Laura Cerrato recently completed her M.Sc thesis entitled “The role of civil society organizations and system relationships surrounding participatory organic nutrient waste cycling.” The following post is a summary of her case study evaluation of the urban De Zuiderhof Voelkstuin community composting initiative (Compoststraat) and its relationship to the city of Rotterdam and the Netherlands.
De Zuiderhof allotment
Examples of urban agriculture at the De Zuiderhof allotment garden in Rotterdam.
Monday March 16 2015 we will again start with the course RSO-21806 Origin Food: a market for identity.
Montbeliarde cheese made by the Meester Affineurs nearby Wageningen
The main aim of the course is to provide for a broad and scientific understanding of the growing importance of food products with an indication of origin within the globalising agro-food system. The course is obligatory in the specialisation Gastronomy of the Master Food Technology. No specific prerequisite knowledge is asked. The course is open to students from other Masters. Different educational backgrounds is stimulating for an interdisciplinary study of Origin Food Products in groups.
Food products with a geographical indication are becoming more important worldwide, both in economic and cultural terms. In the course a distinction is made between Origing Food Products with a protected Geographical Indication (PDO, PGI or TSG) based on EU-regulations such as Parma ham, Boerenleidse kaas, Café de Colombia and not officially acknowledged Origin Food Products locally sourced by e.g. restaurants, shops or online box schemes.
The course deals with a range of questions on OFPs organised in five themes: 1) Linking people, place and product: the construction of distinctiveness; 2) Regulation and legislation; 3) Marketing and branding; 4) Sustainability impact; 5) Consumers’ appreciation, regional gastronomy and food tourism.
The course consists of a combination of lectures, group assignments to study some Origin Food Products more in detail and a gastronomic excursion, often seen the higlight of the course.
For more information you can contact Dirk Roep (dirk.roep@wur.nl).
By Elske Hageraats, Msc. Biology and Msc. Development and Rural Innovation, WUR.
There is a battle for ‘truth’ (Foucault, 1976) and this fight for independent research and education is still going strong: be inspired by the story of the FEI
For my internship I have organised the Farm Experience Internship (FEI) 2014. The FEI is a international summer course at the Wageningen University for students and non-students, intended to bring theoretical knowledge from the University with practical skills and knowledge from farmers. Wageningen University students can get 3 ects credits for their participation in the FEI. Above you can see one of the FEI 2014 participants, Luiza from Brazil, harvesting ‘rainbow carrots’ in the Netherlands. Are you also interested in growing your own food, discovering local knowledge and practices on organic farms in the Netherlands? Do you want to learn about permaculture, agro-ecology and sustainable food systems? Would you like to interact and discuss with farmers to find creative, innovative ways of farming? Then this course is what you’re looking for! Join as participant, as farmer or organise the course at your own university as your internship. Check our website, or send us a mail: farmexperienceinternship@gmail.com.
There are many definitions of a sustainable diet. A sustainable diet should not only be sustainable, but also be nutritious and healthy. Furthermore, in order to insure compliance, attainability is also an important aspect.
Sustainability, health and attainability all are very broad, overarching terms. In order to create a better understanding of those terms one should break them down in smaller more concrete determinants. E.g. sustainability can be determined by CO2 footprint, land use, water use, animal welfare, ……
In order to understand the role of dairy in a sustainable diet it is important to understand how dairy does score on the different determinants of sustainability. Furthermore, it is important to understand the influence of the dairy production process (from grass to glass) on the different parameters of sustainability.
Once the position of dairy in the sustainability landscape is defined, it is important to include other elements such as health, nutrition, food availability, habits, affordability etc. By taking all those elements together you can determine the position of dairy in a sustainable diet. Continue reading
By Marc Wegerif. PhD Candidate, Rural Sociology Group Wageningen University, contact: marc.wegerif@wur.nl.
The grey concrete buildings and high rusty brown gate we were outside in a suburb of Lagos were not encouraging. Especially as we were looking for a farm, a fish farm, this did not look like any kind of farm. The yard beyond the gate with half finished buildings and concrete with rusty steel reinforcing sticking out was also not inspiring.
I was with a group of 12 amazing women farmers from all geographic zones in Nigeria, finalists in the Female Food Hero awards in Nigeria. This was an exposure visit for them as part of their training and build up to the announcement of the female food hero of the year (https://www.facebook.com/ffhnigeria?fref=ts).
When we looked a bit closer, behind an apparently collapsing shed, we saw three blue plastic water tanks. We gravitated to wards them as they were the newest and most functional looking things in the yard. Looking inside the first blue tank we did at least see some fish and a young man appeared from one of the buildings and admitted that he worked there. He was not the most talkative person, but did start to show us around. When he threw some fish food into the murky water it suddenly came to life, hundreds of fish rushing to get to the food, water splashing even outside the tanks.
When he threw feed into the slimy green water, of what I had thought were empty concrete tanks, these also exploded into catfish filled life. I was at last convinced we were not wasting our time. With a net he pulled some fish out, including a catfish that was probably weighed about 5kgs. There were close to 9,000 fish in the outside tanks. Most of them catfish in the concrete tanks, but one of the plastic tanks had about 1,000 pangasius fish as well.
In an incomplete building in a corner of the yard we were shown breeding tanks and the thousands of juveniles/fingerlings in them. The breeding tanks on the upper floor of the building contained exotic fish for aquariums. These days this fish farm sells only on Saturdays and focuses on selling parent stock as they get a better return, thousands of dollars a week. We did also see a few fish in a smoker, for the fish farmers own consumption.
This urban fish farm is part of a rapid expansion of fish farming and related industries in Nigeria. It was good to see that the fish feed came from a Nigerian company. The government has got ambitious programmes to promote fish farming with an aim to replace the 1.9 million tons of fish imported each year, at a cost of over $700million, with local production (http://www.fmard.gov.ng/news_inside/96 ). The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development gave each of the 12 female food hero finalists start-up kits including fish for them to go into or expand their own fish farming.
The yard remained a mess, but the fish production did impress, and fish farming at quite large scale in small urban spaces clearly has potential that I had never realised before. We got back on our bus and into the Lagos traffic. Along the way we saw women selling smoked fish from buckets on their heads and we also had cat fish as part of our dinner.
Rural Sociology Wageningen University 