Category Archives: Education

Farm Experience Internship 2016

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This summer the 3ECTS international summer course “Farm Experience Internship” (FEI) will take place at the Wageningen University. From 25 Juli – 19 August 2016, students will learn all about producing food, food sovereignty, the soil, the reality of farmers/ gardeners/ peasants, nutrient cycles, seeds, biodiversity, agroecology and much more! Besides workshops, lectures and excursions, students will work in a farm or garden for two weeks, to experience the reality on the land and learn all about agroecology in practice!

The FEI is organised by de Boerengroep (Farmers Foundation) and Otherwise. The Rural Sociology group is involved in the organisation and examination of the capita selecta connected to this course.

More info and signing up (subscription closes at 20th June):  https://farmexperienceinternship.wordpress.com/

See also this short movie.

Under the lens of embeddedness: a social-cultural perspective on home-grown school feeding in Ghana – PhD-thesis by Nashiru Sulemana

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June 2, 2016 at 11.00 a.m. Nashiru Sulemana will defend his PhD-thesis ‘Under the lens of embeddedness; A social-cultural perspective on home-grown school feeding in Ghana‘ in the auditorium of Wageningen University.

The defence ceremony will be streamed live by WURTV but can be viewed later as well. The thesis will be available at WUR-Library after the ceremony has been concluded.

The PhD-thesis analysed how the activities and experiences of different actor groups involved in the implementation of the home-grown aspects of the Ghana school feeding programme enabled as well as constrained local food procurement that was expected to link the school feeding programme to local agricultural development. While the primary objective of any school feeding programme is first and foremost to provide adequate and nutritious food to school children, efforts at employing the power of procurement under home-grown school feeding to benefit local agricultural development have been considered as ‘win-win’ in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in developing countries like Ghana. The assumptions that underpin these ‘win-win’ notions of home-grown school feeding, however, ignore the socio-cultural relationships that anchor the everyday activities and experiences of the actors involved in the implementation of the programme. The thesis, therefore, conceptualized home-grown school feeding as a problem of embeddedness and showed how socio-cultural relationships in the activities and experiences of school level governance actors, school food caterers, local food traders and smallholders enabled as well as constrained local food procurement efforts.

MSc Thesis opportunity: gardening for cancer survivors

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In the Netherlands, 1 out of 3 people get cancer; about 100,000 individuals per year. More than 60% of those diagnosed with cancer survive. However, survivors often experience long-term side effects of cancer and its treatment, which greatly influences their quality of life, ability to function, success in re-integration in social processes, and long-term survival.

Evidence shows that a healthy diet and regular physical activity are beneficial in cancer prognosis. Most current intervention programs are focused on dietary advice and exercise programs in gyms. However, such programs are hardly appealing to the majority of cancer survivors. We introduce a novel approach which may better fit the needs, possibilities and interests of cancer survivors: gardening. Scientific research underlines the virtues of gardening: it prolongs life, improves mental and physical well-being, increases quality of life and acuity, and  supports social cohesion. Moreover it can help to increase consumption of (home-grown) plant foods.

The idea of offering cancer patients the possibility to work in gardens is based on a similar project in the USA. The aim of this thesis is to study this program, specifically by investigating it from the point of view of the patients – how did they perceive the program – and to compare this to the situation in the Netherlands. What is available for (former) patients in both countries, what do survivors need or want, and how would (or in the case of the USA: how did) gardening fit in people’s rehabilitation programs? We invite you to study this from the perspective of Social Practice Theory, which focuses on habits and routines in daily life.

We are looking for a motivated MSc student that is interested in writing a thesis with the Rural Sociology Group on the topic of gardening for cancer survivors. The thesis will consist of a literature-based study, but the student is also invited to travel to the USA to interview (ex) patients and study a similar project there. The report will preferably be written in English.

More information? Contact Esther Veen (Esther.Veen@wur.nl)

Jessica Duncan awarded Excellent Education prize 2016

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Jessica Duncan has been awarded the Excellent Education Prize for the two courses:

Congratulations!

Possible Thesis Topics: Trends in Global Food Security Governance

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We are looking for good and motivated BSc and MSc students to conduct research on the following four topics:

  • Deconstructing the discourse of evidence-based policy making.

Project: Calls for evidence-based policy making are increasing evident in global food security policy processes, and beyond. For example, the follow up and review process for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to be “rigorous and based on evidence, informed by country-led evaluations and data which is high-quality, accessible, timely, reliable and disaggregated” (UN General Assembly, 2015, para. 74). Behind this push for evidence-based decision making lies a set of highly political questions about what evidence is considered appropriate? How should it be selected? Why? And by whom?

This thesis project will identify and analyse calls for evidence-based policy making made in food security policy processes at the multinational level so as to better understand the political nature of evidence and the implications this has for policies and claims to knowledge and expertise. Continue reading →