Thursday, January 6, 2011

JOURNAL: Issues on food safety from a perspective of information ecology

ABSTRACT: A recent trend of food safety issues in Japan is discussed from a perspective of information ecology. The Japanese food safety policies have gradually introduced a set of methods of the risk analysis that has embodied in the 2003 Basic Food Safety Law and the Food Safety Commission after the discovery of BSE cows in 2001.

The outcomes include an introduction of the traceability system for food products. Besides, a public arena of debates on food safety has emerged with issues on food pollution by dioxins, genetically modified (GM) foods and foods with disguised origins. In the arena, diverse arguments and practices have come out from different actors that include consumer unions, environmental groups, the food-distribution industry, the food-processing industry, farmers and some newly-entered industries. Contested strategies of these actors, interacting with policy change mentioned above, seem to bring a new design of information about food safety. The arena can be considered as a hybrid forum comprised of actors with different qualities. This paper analyses the hybrid forum by using three ideal types of strategies taken up by different actors in order to alleviate risks derived from food: informational, cooperative and technological strategies, in relation to three elements of the risk analysis.

Keywords: food safety, risk analysis, hybrid forum, traceability
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