Know your farmer, know your food

Posted on September 18, 2009 by Han Wiskerke

Recently I joined a Dutch internet Sustainable Food group. Today the convenor of this group informed the members about a new initiative of the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture): “Know your farmer, know your food”. The aim of this USDA initiative is to help more Americans understand where their food comes from and how they can support local food economies in their communities. The initiative was announced by USDA secretary Tom Vilsack in a YouTube video:

“An American people that is more engaged with their food supply will create new income opportunities for American agriculture. Reconnecting consumers and institutions with local producers will stimulate economies in rural communities, improve access to healthy, nutritious food for our families, and decrease the amount of resources to transport our food.”

While the White House kitchen garden and Obama’s idea to have a weekly farmers’ market at the White House (see my blog posted on 4 September) could have been perceived as ‘window dressing’, this USDA initiative surely gives the impression that the Obama administration is seriously attempting to fundamentally change US agrofood and rural development policy. Will, in this case, Obama’s campaign slogan – “Yes, we can” – become true?

Sustainable food planning conference – reminder & update

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Han Wiskerke

As mentioned in my blog of 28 August 2009 the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP), the International Studygroup on Multiple Use of Land (ISOMUL) and the Rural Sociology Group are hosting the first European Sustainable Food Planning conference. The conference will take place at De Kemphaan in the city of Almere in the Netherlands on 9 and 10 October 2009. It is still possible to register for this conference. If you are interested to participate in this conference, please apply by e-mail to corine.diepeveen@wur.nl. Costs for participation are € 100,- (incl. drinks, lunches and diner).

City estate De Kemphaan

Since the first announcement a couple of weeks ago, the conference programme has changed slightly. Below you can find the most recent version of the programme:

Day 1 – Generating ideas, exchanging experiences and comparing perspectives
09.00 – 09.30	Welcome and coffee/tea
09.30 – 09.45	Food and planning: an introduction to the conference	Prof. Kevin Morgan (Professor of Governance & Development, Cardiff University, UK)
09.45 – 10.00	Including food and agriculture in urban planning: the Almere approach	Mr. Henk Mulder (director urban planning Almere)
*10.00 – 11.00*	*Session 1: Setting the scene*
10.00 – 10.30	An integrated and territorial perspective on food studies, policy and planning	Prof. Han Wiskerke (Chair of Rural Sociology – Wageningen University, Netherlands)
10.30 – 11.00	Feeding the city: practices, challenges and lessons from developing countries	Mr. Henk de Zeeuw (director of the RUAF Foundation)
11.00 – 11.30	Coffee/tea break
*11.30 – 13.00*	*Session 2: Theoretical perspectives and academic issues*
11.30 – 12.00	Reconnecting consumers and producers: dynamics, diversity and potentials of alternative food networks	Prof. Gianluca Brunori (Professor of Agriculture Economics – Pisa University, Italy)
12.00 – 12.30	Urban food and public spaces: planning for security and sustainability	Dr. Roberta Sonnino (Lecturer in Environmental Planning – Cardiff University, UK)
12.30 – 13.00	Food and the city: the links between food, public health and sustainable urban development	Dr. Martin Caraher (Reader in Food & Health Policies – City University London, UK)
13.00 – 14.00	Lunch break
*14.00 – 15.30*	*Session 3: Food planning practices and policies*
14.00 – 14.30	Food and agriculture in Europe’s peri-urban regions	Mrs. Dwarshuis (President of Peri-Urban Regions Platform Europe – PURPLE)
14.30 – 14.50	The practice of food planning in New York city	Dr. Nevin Cohen (Associate Professor in Urban Studies – New School for Liberal Arts, New York)
14.50 – 15.10	The practice of food planning in New York state	Mr. Bob Lewis (senior planner New York State)
15.10 – 15.30	Amsterdam’s food strategy (“Proeftuin Amsterdam”)	Mr. Bart Pijnenburg MSc (Programme manager Proeftuin Amsterdam)
15.30 – 16.00	Coffee/tea break
16.00 – 18.00	Excursion to City Farm Almere	Tineke van den Berg (urban farmer)
19.30 – 22.30	Diner (Restaurant De Kemphaan – Almere)
Day 2 – Towards an agenda for sustainable food planning
09.00 – 09.30	Welcome and coffee/tea
09.30 – 10.00	Including food in planning studies and planning practices: experiences from the USA	Prof. Jerry Kaufman (Professor Emeritus of Urban and Regional Planning – University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
10.00 – 10.45	Issues, topics, themes for a sustainable food planning agenda (plenary inventory)	Moderated by Prof. Arnold van der Valk (Chair of Land Use Planning – Wageningen University, NL)
10.45 – 11.15	Coffee/tea break
11.15 – 12.45	Developing the building blocks for a sustainable food planning agenda (parallel working sessions)
12.45 – 14.00	Lunch break
14.00 – 14.45	Plenary presentation of and discussion about results of parallel working sessions	Moderated by Prof. Terry Marsden (Professor of Environmental Planning – Cardiff University, UK)
14.45 – 15.00	Sustainable food planning in Europe: concluding reflection and look ahead	Prof. Kevin Morgan (Professor of Governance & Development, Cardiff University, UK)
15.00	Coffee & tea / end of conference

