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Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics pp 1–7Cite as

Biosecurity and Food Systems

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Synonyms

Agroterrorism; Biosafety bioterrorism; Biosecurity; Food quality; Food safety

Introduction

Securing food systems against deliberate attack from malevolent actors is perhaps an overlooked issue in discussions of ethics of food and agriculture. This entry raises biosecurity of food systems as an issue of ethical importance, with the aim of showing how biosecurity, understood in a national security context, is relevant to discussions of food ethics and philosophy. A basic point of this entry is that deliberate attacks on food systems have the potential to cause widespread harm to people and severe economic damage to food systems. Biosecurity is understood in this entry as having a focus on deliberate acts of harm. Understanding biosecurity of food systems in this manner does not garner typical discussion in food and agriculture studies. A partial explanation for this is multiple contrasting meanings of similar terms like food security, food safety, food biosecurity, biosecurity,...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, 10-12 Brisbane Ave, Canberra, Australia

    Adam Henschke

Authors
  1. Adam Henschke
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Correspondence to Adam Henschke .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Michigan State University Dept. Philosophy, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

    Paul B. Thompson

  2. University of North Texas Dept. Philosophy & Religion Studies, Denton, Texas, USA

    David M. Kaplan

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Henschke, A. (2014). Biosecurity and Food Systems. In: Thompson, P., Kaplan, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_211-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_211-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6167-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

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