Technology: VCE Food Studies

This task demands ...

Intellectual Curiosity!

All food issues have parts that are complex - a better response finds the complexity in the issues and presents the different sides of the issue fairly, and finally makes an informed decision as to what path should be followed.  

Challenging Topics (.. that we would love you to do!)

• Monsanto and seed control

Important Topics

• Palm Oil
• Hidden sugar in children's foods and sugar in food plus food labelling

Little Know Topics

• Colony Collapse-Bees
• Recycling Seafood Shells
• Raw Milk

Food Issues According to the Australian Food Standards:

Food System

A term that includes many activities involving the production, processing, transport and consumption of food, all of which can affect food accessibility in different ways with subsequent impact on health.

A food system analyses how, from farm to consumer, raw commodities get value added to them and includes supply of agricultural inputs, primary food production, processing and manufacturing sectors, food distribution, food retailing, food catering and domestic food. The way consumers prepare and consume food is also part of the food system.

VCAA Glossary

"Australia is the third fastest growing vegan market in the world, after the United Arab Emirates and China, according to Euromonitor International."

"The first commercially grown genetically engineered food to be granted a licence for human consumption was a tomato. Developed in California, it was first sold in 1994."

"In 2013, a US slaughterhouse recalled four thousand tonnes of contaminated beef products - everything is processed in that year. The USDA called the products "unwholesome or otherwise unfit for human consumption."

"Current poverty rates in Venezuela are so high that a recent study by the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello found that approximately three hundred thousand Venezuelans are eating from the garbage." 

"It is estimated that there are 900 million malnourished people in the world and 1.5 billion are considered obese."

More than 800 million people go to bed each night hungry. 

Australian statistics and data on current topics: Issues in Society  - available in PRINT and ONLINE in the Library Catalogue as eBooks - Log into the Library catalogue using your student no. and Library password,  search series 'Issues in society' > click the URL and type in your laptop user name and password. Please see a member of the Library staff if you have issues accessing an ebook

LOCAL:

 
Articles of Food Sustainability

Articles of Sustainable Food 

INTERNATIONAL:

Food Justice Movement Blogs: (Note: Blogs are usually opinion pieces)

• Civil Eats
• Mother Jones: Food
• Food Politics
• Eatocracy
• Beth Hoffman for Forbes
• Plant Based Foods website came out of the blog: Eat Drink Politics
• Landscapes for People Food and Nature
• Food and Water Watcher
• The Salt
• Mark Bitterman on Food

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (Videos)

Our School Databases

Background Facts: Encyclopedia Britannica "food issues"

Background Facts AND For and Against Arguments: Australia / New Zealand Points of View Reference Centre.

News articles and Opinion Pieces: Australia / New Zealand Reference Centre. 

All types of Information: Global Issues In Context 

Government Websites

• Victorian Agriculture; NSW Department of Primary Industries: Agriculture; Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries; Tasmanian Government Agriculture.
• Food Standards Australian and New Zealand

Other Organisations 

Many issues and topics have either Associations (general or specific) or Non-government, Not-For-Profit Organisations trying to tackle them. 

ASSOCIATIONS

The purpose of Associations is to support their members (in this case farmers) through information and united action. 

Examples: Victorian Farmers Federation; Victorian No-Till Farming Association; Different food types have their own associations too.

Associations usually come in two levels - National and State. Sometimes there are more than one and it can get difficult determining the differences. Please ask us if you would like assistance. 

NON-GOVERNMENT, NOT-FOR-PROFT ORGANISATIONS

The purpose of Non-government, Not-For-Profit Organisations is to raise awareness of their concern and bring about change. 

Examples: Food Bank Victoria; FoodWise; Animals Australia; Environment Victoria: Eating the Planet; etc.

An important NGO is CHOICE: An Australian not for profit consumer organisation, previously known as the Australasian Consumers' Association. It is an independent organisation that was founded in 1959 which researches and campaigns on behalf of Australian consumers. CHOICE Food section. 

Environmental sustainability refers to the aim to preserve the world's natural resources for future generations.

