Performing Department
Animal Sciences
Non Technical Summary
The talk of the town, so to speak, is agricultural bioethics. Consumers, students, producers, professors, activists and the like are all ready to pounce on the subject with their own opinions but are without any one entity to lead the way. Currently, bioethics is not a part of traditional agricultural training programs. There is interest in the development of material to prepare faculty to be better prepared to teach bioethics. One of the objectives is to develop a web-based program to facilitate the access to the training to those interested and who may be concerned that they may not know the material or may feel uncomfortable leading discussions on bioethics. Researchers, who are not trained in bioethics, also need bioethicists. The Agricultural Bioethics committee hopes to help promote the importance and need for guidance in this area to the USDA so that the USDA can play a leadership role. The Multistate NCCC 209 Agricultural Bioethics group, formed in 2008, would like to encourage the USDA to become more involved with providing guidance in this area and has suggested that a model curriculum be adopted that could be utilized, or used as a jumping off point, to have academic discussions on the bioethical issues. It was also suggested that this group, in rewriting its goals and objectives, receive input from college students with an interest in the animal sciences as well as bioethicists to provide a broader and more current perspective. Both the development of a model curriculum and identification of issues that need to be addressed will have an immediate positive impact on all interests groups (producer, consumer, student, professor, activist and others in the animal industry). A new online journal is in the works that will publish papers written in the area of agricultural bioethics that will inform the lay audience about the issues.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Provide a forum in which animal scientists and non-animal scientists (philosophers, social scientists, etc.) may work together to examine and discuss contentious social and ethical issues.
Encourage the development and coordination of teaching, extension and research activities dealing with agricultural bioethics.
Develop mechanisms of outreach that would facilitate useful and open discussion between animal scientists and members of the public concerned about contemporary animal agriculture and its impacts.
Project Methods
In the last annual Agricultural Bioethics meeting on Sept 10, 2012, it was my suggestion to involve students in the rewrite of NCCC209 to be submitted Sept 2013. There is increasing interest in the field of bioethics among students and under proper supervision, they could assist with some of the research for the update and also provide a "younger" perspective on the objectives of the group. This idea was well received by the Ag Bioethics team. As such, I have engaged a group of college junior/ senior animal science students and have given them the charge to develop a model document that would be submitted to the Ag Bioethics writing team for consideration. Another group of students is working on developing a 2 credit course in Animal Welfare. To prepare such documents, under my guidance, they will identify, then research the various topics, and provide recommendations of focus, importance and issues that are due for reconsideration in how we manage and treat animals. The student's work will be published in a new on-line journal that I am in the process of starting that will be written such that the lay person will understand it and, most importantly, that will explain the science and the issues in detail, its potential solutions, and ramifications to society.