Organic Food

Introduction

Organic meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides, fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge, bioengineering or ionizing radiation. There is a growing consensus in society that, ''altering consumption patterns'' is ''one of humanity's greatest challenges in the quest for environmentally sound and sustainable development'' (Sitarz, 13). "Sustainable'' here refers to a level and pattern of consumption, which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment Development, 132). Some of the most serious environmental challenges currently facing humanity are related to our unsustainable consumption patterns and lifestyles (Sitarz, 13; Stern, 269). The problem is not limited to marginal areas of consumption (e.g., the consumption of luxuries), but extends to the way industrial and emerging societies provide basic necessities, such as food, shelter, and transportation to its citizens.

Despite the broad international consensus about the need for action, progress toward sustainable consumption is disappointingly slow. For instance, in a report issued by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in preparation for the 2002 Johannesburg Summit, it was concluded that "progress toward the goals established at Rio has been slower than anticipated, and in some respects conditions are worse than they were 10 years ago.''

Apparently, consumer-citizens, the business community, and their elected governments in industrial and emerging countries strive less hard at achieving sustainable lifestyles than is desired by the global community and less than is in their collective long-term interest.

Critical Analysis

When discussing the problem of unsustainable consumption, there is a perhaps natural tendency to focus on individual consumers' decision making and behavior. However, it has been convincingly argued that the attitudes, preferences, and choices of individual consumers are less important for the sustainability of private consumption than are the macro and structural conditions that frame and constrain individual choices (e.g., Etzioni, 21; Kilbourne, McDonagh, and Prother, 24; Thøgersen, 83). Still, perhaps, because the activities and motivations of individual consumers are more obtrusive than the effects of macro and structural factors, both research and policy in the area of sustainable consumption have an unfortunate individualistic and individualizing bias (Schaefer and Crane, 76).

For capturing the importance of macro and socio-structural factors for sustainable consumption, the research focus needs to be broad enough to capture variation in relevant macro and/or socio-structural factors. In practice, this usually means a cross-national focus (although large and heterogeneous nation states may sometimes contain sufficient heterogeneity within national borders). When attempting to explain differences and similarities between countries, macro- and structural- rather than individual-level factors become salient. In a single country studies, these factors tend to be ignored because they constitute the shared context and therefore, cannot account for variation in (individual-level) behavior.

Discussion

The sustainability of final consumption depends on individual consumer choices, but individual choices are severely constrained by a range of macro and structural factors. In this article, the importance of macro and structural ...