Abstract

"Feeding the world's growing population in ways that are effective, ethical and socially just, and protect the natural systems on which all life depends is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. It forms the theme of this book of papers of the 2022 Edinburgh conference of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics (EURSAFE). The dramatic increases in the cost of energy, scarcities in resources and people, stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and international conflict, have brought home the vulnerability of our interlinked human systems at all levels. Climate change poses deeper longer term threats. Global competition drives fine-tuned and efficient systems, but time-proven local practices may show better resilience in such uncertain futures. The book reflects the sheer diversity of approaches and responses to these challenges, across a wide range of academic disciplines, provoking us to look at the issues in new ways. They reflect the varied standpoints of producers, retailers, regulators, farmers, vets, communities and citizens. The challenge to reach net zero carbon is addressed in papers assessing livestock systems, grasslands, land use and 'rewilding', food choices, meat eating and alternatives. Innovations such as genome editing, uses of seaweed and the use of data pose both possibilities and challenges. Animal ethics is a prominent theme, with a range of papers on animal-human relations, animal use in research and veterinary ethics."