The complexities of the global agri-food system and the singular importance of food as a primary good elevate the need to explore what corporate social responsibility (CSR) might mean for agri-food firms. Although CSR refers to voluntary actions on the part of capitalist firms to exceed legal and regulatory requirements, those requirements are important because they set the institutional foundation for what a firm must do to earn the CSR label. In the case of CSR for agri-food firms, the institutional context includes the regulatory state as well as the publicly supported agricultural and food research and development that tends to be done at universities. The purpose of this paper is to provide greater conceptual clarity to the blur between the state, agri-food firms, and universities and their respective responsibilities to the public. Since the globalization of the agri-food system and the emergence of private forms of governance signal the decline of the state's legal and regulatory influence on corporate firms, we pay particularly close attention to the ethical challenges that have surrounded university–agribusiness collaborations—initiatives, which conjoin the moral concerns associated with each respective institution while also raising new questions in their own right. Although the university would ideally play a critical participatory role in this process by virtue of its public commitments, as we explain, the historical relationship between the university and agri-food firms has complicated the university's potential standing as an independent arbiter. Upon examining each of these issues in greater detail, we conclude the paper with a blueprint for how universities can enhance their ethical leadership when engaging with agri-food firms.

中文翻译：

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农业食品公司、大学和企业社会责任：什么是公共利益？

全球农业食品系统的复杂性以及食品作为主要商品的独特重要性，促使我们有必要探索企业社会责任 (CSR) 对农业食品公司可能意味着什么。尽管企业社会责任是指资本主义企业为超越法律和监管要求而采取的自愿行动，但这些要求很重要，因为它们为企业赢得企业社会责任标签必须做的事情奠定了制度基础。就农业食品公司的企业社会责任而言，制度环境包括监管国家以及通常在大学进行的公共支持的农业和食品研发。本文的目的是为国家、农业食品公司和大学之间的模糊以及它们各自对公众的责任提供更清晰的概念。由于农业食品系统的全球化和私人治理形式的出现标志着国家对企业的法律和监管影响力的下降，我们特别密切关注围绕大学-农业综合企业合作倡议的道德挑战，这结合了与每个机构相关的道德问题，同时也提出了新的问题。正如我们所解释的，尽管大学将凭借其公开承诺在理想情况下在这一过程中发挥关键参与作用，但大学与农业食品公司之间的历史关系使大学作为独立仲裁者的潜在地位变得复杂。在更详细地研究了这些问题中的每一个之后，