The current number has seven articles and one book review. Three of the articles use empirical studies.

The first article is by Chaone Mallory. In “Locating Ecofeminism in Encounters With Food and Place,” the author explores the relationship between ecofeminism, food, and the philosophy of place. As an example, she uses her own neighborhood “in a racially integrated area of Philadelphia with a thriving local foods movement that nonetheless is nearly exclusively white and in which women are the invisible majority of purchasers, farmers, and preparers” to examine “what ecofeminism contributes to the discussion of racial, gendered, classed discrepancies regarding who does and does not participate in practices of locavorism and the local foods movement more broadly.” She argues that ecofeminism “with its focus on the ways that race, class, gender, and place are ontologically entangled, helps to highlight the ways identity and society are made and re-made through our encounters with food.”

The second article, “Longevity as an animal welfare issue applied to the case of foot disorders in dairy cattle,” is by M. R. N. Bruijnis, F. L. B. Meijboom, and E. N. Stassen. The authors want to investigate whether longevity, and not just functioning or feeling well is a criterion of animal welfare. One area in which this issue arises in the normal dairy cow industry is the case of foot disorders that arise as the result of housing conditions. Does culling the lame animals solve the welfare issue. The authors explorer whether longevity is an independent moral argument in an animal welfare discussion and conclude that it is.

The third article is by Léo Coutellec. In “Crop protection between sciences, ethics and societies. From quick-fix ideal to multiple partial solutions,” Coutellec describes what he calls “integrative approaches” to sustainable agriculture, approaches that in the past raise a serious challenge to the “Green Revolution.” A new challenge arises from the so-called “miracle solutions” promised by agrochemistry and agro-genetics, so the author describes the agro-environmental limits of these two “miracle solutions,” and follow this with a review from an ethical and an epistemological point of view that enables them “to demonstrate the relevance of integrated approaches in agriculture and leads to a definition of crop protection that forms part of a strong approach in sustainable development. By changing the semantics, the epistemic position and our vision of production, we arrive at the proposal of sustainable agriculture.”

In the fourth article, “The Myth of Efficiency: Technology and Ethics in Industrial Food Production,” authors Diana Stuart and Michelle Woroosz explore how the application of technological tools has reshaped food production systems in ways that foster large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness. They focus on outbreaks linked to ground beef and salad greens and use personal interviews, site visits informed by an extensive review of government documents and peer-reviewed literature. To explore these cases they use as analytical tools actor-network theory and political economy. They then use the myth of Prometheus to discuss ethical issues regarding the use of technology in food production.

In the fifth article, “Belgian consumers’ opinion on pork consumption concerning alternatives for unanesthetized piglet castration,” Sanne Van Beirendonck, Bert Driessen, and Rony Geers report the results of a questionnaire they sent out to discover what Belgian consumers thought about this practice once they knew about its effects. Once informed, consumers wanted the practice banned even though it might effect the cost of the meat.

The sixth article in by Samantha Noll. In “Broiler Chickens and a Critique of the Epistemic Foundations of Animal Modification,” the authors critique the history of the modification of the broiler chicken through selective breeding and possible future genetic modification. Utilizing Margaret Atwood’s fictitious depiction of genetically engineered chickens and the work of feminist epistemologists, she argues that understanding what it means to be a chicken shapes our conceptions of what modifications are or are not acceptable. She concludes by addressing three possible problems brought about by accepting such justifications.

The last article is by Luigi Cembalo, Giuseppina Migliore, and Giorgio Schifani. In “Sustainability and new models of consumption: the Solidarity Purchasing Groups in Sicily,” the authors address issues related to organizational frameworks, at farm and chain level, to assess those elements that lead to consumer choice and satisfaction in Solidarity Purchase Groups.