A Handbook of Food Crime : Immoral and Illegal Practices in the Food Industry and What to Do About Them

This book contextualises, evaluates, and problematises the (lack of) legal and regulatory organisation involved in the many processes of food production, distribution, and consumption. Turning a criminological gaze on the conditions under which food is (un)regulated, this book encompasses a range of discussions on the problematic conditions under which food (dis)connects with humanity and its consequences on public health and well-being, nonhuman animals, and the environment, often simultaneously. Influenced by critical criminology, social harm approach, green criminology, corporate criminology, and victimology, while engaging with legal, rural, geographic, and political sciences, the concept of food crime fuses diverse research by questioning issues of legality, criminality, deviance, harm, social justice, ethics, and morality within food systems. Evident problems range from food safety and food fraud, to illegal agricultural labour and state-corporate food crimes, to obesity and food deserts, to livestock welfare and genetically modified foods, to the role of agriculture in climate change and food waste, to food democracy and corporate co-optation of food movements. Theorising and researching these problems involves questioning the processes of lacking or insufficient regulation, absent or ineffective enforcement, resulting harms, and broader issues of governance, corruption, and justice. Due to the contemporary corporatisation of food and the subsequent distancing of humans from foodstuffs and food systems, not only is it important to think criminologically about food, but the criminological study of food may help make criminology relevant today. A HANDBOOK OF FOOD CRIME Contents List of tables and figures Tables Figures Notes on contributors Introduction Section I. Thinking about food crime 1. A food crime perspective Introduction Studying food, eating food Conceptualising harm and crime A food crime perspective 2. Food crime without criminals: Agri-food safety governance as a protection racket for dominant political and economic interest Introduction A case for better rules From individual liability to political responsibility Slow violence Consuming politics: intimate entanglements of nature, culture and political economy Boundary protections To serve and protect whom? Back to biopolitics Conclusion 3. The social construction of illegality within local food systems Introduction What is food crime? The Evil Trinity: territoriality, institutions and entrepreneurship Moving along the legal–illegal continuum Discussion and conclusion Section II. Farming and food production 4. Ethical challenges facing farm managers Introduction Background The farming context Fault lines Important manifestations of ethical problems by farmers and food producers Conclusion 5. Chocolate, slavery, forced labour, child labour and the state Introduction Origins of the problem The appearance of abolition What to do Discussion Conclusion 6. Impact of hazardous substances and pesticides on farmers and farming communities Introduction Adverse health and safety risks in farming and food production Bodily health risks in farming communities A case study of pesticide-related illnesses among farmers in the Philippines Policy recommendations Conclusion Section III. Processing, marketing and accessing food 7. Agency and responsibility: The case of the food industry and obesity Introduction Elements of agency: awareness, alternatives and addiction The case of obesity Shared responsibility for obesity Conclusion 8. The value of product sampling in mitigating food adulteration Introduction Adulteration Prevalence of types of food adulteration or fraud in the RASFF database Countermeasures: mechanisms to control intentional food adulteration Conclusion Prohibitive property practices: The impact of restrictive covenants on the built food 9. environment Introduction Suburbanisation and the built food environment Restrictive covenants Addressing the effects of restrictive covenants Conclusion Section IVCorporate food and food safety 11. Mass Salmonella poisoning by the Peanut Corporation of America: Lessons in state-corporate food crime Introduction Salmonella, peanuts and public health investigations PCA’s facilities, wrongs and crimes State facilitation: Flaws in guardianship? Conclusion 12. Food crime in the context of cheap capitalism Introduction Cheap capitalism The scale and nature of food crime Why cheap capitalism in the food industry? Does regulation work? Conclusion Section VFood trade and movement 13. Crime versus harm in the transportation of animals: A closer look at Ontario’s ‘pig trial’ Introduction Background on animal cruelty and welfare laws in Canada Animal transport laws in Canada and elsewhere Animal transport as contested practice The ‘pig trial’ as food crime: insights from green criminology and the work of Joel Feinberg Conclusion 14. Coming together to combat food crime: Regulatory networks in the EU Introduction Cross-border regulatory networks and information sharing The problems of networking Conclusion 15. Fair trade laws, labels and ethics Introduction ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend’ Institutionalisation of fair trade Food crimes in fair trade Labour rights in fair trade Conclusion Section VI. Technologies and food 16. Food, genetics and knowledge politics Introduction Green criminology and genetically modified (GM) food Knowledge politics and GM food technologies Conclusion 17. Technology, novel food and crime Introduction Food regulation in a context of advancements in science and technology Technological innovation and food crime The case of China Conclusion 18. Food crimes, harms and carnist technologies Introduction Technologies for the industrialisation of animal agriculture ‘Humane’ technologies Cultured meat and cellular agriculture technologies Technologies for transforming plants into analogues of animal products Conclusion Section VII. Green food 19. Farming and climate change Introduction The impacts of farming on climate change Consequences of climate change for farming Emergent conflicts over scarcity Conclusion 20. Food waste (non)regulation Introduction Food waste and its consequences Responses and potential solutions Global capitalism and food waste Conclusion 21. Responding to neoliberal diets: School meal programmes in Brazil and Canada Introduction Neoliberalism and the perverse effects of standardising the global diet PNAE and the Brazilian example The F2S BC network and the Canadian example Conclusion Section VIII. Questioning and consuming food 22. Counter crimes and food democracy: Suspects and citizens remaking the food system Introduction Crimes of consumption ‘Counter crimes’ The politics of alternative agri-food movements Food democracy Food democracy in action Food democracy and food aid: a case study in France Conclusion 23. Consumer reactions to food safety scandals: A research model and moderating effects Introduction Consumer attributions of blame and the causal variables of attributions Non-behavioural responses: negative moral emotions and unfavourable attitudes Behavioural responses: unwillingness to buy, negative word-of-mouth and boycotting Moderating responses toward faulty food brands Conclusion 24. Responding to food crime and the threat of the ‘food police’ Introduction A risky food regime Responding to food crime Countering responses to food crime The food police Conclusion Index

Food today is over-corporatized and under-regulated. It is involved in many immoral, harmful, and illegal practices along production, distribution, and consumption systems. These problematic conditions have significant consequences on public health and well-being, nonhuman animals, and the environment, often simultaneously. In this insightful book, Gray and Hinch explore the phenomenon of food crime. Through discussions of food safety, food fraud, food insecurity, agricultural labour, livestock welfare, genetically modified foods, food sustainability, food waste, food policy, and food democracy, they problematize current food systems and criticize their underlying ideologies. Bringing together the best contemporary research in this area, they argue for the importance of thinking criminologically about food and propose radical solutions to the realities of unjust food systems.

Food today is over-corporatized and under-regulated. It is involved in many immoral, harmful, and illegal practices along production, distribution, and consumption systems. These problematic conditions have significant consequences on public health and well-being, nonhuman animals, and the environment, often simultaneously. In this insightful text, Gray and Hinch explore the phenomenon of food crime. Through discussions of food safety, food fraud, food insecurity, agricultural labour, livestock welfare, genetically modified foods, food sustainability, food waste, food policy, and food democracy, they problematize current food systems and criticize their underlying ideologies. Bringing together the best contemporary research in this area, they argue for the importance of thinking criminologically about food and propose radical solutions to the realities of unjust food systems