Category Archives: Food

Urban Agriculture / Stadslandbouw

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Growing food in urban gardens and allotments has a long history. In the Netherlands, allotment gardens are a marginal but natural part of the city’s infrastructure. Other European countries have their own history in urban gardening too, such as many Eastern European countries. Also in the US, urban gardening is a long standing practice.

However, in the Netherlands as well as in the US, urban gardening is moving from the fringe into the heart of a debate about health and sustainability. The manifestations look similar. For example, the Alemany Farm in San Francisco which started on a vacant lot (see story) or the Red Hook urban farm (see earlier blog). Also in Rotterdam, Proefpark de Punt started on a vacant lot and also this initiative met skeptics of urban planners and city leaders until it had proven itself.

Reading the articles and websites of initiatives related to Urban Agriculture in the US and its counterpart ‘Stadslandbouw’ in the Netherlands, there seems a striking difference too. In the US, the food production aspect of the gardening is taken far more serious as an option for providing people a significant portion of their daily food. Growing food in urban gardens is about access to fresh food. Not in the last place for those who do not have easy and affordable access.

In the Netherlands, this notion is not absent of course. But the language around the initiatives starts from a broader notion of the need for ‘green space’ for the health of the urban citizen. A green environment, education about nature and food, recreation possibilities in accessible green spaces, the improvement of mental health and social cohesion by means of gardening. These notions can also be found in the initial objective for setting up Proefpark de Punt:

‘Landleven in de Stad’, een natuurlijke speel- en recreatiemogelijkheid voor de buurt te creëren.

A trend watcher on the website of Proefpark de Punt talked about ‘squatting green space’ which is what many initiatives in the US and the Netherlands essentially do. However, the local context differs considerably which means that the connections to health and sustainability are interpreted quite differently. A call for comparative studies I guess.

Proefpark de Punt

Proefpark de Punt

Sustainable food planning conference

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AESOP logoOn 9 and 10 October 2009 the first Sustainable Food Planning Conference will be held. This conference is an initiative of the AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning), the ISOMUL (International Studygroup On Multiple Use of Land) and the Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University.

The sustainable food planning conference is organized to examine the role of food in urban and regional planning. Although political, societal and academic interests in food and the city are rapidly increasing, food largely remains a stranger to the field of urban and regional planning, spatial planning policies and planning studies. Recently the American Planning Association launched its Policy Guide on Community and Regional Food Planning. Inspired by this policy guide, this conference seeks to explore ways in which food can and should be incorporated in planning practices, policies and research and develop strategies for enhancing sustainable food planning in Europe. The character of the conference is primarily agenda-setting by establishing a network of planning practitioners, policymakers and agrifood and planning scholars in Europe and beyond.

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Restaurant and meeting centre De Kemphaan (source: http://www.restaurantdekemphaan.nl/content/ons_bedrijf)

Restaurant and meeting centre De Kemphaan (source: http://www.restaurantdekemphaan.nl/content/ons_bedrijf)

The conference will take place at De Kemphaan in the city of Almere in the Netherlands. 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). The number of participants is limited to 50 persons. For more information have a look at the conference programme below:

 

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 (Almere municipality – director urban development and planning) 
10.00 – 10.30 An integrated and territorial perspective on food studies, policy and planning Prof. Han Wiskerke (Chair of Rural Sociology – Wageningen University, NL)
10.30 – 11.00

Coffee/tea break
11.00 – 12.00

Session 1: Agri-food policy issues
11.00 – 11.30 Food and agriculture in Europe’s peri-urban regions Mrs. Dwarshuis (President of Peri-Urban Regions Platform Europe – PURPLE)
11.30 – 12.00 Feeding the city: practices, challenges and lessons from developing countries Mr. Henk de Zeeuw (director RUAF foundation)
12.00 – 13.00

Session 2: Urban food planning practices
12.00 – 12.20 The practice of food planning in New York City Dr. Nevin Cohen (Associate Professor in Urban Studies at the New School for Liberal Arts, New York
12.20 – 12.40 The practice of food planning in New York State Mr. Bob Lewis (Senior Planner New York State)
12.40 – 13.00 Amsterdam’s food strategy (“Proeftuin Amsterdam) Mr. Bart Pijnenburg(Programme manager Proeftuin Amsterdam)
13.00 – 14.00

Lunch break
14.00 – 15.30

Session 3: Theoretical perspectives and academic issues
14.00 – 14.30 Reconnecting consumers and producers:  dynamics, diversity and potentials of alternative food networks Prof. Gianluca Brunori (Professor of Agriculture Economics – Pisa University, Italy)
14.30 – 15.00 Urban Food and Public Spaces: Planning for Security and Sustainability Dr. Roberta Sonnino (Lecturer in Environmental Planning – Cardiff University, UK)
15.00 – 15.30 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)
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

Drinks & Diner

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 (Professor of Land Use Planning – Wageningen University, The Netherlands)
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 Policy – 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

A local food movement in central Finland?

