The question of ethics has erupted in the agro-food world, profoundly influencing legislative developments and production control systems. No longer seen simply as a means of expressing judgements or affirming the pre-eminence of one value system over the others, the ethical approach to agricultural and dietary problems has become a methodological tool that allows an integrated and balanced consensus to be obtained among the parties involved. In this context, the speaker presents some of the current issues, such as transgenic foods, food safety and voluntary certification systems. The relationship between technological innovation and the market has been overturned. The case of biotechnology is emblematic and documents the fact that the scientific and manufacturing worlds have been slow to understand this evolution and foresee its effects.
Information technologies allow the management of increasingly complex systems.
It is possible to track products along supply pipelines crossing countries and continents, as well as to optimise processes on a company or territorial basis by implementing integrated management systems covering product hygiene, safety and quality, environmental production, working safety and ethics. The simultaneous awareness of the complexity of consumer expectations and the availability of powerful process and production system management tools explains why food production is becoming more standardised and more differentiated at the same time. An enormous variety of foods is now available to the public. In striking contrast with this is the fact that famine and under-nutrition continue to cause millions of deaths in the poorer parts of the world. The problem of hunger is not primarily scientific or technical, but something that needs to be confronted at a political, administrative and management level.