AESOP; the government in the garden

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Petra Derkzen

Queen Elisabeth's Vegetable Garden. Photo:John Stillwell/PA Wire

Why is the government in the garden? This was the title of the last presentation in our Working Group Urban Food Governance at the AESOP conference this weekend in Brighton. Some governments are getting into the garden, case studies presented by conference participants showed how and why. Food is ‘becoming public’ a process of taking responsibility for what has been seen until very recently as a pure free-market issue. Public planning and action occurs for various reasons; because of urban health and obesity, the Urban Heat Island effect, food security in poor neighborhoods or in response to civic actions and food movements.

Notwithstanding the promising examples, there is reason for worry too. The political climate has shifted markedly in countries such as the UK and the Netherlands and budget cuts are threatening the sustainable food agenda because this ‘additional’ issue came in last and is the first to be thrown out. A second reason is what seems to me a continuing planner’s identity crisis. The philosopher Hans Achterhuis admits in his recent book that neoliberalism became so much the norm that the process of how it slipped into virtually every policy by small pragmatic adjustments happened unseen even for many of the critics.

Planning seems the opposite of neoliberalism. At the conference, we were stimulated to start planning again, the word master plan fell and was heavily debated. Planning –by default – seems to restrict choice. And free choice is the symbol and myth of neoliberalism with which few people dare to interfere. It is an unproductive and misleading contrast. As if no planning takes place now. Urban planners who decide upon the location for a supermarket are planning, the question is, which criteria are used and which of those do conflict with other public interests? The neoliberal idea of planners restricting choices has encroached the belief that planners can counteract private business interests. They can and should I think. The case studies often showed that current successful examples developed from a particular local ‘culture’ among those working with urban food planning incorporating public values such as equity, fairness, access and community.

The presentations and keynotes will be made available over the course of the coming week at the conference website

PhD position: Knowledge brokerage to promote sustainable food consumption and production

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Han Wiskerke

In January 2011 the project ‘FOODLINKS’ (Knowledge brokerage to promote sustainable food consumption and production: linking scientists, policymakers and civil society organizations) will start. This project is funded by the European Commission and will be carried out by a consortium of 14 partners (universities, regional and local governments and civil society organizations) from 9 European countries. The overall project aims at developing and experimenting with new ways of linking research to policy-making in the field of sustainable food consumption and production. FOODLINKS will be coordinated by Prof. Han Wiskerke and Dr. Bettina Bock of the Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University.

Job description

Within the FOODLINKS project we are looking for a a PhD candidate who is interested in issues of science-society dialogue, science-policy collaboration and social learning in the field of sustainable production and consumption. The PhD candidate will combine the writing of a PhD thesis with hands-on participation in a EC-funded project and contribution to project deliverables.

Within the overall FOODLINKS project, the PhD project monitors and evaluates the processes of social learning taking place in three Communities of Practice that are established as part of the project. In these Communities of Practice researchers, policymakers and civil society organization exchange knowledge and experiences and commonly define new research questions in the field of short food supply chains, sustainable public food procurement and urban food strategies. The PhD project will evaluate the knowledge brokerage activities and processes of social learning that are taking place in the Communities of Practice as well as in the project as a whole.

Requirements

A Master degree in sociology, communication science or innovation studies.
Knowledge of relevant theoretical concepts in science and technology studies, science-society dialogue and science-policy collaboration, such as boundary work, knowledge brokerage, multi-stakeholder participation and social learning.
Knowledge of and experience with monitoring and evaluating processes of (social) learning.
Some knowledge of or interest in agro-food research and issues of sustainable food production and consumption.
Good analytical and writing skills.
Fluent in English
Willing to travel as the project will include frequent meetings within Europe.

Appointment conditions

A PhD position for a period of 18 months, extended with another 30 months upon favourable evaluation. Gross salary will increase from € 2042 per month in the first year up to € 2612 per month in the last year based on a full-time appointment (38 hours per week). In addition, we offer a holiday bonus of 8% and an end-of-the-year bonus of 8.3% of your annual salary.

Additional information

Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from:

Prof. dr. ir J.S.C. Wiskerke, Chair of Rural Sociology, Telephone number: +31 317 482679/4507 and
Dr. Ir B.B. Bock, Associate Professor Rural Sociology, Telephone number: +31 317 483275/4507

Additional information about the FOODLINKS project can obtained through this link. The PhD position is mainly related to Work Packages (WPs) 2, 6 and 7 of FOODLINKS.

Additional information about the organisation can be obtained through one of the following:

Wageningen University
Rural Sociology Group
Rural Sociology Group’s research program (on this weblog)

Interested? Apply now via www.jobsat.wur.nl before November 8th 2010 (Vacancy number: SSG-RSO-0005).