Local resilience to peak oil and climate change

Posted on September 10, 2009 by Petra Derkzen

Last night I went to the film. The film night and the discussion afterwards was organised by the Transition Town Vallei, a new ngo which started in June this year. Wageningen and its surrounding villages is not the only place with a Transition Town initiative. They are mushrooming all over the Netherlands at the moment. The movement which is now taking off, started in Totnes, the UK:

“It all starts off when a small collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: how can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities of Peak Oil and Climate Change?”

The Transition Town website gives a guide for how to set up a Transition Town initiative, how to raise awareness around peak oil and climate change, how to connect with existing community groups, how to work with local government and how to come eventually to a “energy descent action plan” which increases the resilience of local community for times when energy is not such a self evident fact of life.

In Wageningen, we are at the awareness raising stage. We watched the film The Power of Community, How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. I can recommend this film to anyone remotely interested in the energy debate, the way forward with sustainability or more specific, the transition to local and organic food systems. After the initial shock and hunger, the Cubans massively started to farm on every square meter available. Tractors had become obsolete and the generation that still knew how to work with an ox trained a new generation. Without machinery, the conventional scale was untenable, which led to new systems of land distribution and a decentralisation of land ownership. Without chemical help, techniques of soil rehabilitation, worm composting, crop rotation, mixed planting and permaculture were adopted to “work with nature instead of against it”. “We call that ‘lazy agriculture’” somebody in the film explained. That should appeal to us all I would think.

Composting at Red Hook urban farm NY

Education in Urban Agriculture

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Petra Derkzen

Urban agriculture (UA) will never substitute food production from farmland but it can contribute to make more fruits and vegetables available near our growing urban world population. This calls for interdisciplinary research, but above all for interdisciplinary education. The next generation of urban farmers and developers is currently applying to our universities. Now the potential of UA is beginning to be realized, these young people will need practical hands-on skills and interdisciplinary knowledge to design new food system solutions. How to use limited space in an intense way, using the newest technology in an ecologically sound way calls for a large number of skills (see growing power). A growing number of universities develops courses and programs on UA (Redwood in Agriculture in urban planning 2009: 236).

A good example of a course which integrates how to learn to grow food and slaughter small poultry livestock with the theoretical knowledge from various disciplines such as soil science, horticulture, (insect) ecology, sociology and biology is the Urban Agriculture course at University of California, Berkeley. According to the course description the interdisciplinarity will

“allow us to better understand the biophysical and socioeconomic opportunities for and obstacles limiting urban and peri-urban agriculture”.

With the next round of education reform towards a semester model coming up, there should be space for a course on Urban Agriculture at Wageningen University.

Victory Gardens revisited – the Obama Foodscape

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Han Wiskerke

US World War II era poster promoting Victory Gardens

Victory Gardens, also known as ‘war gardens’ or ‘food gardens for defense’ were fruit, vegetable and herb gardens planted in backyards and on rooftops in the USA, the UK, Canada and Australia during World War II. They were considered to be an important means to reduce the costs for vegetables needed by the US War Department to feed the troops and to safeguard food security. One of the advocates of the Victory Garden was Eleanor Roosevelt, US first lady from 1933 to 1945, who also planted a Victory Garden at the White House. The Victory Gardens were a great success: the 20 million Victory Gardens in the US produced up to 40% of all vegetables that were consumed in the US.

After World War II the number of Victory Gardens rapidly decreased as most citizens believed that food shortages would be over soon. However, in recent years there is a campaign to re-establish Victory Gardens. Not to reduce the price of vegetables needed to feed US troops, but primarily from the perspective of food sovereignty; as a means to escape the growing dependence of consumers on the food stuffs provided by the food processing industries and retailers. At the same time gardening is also considered to be an important instrument in greening cities, in growing sustainable communities and in educating children about food and healthy eating (see e.g. our recent blogs about urban agriculture and nourishing the city).

For such a movement to become a success it is always helpful to have a leading figure as an icon. It seems that the USA’s new first family, in particular first lady Michelle Obama, is taking on this role. For the first time since the Roosevelt days, the White House once again as a garden. This beautiful short movie gives a good impression of the White House kitchen garden and the rationale behind it.

However, there is more to food and the Obama’s than the White House kitchen garden only. Recently President Obama announced that he wants to set up a White House farmers market to support local farmers and as an example of creating new connections between cities and its surrounding countryside. Interested to be informed about the Obama Foodscape, have a look at the Obama Foodorama weblog.

Rural Sociology Wageningen University

Category Archives: Food