ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the nanotechnology which intervenes and facilitates the imaging, manipulation, and creation of materials, systems, and processes. Mark Morrison, CEO of the Nanotechnology Institute, recently also argued that we have been using nanotechnology for a long time without knowing it. For oversight and regulation, however the critical issue is whether and how such new or altered properties and phenomena emerging at the nanoscale create or alter the risks and benefits of a specific application. To the extent that nanotechnological applications in the food industry require new and at least initially pricey technologies, they are likely to increase the power of the biggest producers and to increase the indebtedness of small ones. Many of the social and political utopias in Western history were local both in terms of their size and in terms of their impact. Even more important is the fact that even in utopias that were designed for the macro or even global scale.