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After the ESRS conference in Vaasa, I joined my friend Ella to her place in Sotkamo in the north east of Finland. In Finland Sotkamo is better know as Vuokatti, the ski and outdoor holiday area within the municipality. It makes the center of Sotkamo a rather lively exception in a region suffering from de-population and ageing rural communities. Why would a young generation of farmers take over? A real challenge for Ella’s boyfriend, a dairy farmer in the region Kainuu. Milking 16 cows on 45 hectares party under conservation agreement, he is the only dairy farmer left in his village, delivering his milk to the cooperative a hundred kilometres further. With the decreasing milk price, these are hard times to make a living from this farm.

overview of the farm

overview of the farm

Alternatives are needed, but somehow, the development of alternative food systems seems to take off very slowly in Finland. Jokinen and colleagues (Maaseudun uusi aika 2/2009) give three reasons; 1) the long distances in the sparsely populated areas; 2) the strongly consolidated food supply chain (the three largest retain chains control almost all grocery sales in the Nordic countries) and 3) the declining co-operative culture in abated rural communities. I was struck by the similarity in reasons/conditions to the American Midwest, where, especially in Iowa alternative food systems do take off – against the odds.

Farmer cooperation, consumer awareness and civic action and organisation are among the most needed ingredients for building local food systems and sustainable livelihoods in Finland. Currently, this intermediary level of organisation is lacking in many places. How to start a positive cycle of development depends on many interrelating and partly unpredictable factors. Good examples – from within Finland or from oversees – might inspire people to invest in their communities and in local food.

 

 

De-commodification for the sake of soul

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New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof figured out the central problem with modern industrial agriculture (global edition 24-9-09).

“It’s not just that it produces unhealthy food, mishandles waste and overuses antibiotics in ways that harm us all”, he writes, “more fundamentally, it has no soul.”

Where the rural is nothing more than an effect of capital the soul that connects people to land and nature disappears.

The soul returns in those practices which are not aimed at abstract quantities but at particular qualities. Following Robert Pirsig, quality, or soul, cannot be defined but can be mutually experienced, in this case, by both producer and consumer.

This means that we have to “de-commodify” as an invited farm couple of Country Natural Beef explained a the Iowa Regional Food Systems Working Group meeting (see earlier blog).

“We were tired of being price takers” they said. “We have learned to seek buyers and work price and quality with them. It is based on transparent costing and a reasonable return. It just is all about relationships.”

The obvious critique is that we cannot feed the world with piecemeal examples of re-connection. But our current global industrial Ag model might just stifle our imagination of what is thinkable as an alternative Larry Busch remarked in his presentation at the ESRS meeting.

What if we left conveyor-belt-linear-thinking behind and instead adopted principles of feed-back or metabolic cycles in our designs, policies and innovations and infrastructure? Rightly so, Thomas L. Friedmann argued in the same edition of New York Times that our solutions to climate change, poverty, food security and biodiversity loss need to be as integrated as nature itself.

Social coordination at the food coop

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taken from: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3054/2433947202_a005e5a58a.jpg?v=0
taken from: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3054/2433947202_a005e5a58a.jpg?v=0

While being in Brooklyn, NY, I visited the Park Slope Food Coop, established in 1973. I only visited, because in order to buy something, you have to be a member. I could actually only enter the Coop in the first place, because Mikey, with whom I explored Brooklyn, is a member. In the upstairs office we had to identify ourselves after which I received a visitor card. Downstairs, I had to give the card to one of the two persons guarding the entrance. It was quite an intense experience, but the coop had more strict policies like this, needed to prevent that people take advantage. With only a 21% mark up across the board, good and mostly local and organic food is relatively cheap here. This is possible because the food coop is a not for profit organization in which 75% of the work is done by members themselves. So almost all persons I saw working are members; upstairs taking our identification, downstairs guarding the entrance, the cashiers, the people who walk you to the car and take the shopping cart back, all were members. Mikey works a three hour shift every four weeks in the basement, unpacking incoming supply and sending it up to the shopping floor. With over 14.000 members, this coop is an astonishing example of intense level of social coordination which pays off to all its members.