ABSTRACT
Among Secondo Tarditi’s many interests in the area of food and agriculture, the issue of protecting consumers against the implications of biased government policies was one to which he devoted particular attention and energy. At the same time, Secondo strongly emphasized the importance of sustainability. The issue of sustainable food consumption and the role of government policy in that context would, therefore, appear to be a subject that Secondo would have loved to discuss, and hence a fitting theme in a book devoted to keeping the memory of our great friend ‘Dino’ Tarditi alive. Why are food consumers increasingly interested in the sustainability of conditions under which their food is produced? Is it appropriate for governments to promote this development? Should governments advocate a sustainable diet and seek ways to influence consumer choice with this aim in mind? In an attempt to suggest at least some tentative answers to such questions, the present chapter will begin by taking a brief look at the meaning of sustainable food consumption. It will then turn to a sketch of what the orthodox economic theory of market failure and government responsibility tends to suggest when it comes to sustainability issues in the food sector. As actual behaviour of many consumers does not match the simple version of that orthodox theory, the third section of the chapter will offer a few comments as to why that might be the case. As will be argued, there may well be reasons for consumers to be interested in sustainable food consumption. Fundamentally, this can be seen as a rather positive development. However, there are a number of complications and potential pitfalls which will be discussed in the fourth section, before the concluding section offers some suggestions regarding the role of governments in dealing with sustainable food consumption.
