The food production industry has been rapidly developed over the centuries. The food production has become faster and more technologically advanced. From producing agricultural crops for feeding the town, the production of food has increased for feeding the whole country and even the world (Leopold 199). There has been many enhancements in order for the food industry to provide more products to the increasing global population such as genetic modifications and production methods. However, the documentary Food Inc. has presented many ethical and moral issues about the food production in the United States. According to the film, these issues has been kept secret to the public which is the very consumer of the food industry’s products. The objective of this essay is to elaborate some of the moral and ethical issues from the film Food Inc.
According to the film, the large companies which manufactures food have little or almost no concern with the environment and the natural world. They view the large food companies which are only concern about making their production faster and larger. They are changing the production method such as changing the food of the animals in order to increase the amounts of their products. They are not concern about the unintended effects of their methods to the natural environment. The large food companies are controlling the world food production even if there are negative consequences to the environment. According to the film, the large food companies has no intended actions for industrial sustainability and they always find a way to kept it a secret to the public. They control the food production as well as the government provisions that should be the one protecting the public to the unethical acts of the large food companies.
If Aldo Leopold have known the issues presented in the documentary Food Inc. he would be very disappointed. Aldo Leopold is an ecologist who developed the modern environmental ethics. According to him, people should obey the law to protect the environment and should always practice conservation in order to bring profit (Leopold 199). In Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethics, people should be part of the ecology which means, people should not have over control of the land use. As a responsible specie, people should have an important goal in promoting biodiversity and sustainability. Leopold’s ideals are contradicting with the large food companies which are presented in the documentary Food Inc. Large food companies have controlled over the methods of production that changes the environment. As an environmentalist and ecologists, Aldo Leopold would make some actions to change the land use of the large food companies (Leopold 121).
There are two types of environmental ethics which are anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric. Anthropocentric ethics promote environmental protection for human needs while non-anthropocentric ethics promotes environmental ethics for non-human entities. Non-anthropocentric ethics could change the behavior of humans towards the animals in the food industry. Respecting the living and the non-living entities in the environment as a part of the moral community is one of the aspects of non-anthropocentric environmental ethics. Developing a non-anthropocentric ethics could help in promoting respect and concern about the animals in the food industry. In could help establishing the duty and responsibilities of humans for the protection of the animals for abuse and immoral acts (Callicott 800).
As for the engineers, they have very high level of responsibilities for the issues presented in the film. Quality of products should be the first priority in the any production system. A responsible engineer should always be concern of the safety of the public against the unsafe products they are producing (Food and Agricultural Organization 25). In the film, they presented the issue of contamination in the food products which the large companies are producing. It is the responsibility of the engineers to design their production which removes the risk of contamination. A responsible engineer should be concern more of the safety of the public rather than the profit.
The film presented that the large food companies are controlling the economic and political development of food production. In my opinion, the regular customers are the ones that is controlling the food production. The large companies are only producing large amounts of food using unethical methods since they have large demands from the public. For me, people could change the world from industrial control to environmental sustainability if they change their way of life. If people are more demanding of sustainable and organic food, then the large food companies will have to lower their production and lower their environmental effects.
I argue that the issue presented in the documentary Food Inc. are serious moral concerns. If the food industry will not change their production methods, then people could suffer the unintended consequences such as health problems and environmental impacts. People are responsible for the large demand that the large food companies are supplying. These issues should be changed and answered by the government since their provisions are also problematic. In the film, the government agencies such as the USDA and the FDA are protecting the large food companies and not the general public. These issues are serious moral concerns that should be solve by humanity.
Works Cited:
Callicott, J. Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory and Environmental Ethics. American Philosophical Quarterly, 21(4), 799-825. 1984. Print.
Food and Agricultural Organization. Ethical Issues in Food and Agriculture. University of Oxford Press. 2011. Print.
Leopold, Aldo. Ecocentrism: The Land Ethics. From A Sand County Almanac: And Essays on Conservation from Round River. Oxford University Press. 1981. Print
