Category Archives: Multifunctionality

RETHINK Final conference in Brussels December 2, 2015

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RETHINKOn behalf of the Rural Sociology I’m having a seat in the Advisory Board of the RETHINK: a transdisciplinary research project supported by the European Commission and funding bodies in 14 countries under the umbrella of FP7 and the RURAGRI ERA-NET. The RETHINK Final conference will take place in Brussels, December 2, 2015. It will be an interesting event with a final reflection by:

  • Rob Peters, Head Unit ‘Research & Innovation’ of DG Agri;
  • Christiane Canenbley, Unit ‘Agricultural Policy Analysis and
    Perspectives’ of DG Agri
  • Egizio Valceschini, Director of Research at L’Institut National de la
    Recherche Agronomique (INRA), representating the RURAGRI ERA network
  • A RURAGRI country representative

You can download the program here and register yourself at the RETHINK website.

For more information you can contact the RETHINK scientific coordinator Dr. Karlheinz Knickel: knickel@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Future perspectives for farmers in Amstelland – Michelle Steggerda

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By Michelle Steggerda, MSc Organic Agriculture Wageningen University

Amstelland - SteggerdaFrom March till July 2015 I’ve done my internship at the research institute Alterra. Alterra is part of Wageningen University and Research Centre and specializes in the ecology, the spatiality and the governance of green spaces. My assignment was to conduct a research about the future perspectives for farmers in Amstelland, a peri-urban but still predominant agricultural area located south of Amsterdam. This was part of a larger project for the Wageningen UR Science Shop on behalf of the civil society organisation Stichting Beschermers Amstelland. Continue reading →

Participants needed for online survey about sustainable urban and peri-urban food provision!

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SUPURBFOOD logo

SUPURBFOOD is an international research project carried out by a consortium of ten research and ten SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) partners, in which novel solutions to urban and peri-urban food provision have been examined in three thematic areas. These thematic areas are: (i) nutrient, water and waste cycles, (ii) short food supply chains, and (iii) multi-functional land use. While positive developments are found in all of these, additional steps are needed to make full use of the potential of these innovations. Hence, the project team formulated a set of recommendations and would like to ask relevant stakeholders (e.g. policymakers, entrepreneurs, civil society organisations) for their opinion about their effectiveness. For that purpose an online survey has been launched, which takes 10-15 minutes to complete. If you considers yourself to be a relevant stakeholder, you are kindly requested to complete the online questionnaire, which is available in seven languages: English, Dutch, German, Italian, Latvian, French and Galician.

RETHINK – Farmers from Salzburg (Austria) explain diversification as a strategy to strengthen resilience

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RETHINK is a transdisciplinary research project supported by the European Commission and funding bodies in 14 countries under the umbrella of FP7 and the RURAGRI ERA-NET. The Rural Sociology Group has a seat in the RETHINK Advisory Board.

Researchers from BOKU have made three short films (also with English undertitles) in which farmers explain their family farm strategie in terms of strengthening their resilience.

Resilience refers to the capacity of social, economic, and environmental systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain their essential function(s), identity, and structure

1. Resilience needs diversity – Diversity needs balance

Five farmers form Salzburg (Austria) farmers talk about the advantages of having different income sources (both on- and off farm) to strengthen their resilience. But they also point out the challenges related to managing diversity. They talk about what it takes to successfully manage diversity, especially to ensure that the workload for the various family members is not too high and that quality of life does not suffer.

Continue reading →

Family Farming Futures – PhD-thesis by Henk Oostindie

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Cover FFF

March 20, 2015 at 1.30 pm Henk Oostindie will publicly defend his PhD-thesis ‘Familiy Farming Futures. Agrarian pathways to multifunctionality: flows of resistance, redesign and resilience‘ in the Auditorium of Wageningen University. The defence ceremony will be streamed live by WURTV but can be viewed later as well. A hard copy of the thesis can be ordered by sending an email to Henk.Oostindie@wur.nl or a pdf can be downloaded from Wageningen Library (embargo untill March 20).

The PhD-thesis compiles different national and European research projects on multifunctionality and multifunctional agriculture Henk Oostindie was involved since 1999. He has thus gained both a broad and profound knowledge of multifunctionality as a concept and as practice. He is a highly esteemed colleague at our Rural Sociology group.