Are Large, For-Profit Corporations Intrinsically Less Ethical?
In the comment streams on my blog posts there is a recurrent theme from one segment of the respondents - they have a deep distrust in the large companies that are involved in modern agricultural technology. They don’t believe these companies will behave ethically because they are for profit entities “only answerable to their shareholders.”
I’d like to speak directly to this as a long-time Ag industry insider whose experience does not support these suspicions. I know that some will dismiss this perspective assuming I am biased, but one has to balance potential for bias with actually having first-hand experience from which to speak. Over the last 32 years I’ve work for or with most of the companies, large and small, that provide agricultural technologies. Fourteen of those years have been as an independent consultant so I get to know what is going on inside of many companies in a given year. I have still only had direct knowledge of a subset of what happens, but in all of that exposure I’ve never witnessed an unethical decision or action - not even the consideration of one. I’ve seen certain decisions that were short-sighted. I’ve sometimes seen decision-making processes that are more driven by fear than by opportunity. I’ve seen missed opportunities because vision was lacking. I’ve occasionally seen failures to take advantage of synergies that could have been realized between divisions of large organizations. I’ve seen problems, but I believe that some level of dysfunction is inevitable in any organization involving people. Still, unethical behavior isn’t something I’ve seen so I disagree that it is automatically likely just because of the characteristics of the company.
On balance I’ve also seen these organizations, large and small, frequently make important contributions to society in terms of the productivity and safety of our food supply. I’ve seen these companies continue to do that in an environment of constant activist attack and very limited public understanding because so few people farm.
Next Thursday, we'll launch another regular feature at the Green Options blog: Green Myth-Busting. Myths abound about environmentalism, sustainability and green living, and we want to make sure that those of you considering your green options have the facts you need to make informed choices.
