Journal of Animal Science, Vol 76, Issue 3 706-713, Copyright © 1998 by American Society of Animal Science

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Use of competing conceptions of risk in animal agriculture

H. O. Kunkel, P. B. Thompson, B. A. Miller and C. L. Skaggs
Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843, USA.

This study considers a theory of risk as a means of coping with risk and uncertainty that have become a growing reality for animal agriculture. Microbial contaminations of food, waste management, animal products in the human diet, and transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) incorporate different conceptions of risk and require different approaches to handling the uncertainty involved. A dichotomous schema is suggested to assist understanding risk that may be adapted to recognizing and handling risk. The polar aspects of the proposal are the probabilistic approach at one end and the contextual understanding at the other. Probabilist conceptions of risk presume that risk is determined by probability and consequence. Contextual conceptions presume that management, law, regulation, media, and public perceptions, as well as the severity of the consequence, will figure prominently in decision making in the face of uncertainty. Relative emphasis on probabilistic characteristics shapes distinct understandings of risk that can be plotted between the poles. We are proposing that these conceptualizations need not be issues only for debate but also for recognition of the probabilistic or contextual nature of the risk. Specific actions and policy may be constructed on the basis of the conceptualization. The bovine spongiform encephalopathy/new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease complex is examined philosophically and methodologically as a contextual challenge to animal agriculture and associated industries. As such, the TSE serve as a case study of effective application of risk theory to risks in animal agriculture.

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