Examples:

• Food miles means the distance that food travels from where it is grown to where it is bought. This is an environmental concern because of the CO₂ emissions from transport.
  BBC good food - the facts about food miles
  SBS - food miles: myth or fact?
• Genetically modified food is grown with genetic manipulation technology. Some people consider this a risk to the environment and choose GM-free products.
  Department of health and aged care - Genetically modified crops in Australia fact sheet
  Better Health Channel - Food - genetically modified (GM)
• Organic foods have been grown without the use of chemical fertilisers or pesticides.
  Better Health Channel - Organic Food
  Australian Organic - Organic food production
• Food packaging
  Australian Food and Grocery Council - Packaging
  Shop Ethical - Packaging and waste
• Food waste
  Foodbank - Food waste in Australia
  ABC News - Food waste costs Australian households up to $3000.00 a year
• Use of water in some food production
  ABC Education - Water footprint in food production
• Low impact farming
  The Conversation - Climate explained: regenerative farming can help grow food with less impact
  Regeneration International 
• Organic farming
  Department of Primary Industries and Reginal Development - WA - Going Organic
• Use of pesticides, antibiotics, fertilisers and other chemicals.
  The Guardian - The dirty dozen: 12 pesticides that are banned elsewhere but still used in Australia
• Soil degradation and other environmental damage to the land.
  Sustainable food Trust - Protecting Australia's diverse soils and landscapes
• The sale of imported agricultural products that involves high transport costs and therefore unnecessary carbon emissions.
• Seafood sustainability
  Seafood watch
• Different farming practices 
  • ​Permaculture 
  • The One Straw Revolution
  • Agroecology
• Biosecurity the management of pests and diseases, in Victoria and Western Australia.
• Climate Change
  Australian Conservation Foundation - How climate change influences what we grow and eat

Why sustainable food matters (National Geographic Video - 53 mins)

Ethics is a very broad topic, as you know, and covers many different aspects but basically involves looking at human behaviour in the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food. Over the past century, the production, distribution, preparation, and consumption of food have dramatically altered - looking at what is considered 'right' and 'wrong' in a food system.

Remember - All ethical issues have three parts: 

1) A topic that is debated / contested / controversial

2) Ideas of Right and Wrong

3) Different paths of action that lead to different outcomes

Examples:

• Seasonal foods means purchasing only foods that are in season. Choosing these reduces food miles. E.g. Purchasing a tomato in winter.
• The suffering of animals reared for human consumption
  • Pain in fish
  • Free range (a method of farming where animals are allowed to roam freely.)
  • Bobby calves
  • Live trade and live export (Shipping live animals overseas)
  • Ethical Meat 
• Food labeling - Should GMO foods be labeled?
• Sugar tax- Should foods high in sugar be taxed more highly than other foods?
• Use of child or bonded labour, or employment of illegal immigrants.
• Marketing campaigns that could encourage obesity.
• Packaging that leads to excess purchases with implications for obesity.
• Agressive marketing campaigns aimed at the vulnerable (e.g. promoting chocolate and other confectionery products to children).
• Inappropriate marketing campaigns (e.g. sports equipment for schools that require the purchase of a large number of confectionery or snack products).
• Sponsorship that seems aimed at promoting ethically inappropriate food products.

TIP: Ethics usually involves competing values:

• The value of food. Food is essential for the survival of human beings; hunger results from neglect of the universal right to food.
• The value of enhanced well-being. Today, nearly every nation state recognizes the need to enhance the well-being of its citizens. Such improvements in well-being also advance human dignity and self-respect.
• The value of human health. Human health is improved by the elimination of hunger and malnutrition. Healthy people are more able to participate in human affairs and more able to live productive and meaningful lives.
• The value of natural resources. All human societies recognize the importance of natural world that are used to produce food and other valued goods and which are necessary for our survival and prosperity.
• The value of nature. Finally, there is growing agreement that nature itself must be valued. As our power to modify nature grows, there is also an increasing recognition of the beauty, complexity and integrity of nature, and of the limits to humans' restructuring of the natural world. (Information modified from here.)

Food Sovereignty - when people have developed a food system that focuses on ecology and sustainability and enables them to choose the food they want to eat, where it comes from, and how it is grown.

Examples:

• Food miles means the distance that food travels from where it is grown to where it is bought. This is an environmental concern because of the CO₂ emissions from transport.
• Genetically modified food is grown with genetic manipulation technology. Some people consider this a risk to the environment and choose GM-free products.
• Organic foods have been grown without the use of chemical fertilisers or pesticides.
• Food packaging
• Food waste
• Use of water in some food production
• Low impact farming
• Organic farming
• Use of pesticides, antibiotics, fertilisers and other chemicals.
• Soil degradation and other environmental damage to the land.
• The sale of imported agricultural products that involves high transport costs and therefore unnecessary carbon emissions.
• Seafood sustainability - Bycatch Purse-seine nets, longline fishing, bottom trawling, etc.), aquaculture,  
• Different farming practices 
  • ​Permaculture 
  • The One Straw Revolution
  • Agroecology
• Biosecurity the management of pests and diseases
• Climate Change

Why sustainable food matters (National Geographic Video - 53 mins)

Make sure you ask us for advice! 

We can point you in the right direction and even suggestion key people involved in your topic. 

Interesting Things We Found Along the Way!

A Explainer on Food Blogs

A quote from Seneca the Younger: "A hungry people listens not to reason, nor cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers."