: Elinor Ostrom, "A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change", World Bank, 2009 Optional: Climate Equity Reference Project, www.climateequityreference.org Optional: "Vermont Wind Project Needs Support, So Company Offers to Pay Voters", New York Times, 12 Oct 2016 November 9: Animal agriculture, water-energy-climate-wellbeing footprints of foods Recommended: Conway, chapter 10, and pp. 311 and 316-318 1. Pages 1-26 of Gerber et al., "Tacking Climate Change Through Livestock", FAO, 2013 (only pages 1-26 are required) 2. Pages 1-21 of Janet Ranganathan et al., "Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Food Future", WRI, 2016 (only pages 1-21 are required) 3. Abstract only of Christian Peters et al., "Carrying Capacity of US Agricultural Land: Ten Diet Scenarios", Elementa, 2016 (only the abstract is required reading) 4. Summary sheet of Mark Budolfson, "The Harm Footprint of Foods", in Chignell et al. eds. Philosophy Comes to Dinner, Routledge, 2015 (only the summary sheet of the workbook is required; let me know if you have ideas for improving the analysis) Optional: Aleksandrowicz et al., "The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review", PLoS ONE, 2016 (note that this has an extensive bibliography and provides an overview of the literature) Optional: Herrero et al., "Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems", PNAS, 2013 Optional: Terence Chea, "California targets dairy cows to target global warming", Associated Press, 2016 Optional: Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, "Industrial Food Animal Production in America", brochure, 2013 Optional: Conway, chapter 13 How does the social objective assumed by the Ranganathan paper differ from the objective assumed by the Peters paper? What is the best social objective to assume in this literature? E.g., should our goal be merely to maximize the number of calories produced on our land? What objections might be raised to that objective? November 16: Individual ethics, consumer ethics, civil society and entrepreneurship alternatives to 'voting with your dollars' 1. Anne Barnhill et al., "Introduction to Chapter 4: Consumer Ethics", in Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 (pp. 165-183 only) 2. First page of Paul Watson, "Tora, Tora, Tora", in Schmidtz and Willott, Environmental Ethics, second ed., Oxford UP, 2012 (first page only) Optional: 25th Anniversary Report on Dolphin Safe Tuna, International Marine Mammal Project, 2015 Optional: EWG food scores app Optional: Austin Kiessig, "What 'Big Ideas' in Food Get Funded in Silicon Valley?", edible startups blog, 2013 Optional: Michelle Paratore, "Rising to the Food Waste Challenge", edible startups blog, 2014 Optional: MIT Food+Future Colab POLICY BRIEF: draft due November 28; final version due December 12 at 11:59pm FINAL EXAM: due December 9 at 11:59pm November 23: No class, Thanksgiving recess November 28: Outline of Policy Brief Due via Blackboard Discussion Board November 30: Discuss Policy Brief Outlines in Class December 7: Last Day of Class, TBD December 9: Final Exam Due at 11:59pm December 12: Policy Brief Due at 11:59pm Additional Resources Robert Paarlberg, Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2nd ed. Oxford UP, 2013 Rosamond Naylor ed., The Evolving Sphere of Food Security, Oxford UP, 2014 Anne Barnhill et. al. Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 Ronald Sandler, Food Ethics: The Basics, Routledge, 2015 National Geographic, The Future of Food, multi-article series, 2014 Michael Pollan and Raj Patel, The Rise and Future of the Food Movement, course at UC Berkeley, 2014 edition Marion Nestle, Food Politics, website James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State, Yale UP, 1999 |