Category Archives: Food

Localising the food economy in Arnhem?

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Von Thunen’s famous ring model

Can the city-region of Arnhem be self-suffient for food? Certainly not for meat, but surprisingly for quite a few other product categories such as potatoes, eggs and most probably vegetables. And suppose we reduce our meat intake, could the region then also produce wheat for bread consumption?

Today five students of the Academic Consultancy Training course presented their recommendations to Stichting CASA in Arnhem. CASA is a non-profit for Architecture and urban development in Arnhem which focused on food and the city this year with a program called ‘Taste the city’. CASA commissioned research with the Science Shop on the question of regional food production and consumption in the region Arnhem and development of a food strategy. Continue reading →

Rhetorical devices in feeding the world

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Recently there were two food events here, a university run Food4you series of events and a series organised by critical student organisations Boerengroep and Otherwise called Food for All. The very different approaches to food are captured in their titles. The latter series finished yesterday on World Food Day with the Dutch premiere of the film Crops for the Future.  An instructive film about agroecology practices and food sovereignty from all over the world. Examples from the field were backed up with interviews with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food , with an author of the Agriculture at a Crossroads report and others. The message; we urgently need to move to another paradigm, the coming century is one of biology/diversity instead of chemistry. Still, it seems that the protagonists of a gone-by era are capable of organising a stage for themselves, the PR machine of Louise Fresco seems overheated. What are their rhetorical devices? Continue reading →

Interested in multidisciplinarity and traditional food?

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Rural Sociology has been participating in an intensive programme on Micro-organisms and Traditional Food since last year. In the beginning of this year the first students experienced this programme by spending 2 weeks in Rumania; see the experiences of Cho-Ye Yuen, Hylke Sibtsen and Rineke Boonen. During these intensive weeks, you follow lectures by various scholars from around Europe focusing on both social and microbiological sciences, you work on group assignments and go on excursions. This time the IP takes place in Ghent from 4 to 15 February 2013.

If you are a Master student at Wageningen University and would like to join this programme, please contact Els Hegger for more information. To get a better idea of the programme, our colleague Petra Derkzen blogged about her experience last year during four different days; first, second, third and fourth.

Feeding Milan? Interview with Anna Meroni

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On the 2nd of October we went for a small trip to Venlo with Els and Femke to attend the Food First conference at the Floriade (http://www.foodfirst.eu/index.php?a=2oktober2012)

Was very interesting to hear about different initiatives around food in diverse countries such as the Netherlands, Kenya, Colombia and Italy. One of the speakers was Anna Meroni, involved in the project Nutrire Milano (Feeding Milan) which is getting big popularity among citizens and local producers. We had a brief interview with Anna to find out more:

Hi Anna, on the brochure of the conference you are introduced as the president of Nutrire Milano, could you please describe your role in the project?

Actually I am not the president, I am just here as a spokeswoman of the project. I have been involved in NM (Feeding Milan) since 2008 together with Slow Food Italy, the University of Gastronomic Science of Pollenzo and the Polytechnic of Milan, which I represent in the project. I am working there as a researcher in service and strategic design with a particular focus on sustainability and design for social innovation.

Continue reading →

Reduced fee for PUREFOOD winter school!

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UPDATE: The deadline for applications to the International Winter School and Forum on Contemporary Agri-food Issues, 12-22 November in Barcelona has been extended until October 11th.  There are now a limited number of spots available in the course for a reduced fee of €400.  If you would like to apply for a reduced fee, please add a paragraph to your application form justifying your reason for requesting the fee reduction.  If you have already submitted your application and would like to request a reduction in fees, please amend your application including a justification for your request and send to the contacts below.
For more information about the Winter School click on  Beyond Divides – Program and Application Form. If you want to participate, please complete the application form and send it to Jessica Spayde (spaydejj@cardiff.ac.uk) and Leah Ashe (lashend@gmail.com)  by 11 October 2012.