Category Archives: Research

Research

Agroecology for Food Security and Nutrition – account of symposium hosted by the FAO

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Maria Alicia MendoncaBy 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 →

Ås – resultaten onderzoek naar volkstuinen in Oslo

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Esther Veen's avataronderzoekerstadslandbouw

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.

parsellhager

 De plek van de twee tuinen; de twee rode stippen 

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VALUES IN PLACE – MSc Thesis opportunity on the role of values in sustainable places

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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

Virtual Issue Sociologia Ruralis – a tribute to the Year of the Family Farm

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Being editor of Sociologia Ruralis I’m pleased to announce the publication of a Virtual Issue on Family Farming (= free accessible at Wiley Online Library) to celebrate the UN International Year on Family Farming, which reflects the development of thinking on family farming during the years. The virtual issue gathers a selection of publications on family farming in Sociologia Ruralis between 1969 and 2013. Taken together they reflect the development of thought through continuously returning questions (survival, succession, gender) as well as shifting points of attention.

Articles included:

  1. Social implications of farm mechanization, a final report on cross national research by Anton J. Jansen
  2. Patriarchy and Property by Harriet Friedman
  3. Family Goals and Survival Strategies by David Symes and John Appleton
  4. The Persistence of Family Farms in United States Agriculture by  Nola Reinhardt and Peggy Bartlett
  5. Farm Families Between Tradition and Modernity by Karl Friedrich Bohler and Bruno Hildenbrand
  6. Ageing and Succession of Family Fams: The Impact on Decision-making and Land Use by  Clive Potter and Matt Lobley
  7. Power Analysis and Farm Wives by Sally Shortall
  8. Defining and Operationalizing Family Farming from a Sociological Perspective by Göran Djurfeldt
  9. Family Farming and Capitalist Development in Greek Agriculture: A Critical Review of the Literature by Charalambos Kasimis and Apostolos G. Papadopoulos
  10. Pluriactivity as a Livelihood Strategy in Irish Farm Households and its Role in Rural Development by Jim Kinsella, Susan Wilson, Floor De Jong and Henk Renting
  11. Gender Identity in European Family Farming: A Literature Review by Berit Brandth
  12. ‘Good Farmers’ as Reflexive Producers: an Examination of Family Organic Farmers in the US Midwest by Paul Stock
  13. Subsistence and Sustainability in Post-industrial Europe: The Politics of Small-scale Farming in Europeanising Lithuania by Diana Mincyte
  14. Peasantry and Entrepreneurship As Frames for Farming: Reflections on Farmers’ Values and Agricultural Policy Discourses by Miira Niska, Hannu T. Vesala and Kari Mikko Vesala
  15. Resourcing Children in a Changing Rural Context: Fathering and Farm Succession in Two Generations of Farmers by Berit Brandth and Grete Overrein

The last issue of Sociologia Ruralis later this year will also include a section with several articles on family farming, followed by a discussion between some of the authors about the advancements made early 2015.

Special Issue on Cooperatives and Alternative Food Systems Initiatives – Free in July

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A special issue of the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD) on Cooperatives and Alternative Food Systems Initiatives has just been completed and will be freely available — no subscription needed! — through the month of July. http://www.agdevjournal.com/volume-4-issue-3.html We are doing this to make these papers more readily available to researchers and practitioners. It also offers prospective subscribers a chance to explore the contents of JAFSCD. I encourage you to share this notice with your colleagues and networks.

The Special Issue: 

Working Together to Build Cooperative Food Systems

Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development 4(3)
Edited by:  Anderson, C.R., Brushett, L., Renting, H. and T. Gray
A recent emphasis on cooperation and innovative forms of collective action within the food movement invokes a community-centered approach to food provisioning where collective problem solving and democracy take centre place in the development agenda. Cooperative alternative food networks are becoming powerful tools for community development and Continue reading →