Gradually more countries are developing a more holistic policy approach to food. Today I came across a report entitled A Future for Food: Adressing public health, sustainability and equity from paddock to plate, written by Australia’s Public Health Association (PHAA). In this report the PHAA states that Australia is in urgent need of an integrated food policy and calls on public bodies (such as governmental departments and the education sector), private parties (such as the food industry) and the voluntary sector (e.g. community based organisations) to realise this integrated approach to food. The strength of this report is its focus on food as a multi-dimensional policy domain; i.e. a food policy should not solely focus on nutrition but should also include a broad approach to public health as well as issues of environmental quality and social inequalities. What I particularly like in this report is the aim to involve the education sector in a national integrated food policy: “to ensure basic food literacy and skills education is available in all schools in Australia, as well as being available via community-based education initiatives“. Teaching children about the many aspects of food could be, I believe, a very fruitful strategy to prevent a significant increase in food related health, environmental and social problems in the near future. In that respect it would be interesting to learn from countries, states or cities that have adopted an integrated approach to food policy, including involvement of the education sector, in the (recent) past.
Category Archives: Food
Drivers of sustainable food networks
Today the Limburg Chamber of Commerce hosted the first day of the provincial tour of the Foundation Urgenda, a foundation aimed at innovation and sustainability. Members of Urgenda are spending 3 days in the province of Limburg to visit a range of iniatives about sustainable regional development. I was asked by the Limburg Chamber of Commerce to give a lecture about the role of food in sustainable regional development. In my lecture I first explained the unsustainability of the prevailing food regime as it has resulted in a wide variety of problems, such as the obesity epidemic, malnutrition among the elderly and poor, and environmental impact due to food waste and food transport. I then presented and discussed several examples of sustainable food networks (in different stages of development) that are (potentially) capable of addressing one or more of the problems just mentioned. Examples discussed were for Continue reading
Rural Sociology starts blogging!
As one of the first chairgroups of Wageningen University the Rural Sociology Group starts blogging about their work! All members of the group and related students fill this blog with up to date information about their work. So quickly subscribe to our feed to follow us!
From CAP to CRP and CFP
The Common Agricultural Policy is in a continuous process of reforms. Price and market regulation are gradually reduced, income support is increasingly linked to the provision of public goods and a gradually growing portion of the budget is made available for rural development activities. In general these reforms are inevitable and timely, yet I wonder if they are sufficient considering today’s realities and tomorrow’s challenges. In particular I am thinking of the blurring boundaries between urban and rural (in particular with regards to economic activities and employment opportunities), urbanisation of the countryside, the diminishing economic significance of agriculture in rural areas and the rapid increase of food-related health (obesity, malnutrition) and environmental (waste, food miles) problems.
Rethinking US food policy
I have been out of office a lot the last weeks and in this era of e-communication this automatically means a full e-mail box. Yesterday and today I’ve made an effort to read, answer and either save or delete most of them. Among the many mails, was one that contained a link to an article written by Michael Pollan, entitled ‘Farmer in Chief’, in which he addresses the president-elect (the article was written before the elections) by saying “It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food.” In a very interesting article Pollan, well-known for his well-written and thought-provoking books ‘The omnivore’s dilemma’ and ‘In defence of food’, outlines his agenda for food policy reforms. What I particularly like and admire in his essay is his comprehensive approach to food, i.e. he convincingly demonstrates that food is related to a multitude of problems that contemporary society is facing: health problems (obesity and maltnutrition), environmental pollution, social and economic inequalities, etc… According to Pollan, the many food-related problems of contemporary society are on the one hand due to the reliance of the food system on fossil fuels and on the other hand due to an eating culture based on fast, cheap and easy food . The policy agenda he proposes to overcome the many problems and its causes are threefold: 1) to resolarize the farm, 2) to reregionalize the food system and 3) to rebuild eating culture. For those interested in Pollan’s vision, a 90 minute interview with him can be found on the website of the Dutch documentary programme Tegenlicht (Backlight).
Rural Sociology Wageningen University 