Consultation, Commerce and Contemporary Agri-Food Systems: Ethical Engagement of New Systems of Governance under Reflexive Modernity

Abstract

One pressing challenge for any process of democratic engagement or stakeholder consultation over ethical concerns is the problem of how to incorporate commercial stakeholders. This is particularly relevant in relation to issues arising from new genomic technologies and/or food. Commercial stakeholders are powerful, but also arrive at the consultation with a considerable historical of unethical conduct, conflict, opaque discourse and increasingly ineffective governmental remedies. This paper examines the ‘commercial problem’ in ethical consultation by examining the historical roots of concerns around food commerce in modernity; particularly in relation to the classical formulation of State, Civil Society and Economy that has broadly structured processes of governance in modernity. Under this model, it appears that the commercial problem in ethical consultation is insolvable. A pathway out of the commercial problem is suggested through examination of new theories of post-modern governance. This is particularly relevant in relation to global agri-food chains which have generated new forms of more inclusive governance through the formation of complex audit cultures. The relevance of postmodern governance, and its potential relationship with processes of ethnical engagement, is examined using the case of a new audit system in Europe called EurepGAP which is currently developing new audit standards for salmon aquaculture.