Advancing Food Integrity: GMO Regulation, Agroecology, and Urban Agriculture

251 Pages·2018·3.901 MB·English

by  Gabriela Steier

Advancing Food
Integrity
GMO Regulation, Agroecology, and
Urban Agriculture
Praise for the Book
Advancing Food Integrity provides a comprehensive and analytical o verview of the contem-
porary challenges faced by government, industry, and civil society in an increasingly glo-
balized world troubled with issues of climate change, urbanization, scientific advancement,
and food security and safety. It offers not only a scholarly account to map such systematic,
cutting-edge food integrity problems, but also optimal and innovative ways to solve them.
This fascinating and timely book will be of great interest to researchers and practitioners of
food law, environmental law, and agriculture and sustainability.
Ching-Fu Lin
Assistant Professor of Law at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU)
There are provocative and controversial ideas in this book, chief among them, the very con-
cept of food integrity and the role of GMOs. Whether or not you agree, this book deserves
your attention. The food system is inherently provocative, inherently controversial, because
food, the environment, and human and animal well-being are at the same time essential
and complex, evading easy answers at every turn. This book will expose you to perspec-
tives that will help you navigate this intricate system.
Joshua Ulan Galperin
Yale University
JFK in a speech to Congress on March 15, 1962, spoke of consumers rights being central to
the work of every agency and branch of the US government and that their voice was not
heard loud enough. Gabriela Steir’ s pioneering book highlights all these years later that
still in many areas of law, in particular in relation to food law, the consumers’ voice is still
not heard compared to the interests of trade and the market.
Gabriela covers the issues of food safety, food sovereignty, food security, environ-
mental sustainability, and climate change in relation to GMOs from the perspective of a
well-versed food lawyer, in order to demonstrate where private, public, and international
are at fault.
Her approach gives new insights into the divide between the United States and the
EU food regulatory regimes whether over hormone-raised beef, chlorinated chicken, or
GMOs. These food regulatory issues were one of the main reasons why the EU-US TTIP
negotiations failed last year.
The role of science is crucial here with the United States saying their food law is science
driven, while the EU also says its law is backed-up by risk assessments from the European
Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Yet, the division between the two systems is the famous pre-
cautionary principle utilized in EU law, which the United States abhors. Gabriela highlights
that the precautionary principle is included within the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety yet,
surprise, surprise, the United States is not a signatory to this international agreement.
Gabriela’ s book is pertinent at this time in order to highlight the need for a more
systematic look at why private, public, and international law are not adequately advancing
food integrity for the benefit of consumers and the environment.
Raymond O’ Rourke, LLB, BL
Food & Consumer Lawyer, Ireland
Gabriela Steier leads the reader on a journey beyond the boundaries separating private and
public law, through an intriguing dialogue between legal, social, and life sciences.
As the book vividly explains, the emerging paradigm of agroecology can be turned into
the pillar of a new legal architecture of food systems, in order to fulfill a crucial objective to
the long-term survival of human beings on the planet: food integrity, as a legal synthesis of
food safety, food sovereignty, food security, environmental sustainability, and climate change
resilience.
This book is warmly recommended to all those readers who believe in the possibility of
building hope for the future by reconciling the “ought to be” of agrifood law with the “to be”
of food and environmental sciences.
Prof. Dr. Massimo Monteduro
Associate Professor of Administrative and Environmental Law,
University of Salento
In Advancing Food Integrity, Gabriela Steier looks critically at the performance of regulatory
schemes for agriculture and food systems, and their potential to promote food integrity. The
analysis, covering both private and public regulation at the national and international scale,
is conceptually, empirically, and methodologically astute. The comprehensive, updated, mul-
tidisciplinary perspective offers an essential contribution to the scientific understanding of
food policies. The book should be required reading for students of environmental law and
policy, agricultural studies, and political economy.
Ronit Justo-Hanani
Tel Aviv University

Advancing Food
Integrity
GMO Regulation, Agroecology, and
Urban Agriculture
by
Gabriela Steier
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Dedication
For Oma Fany

Contents
Preface ..............................................................................................................xiii
Acknowledgments ...........................................................................................xv
About the author ...........................................................................................xvii
List of abbreviations .......................................................................................xix
Chapter 1 Food integrity and the food system defined ..........................1
1.1 Functional components of food integrity ............................................1
1.2 Summary ..................................................................................................4
Chapter 2 The perspective switchboard: GMOs versus agroecology ......5
2.1 The basics: Links between GMOs, agroecology, and urban
agriculture ................................................................................................7
2.2 Looking over one’s shoulder: The comparativist method ...............12
2.2.1 What is true? Where are the facts? ........................................12
2.2.2 Legal opinions and perspectives: Why borrow? .................15
2.3 Comparison as a form of cross-border knowledge acquisition ......18
2.4 Law as a function of culture: Borrowing norms and assuming
similarity .................................................................................................20
2.5 Summary ................................................................................................22
Chapter 3 Food dependence: GMOs fail to feed the world .................25
3.1 Debunking the myths of GMO farming ............................................25
3.1.1 Lowest common denominator and consumer deception ....25
3.1.2 Food choices have a ripple effect on the environment .......27
3.2 How do you feed a city? Insourcing food security ..........................28
3.2.1 Urbanization of food and agriculture ..................................29
3.2.2 Metropolitan climate change contributions and
food integrity ............................................................................33
3.2.3 Combining urban agriculture with city greening ..............37
3.2.4 (W)Holistic upregulation of urban agriculture ...................38
ix