Laura Cerrato recently completed her M.Sc thesis entitled “The role of civil society organizations and system relationships surrounding participatory organic nutrient waste cycling.” The following post is a summary of her case study evaluation of the urban De Zuiderhof Voelkstuin community composting initiative (Compoststraat) and its relationship to the city of Rotterdam and the Netherlands.
De Zuiderhof allotment
Examples of urban agriculture at the De Zuiderhof allotment garden in Rotterdam.
Despite the growing attention and support for urban agriculture (UA) and the increase in urban farming businesses, little is known about the business aspects of UA. This is not only an omission in UA research, but it could also constrain the development of UA businesses in the future.
We are therefore undertaking research to understand business approaches in UA. This may help to classify UA business models and could serve as a first step to explore UA through a business approach. For this purpose we have designed an online questionnaire that takes 10 – 15 minutes to complete
Hence, we are looking UA entrepreneurs willing to answer the questions in this questionnaire. In return, a written report of the research results will be shared with you through email (please leave your email address at the end of the questionnaire if you are interested).
We will also be very thankful if you can forward the link to this questionnaire (https://wur.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bQ0RmTT67JPiXn7) to (other) urban agriculture entrepreneurs you know.
We sincerely appreciate your precious time and kind help!
Shuang Liu (MSc student in Organic Agriculture, Wageningen University)
Han Wiskerke (Professor of Rural Sociology, Wageningen University)
By Maria Alice Mendonça, PhD-student Rural Development at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, Brazil) and guest PhD at the Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University
During the days 18 and 19th of September, the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations) hosted the International Symposium of Agroecology for Food Security and Nutrition, in Rome, Italy. See the FAO webpage for more information on participants, presentations, poster, videos and so on.
The conference was attended by over 400 people. Amongst them were academics and representatives from government and social movements from all over the world. The aim was to discuss agroecology in the context of global debates and strategies related to: food security, sustainable agriculture and local food systems. The symposium was divided in three parts. The first was a plenary session with presentations by experts at the forefront of scientific research and bystate officials involved in the construction and implementation of innovative policies on Agroecology and Food Security. This was followed by parallel sessions where social movements, such as La Via Campesina and the Articulation in Brazilian Semiarid – ASA, as well as academics and government representatives shared on the ground experiences with Agroecology in diverse countries. At the closing session, State’s ministries of France, Nigeria, Japan, Senegal, Costa Rica, Brazil (video message), the Commissioner of Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Union (video message) and the FAO’s general director, José Graziano da Silva made their statements and commitments to Agroecology and Food Security. Continue reading
Vorige week zat ik nog middenin mijn veldwerk in Ås; nu zit ik alweer op kantoor in Lelystad! De laatste week in Noorwegen was hard werken; ik heb veel interviews gedaan en het eindrapport geschreven, waar ik op het vliegveld de laatste hand aan heb gelegd (goed getimed, al zeg ik het zelf). In dit blog tijd om de voornaamste resultaten ook met jullie te delen.
Er zijn volkstuinders te vinden in alle segmenten van de Oslo’se samenleving. Ze zijn er in hippe buurten – goed opgeleide jonge stellen die met hun kinderen, hun vrienden en een kop koffie genieten van het groen middenin de stad. En ze zijn er in de wijken verder van het centrum, waar mensen wonen die naar Noorwegen zijn gekomen vanuit andere landen, soms gevlucht voor een oorlog, die groente kweken uit hun thuisland en vaak dagelijks op de tuin te vinden zijn.
De plek van de twee tuinen; de twee rode stippen
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At the rural Sociology Group we would like to do research on values, place and sustainability. Therefore we are looking for students who are interested in doing a MSc Thesis.
Place based approaches to sustainable development are increasingly favoured, assuming that place specificities really matter in the form of social, cultural and institutional characteristics. People shape places which is expressed in practices, relations, rules, symbols and place-identities. A central question is how human values play a role in place-shaping – aimed at sustainable development – and how to analyze and map values.
Values are not self-standing concepts which can be analysed as atomized issues, but intertwined, context determined, culturally varied and linked to how we see our self and how we perceive our environment. A value-driven perspective on sustainable place-shaping benefits dialogues based on people’s values and beliefs, and aims to provide a more in-depth insight in what people consider as worthwhile, feel responsible for and are willing to commit to in the context of their own place. This is relevant as we can see a trend towards forms of self-organisation, the ‘do-democracy’ and the participative society where people (are expected to) take responsibility for their own environment.
Our goal is to analyse how values are expressed in places, distinguishing between the following dimensions:
• The economic dimension: adding value to places;
• The intentional dimension: why people contribute to sustainable change in places
• The symbolic dimension: how people appreciate place and attach meanings to place
• The integral dimension: how cultural worldviews and levels of human behaviour play a role in place-shaping.
Does this make you curious and/or do you have an interest in this research theme, please contact Ina Horlings at: Lummina.Horlings@wur.nl
Rural Sociology Wageningen University 