Inclusion and exclusion of the rural… – Jan Schakel in Rennes – Part 4

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Jan Schakel

As I wrote before, there are many relations between the urban and the rural. I just mentioned some of them: the markets, the food, the regional identity, the life histories of families and …. biking trails… Although many people (in Rennes) don’t recognize this aspect, they do agree when I explain it to them. Maybe it’s too familiar to them –it might be in their backbone. But maybe also, because many Rennes’ peoples are getting very global: they just travel by car, TGV, Thalys or plane. Not any more by bike. Anyway, every day –after work- I’ll take my Batavus, and start roaming around. But when sunsets starts, I go to the écluse de St Martin’ (“shiplock”), just nearby the Agrocampus. It is exactly on the edge of the city and the countryside. I go there, just to experience a beautiful phenomenon. I am not the only one that goes to that place. When it’s getting dawn, I see ten, hundred, thousand and ten thousands, maybe even millions of birds (starlings) coming back from the countryside. I don’t know where they have been all day, but every night the gather together on the electricity pylons and its wires; they come from everywhere, with thousands and thousands. Like me, but I’m there just to watch them. It almost takes an hour when they’re “all there”..(although I do not count them). And then, suddenly (who said to leave; which bird took the initiative; and why?) they disappear, and they all go into the city. I’ve been told that they always go to the same places, and that hundreds of trees are fully loaded with birds, really: fully loaded, and you can listen all night to their talks and stories…you can’t even sleep. But the next morning: they all have left. Where have they gone? Fascinating. But even more astonishing is the fact that this daily rural-urban migration became part of an urban ‘exclusion’ policy. The birds are not welcome anymore in the city, at least: not everywhere. For example, in the luxurious Avenue de Jean Janvier (just opposite the central railway station)all trees are covered with nets(see picture), so the birds can’t have their sleep there anymore. I noticed these nets one morning on my daily trip to the station to buy my “de Volkskrant”. Rennes is changing … Anyway; the peoples who I asked about these nets, they just shook their head; they didn’t understand it either. Why exclude the birds…?

Some years ago, Rudolf van Broekhuizen and I did some research on “breeding and culture” as part of the EU funded project called “Sustainable Farm Animal Breeding and Reproduction” (SEFABAR). We studied the cultural context of breeding (for four species: poultry, pigs, ruminants and aquaculture)in 6 different countries. France was one of them, together with the USA, Thailand, Norway, Italy and the Netherlands (by the way: why do I have to say in French that ‘je suis Hollandais, je parle Neerlandais, et je habit a Pays Bas’? Three words for one nationality; rather complicated!). Anyway, breeding can be embedded in or intertwined with culture in many ways and with different meanings. Although we noticed –especially in breeding – an ongoing process of globalization, we also noticed processes of (re-)localization. Our main conclusion was: culture and context still do matter! In Italy for example, breeding is strongly related to food, and in France breeding still is deeply rooted in the region: ‘origine’, ‘identity’ and ‘terroir’ are the keywords to understand the cultural context of French breeding.

Continue reading →

Second European Sustainable Food Planning Conference – a last reminder

Posted on October 9, 2010 by Han Wiskerke

As mentioned in one of my previous blogs the Urban Performance Group of the University of Brighton (UK) will host the second European Sustainable Food Planning Conference on 29 and 30 October 2010 under auspices of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP). Although the deadlines for submission of abstracts and selection of papers and posters have passed, there are still a few places available to attend the conference. It promises to become an interesting conference due to the diversity of disciplinary and interdisciplinary contributions and the geographical range of cases and experiences that are going to be presented. And, furthermore, it also seems to be a vary timely conference; the attention for urban agriculture, food and health, food and urban design and food governance is rapidly increasing, not only in the academic realm but also in political and societal debates.

For more information about the conference you can download the conference brochure or have a look at the conference website.

PUREFOOD research and training network

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Han Wiskerke

The Rural Sociology Group has been granted the coordination of a Marie Curie Initial Training Network entitled ‘Urban, peri-urban and regional food dynamics: toward an integrated and territorial approach to food (PUREFOOD)’ funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework PEOPLE program. The PUREFOOD research and training programme aims to reduce the enormous knowledge and skills deficit that is negatively affecting the capacity to design and deliver appropriate political and developmental solutions in the crucial supra-disciplinary fields of food security, public food procurement, public health and sustainable urban and regional development. Hence, the objective of PUREFOOD is to train a pool of 12 early-stage researchers (ESRs) in the socio-economic and socio-spatial dynamics of the (peri-)urban and regional foodscape. The research and training program will therefore provide knowledge and innovation for the Commission’s aim to deal with economic, social and environmental policies in “mutually reinforcing ways” which reflects the core of the Lisbon and Gothenburg agenda’s call for integrated solutions towards economic prosperity, social cohesion and environmental sustainability. The PUREFOOD network is centred around food as an integrated and territorial mode of governance and studies the emergence of the (peri-)urban foodscape as an alternative (as opposed to a globalised) geography of food, including the ways in which, and the extent to which, sustainability aspects generally considered to be intrinsic to the alternative food geography are incorporated by the more conventional food companies.

The PUREFOOD Initial Training Network consists of 7 university partners who will each host one or more ESRs:

Wageningen University – Rural Sociology Group (The Netherlands)
Cardiff University – School of City and Regional Planning (United Kingdom)
Pisa University – Department of Agronomy and Agro-ecosystem Management (Italy)
Latvia University – Faculty of Social Sciences (Latvia)
City University London – Centre for Food Policy (United Kingdom)
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul – Postgraduate Program in Rural Development (Brazil)
Makerere University School of Public Health – Department of Community Health and Behavioural Sciences (Uganda)

In addition to these universities as full consortium partners, the PUREFOOD network consists of 8 associated partners, a combination of private firms, public authorities and civil society organisations:

The associated partners will contribute to the PUREFOOD training program by contributing to courses, participating in Communities of Practice and by hosting ESRs for a secondment. The active involvement of these associated partners is also of great importance for safeguarding the practical applicability of scientific research in the commercial, public as well as civic realm and for the dissemination of results.

The seven universities have opened (or soon will open) vacancies for 12 early-stage research positions. The launch of the vacancies has been announced on this weblog. As of now the PUREFOOD vacancy brochure with information about ESR projects, eligibility criteria, contact persons for additional information and addresses for submitting applications is available. For potential prospective ESRs an information pack has been compiled with information about the PUREFOOD research and training programme, the individual ESR projects, the timeline of the project and short descriptions of the full and associated consortium partners.

Rural Sociology Wageningen University

Category Archives: Food