Societal Dimensions of Food and Agricultural Standards: A Training Program

这笔赠款支持研究生培训计划的发展，重点关注食品和农业标准(FAS)提出的伦理和价值问题，包括质量、食品安全、劳工和环境标准。粮农组织决定谁受益，谁参与全球农业食品商品交换。它们体现了许多重要的社会和伦理问题，包括：国家和市场之间应该是什么关系？关于风险和安全，科学能告诉我们什么？如何才能(重建)民主？全球贸易在社会经济发展中的适当作用是什么？世贸组织管辖权的范围应该是什么？环境价值能与经济价值调和吗？现有的美国研究生课程都没有为学生提供探索这些问题的机会，并发展处理这些复杂的规范性和经验性问题所需的技能。这笔赠款将有助于建立一个国际公认的研究生课程，通过专门的学习机会加强最先进的基于学科的培训，使学生有机会融入跨学科的观点和技能，并为他们在日益全球化和差异化的食品和农业体系中应对规范问题做好准备。此外，它将帮助学生将规范性问题整合到各自学科的理论框架和实践中。FAS问题横跨社会学、法学、经济学、伦理学和政策分析，并在五个维度上发挥作用：(1)标准的形成、修改、实施和执行，(2)投入要素和产出产品的市场准入，(3)标准方面的公共和私人角色，(4)风险，(5)标准对行业不同群体和整个社会的影响。这五个维度构成了本研究主题和正在进行的研究计划的基础。这笔赠款的参与者将参与其中一个或多个主题的研究和培训。为了解决这些问题，教师和学生将利用农村社会学、制度经济学、国际法和食物法、伦理学和哲学以及政治学中的制度和政策分析的方法和学科技能。培训计划将允许三名研究生研究员和一名博士后研究员在三年内每年从事围绕上述主题的研究和正式课程工作。在培训过程中，研究员将与FAS系统中的各种利益攸关方进行互动并发展合作关系。他们还将参加一个关于主要调查人员目前正在调查的主题的严格课程作业和研究计划。博士后助理将为研究团队带来新的技能，并帮助团队教授FAS研讨会和管理整个研究计划。作为其培训的结果，研究员将处于有利地位，能够将这些规范性问题纳入其培训和研究事业。他们还将拥有在地方、国家和国际各级与利益攸关方团体开展合作的知识和技能。它们将能够与广泛的利益攸关方合作，以帮助创建社会合意和公平的金融服务体系，所有各方都能从中受益。

This grant provides support for the development of a graduate training program focused on the ethical and value issues raised by food and agricultural standards (FAS) including quality, food safety, labor and environmental standards. FAS determine who benefits and who participates in the global exchange of agrifood commodities. They embody many important social and ethical issues, including: What should be the relationship between states and markets? What can science tell us about risk and safety? How can democracy be (re)constructed? What is the proper role of global trade in socioeconomic development? What should be the scope of WTO jurisdiction? Can environmental values be reconciled with economic values? No existing US-based graduate program offers students the opportunities to explore the issues and develop the skills needed to deal with these complex normative and empirical issues. This grant will help to build an internationally recognized graduate program that enhances state-of-the-art discipline-based training with specialized learning opportunities, allowing students the opportunity to incorporate interdisciplinary perspectives and skills and preparing them to grapple with normative issues in an increasingly global and differentiated food and agricultural system. Additionally, it will help students to integrate normative issues into the theoretical frameworks and practices of their respective disciplines.FAS issues cut across sociology, law, economics, ethics and policy analysis, and play themselves out in five dimensions: (1) standards formation, modification, implementation and enforcement, (2) access to markets for input factors and output products, (3) public and private roles with respect to standards, (4) risk, (5) consequences of standards for different groups in an industry and for society as a whole.These five dimensions form the basis of this research theme and ongoing research program. Participants in this grant will engage in research and training on one or more of these topics. In order to address these questions, faculty and students will draw upon approaches and disciplinary skills in rural sociology, institutional economics, international and food law, ethics and philosophy, and institutional and policy analysis in political science. The training program will permit three graduate fellows and a postdoctoral fellow to engage in research and formal course work focused around the topics above, in each of three years. Over the course of the training program, fellows will interact and develop collaborative relationships with the variety of stakeholders in systems of FAS. They will also participate in a rigorous program of coursework and research on themes currently under investigation by the principal investigators. The postdoctoral associate will bring new skills to the research team as well as help in team teaching the proseminar in FAS and in managing the overall research program. As a result of their training, fellows will be well situated to integrate these normative issues in their training and research careers. They will also have the knowledge and skills to develop collaborations with stakeholder groups at the local, national and international level. They will be able to work with a full range of stakeholders so as to help create socially desirable and equitable FAS from which all parties can benefit.