Category Archives: Research

Research

Support of Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture (SOLINSA): new EU-funded project

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In March we had the kick-off  meeting of the EU-funded research project SOLINSA: Support of Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture. The website has been launched recently and provides information on the project and will publish reports of findings. At the front page of the website can find a link a flyer on the SOLINSA project.

Agriculture is in transition. Among others agriculture respond to market developments, policy reforms, consumers and societal concerns and more generally sustainability issues, but in various ways.  From a rather one-sided production perspective , agriculture has become many-sided or even versatile. This has in turn has implication for Agricultural Knowledge System (AKS), i.e. the formal education, research and advice directed to agriculture and its development and is reflected in the different tasks and roles AKS can and is asked to fulfill in the support of learning and innovation practiced in often less formalised networks (i.e. the LINSA’s). AKS is in transition too, with regard to the need of building versatile expertise as well in how its is formally organised and funded (private, public or mixed funding). This is core of what will be studied in SOLINSA: how AKS can support more effectively and efficiently learning and innovation networks for sustainable agriculture. For this purpose two Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture (i.e. LINSA) of various kinds in the eight participating countries will be studied in depth. In the Netherlands for example the network of sustainable dairy farmers (www.duurzaamboerblijven.nl).

The Rural Sociology Group (RSO) and Communication and Innovation Studies (CIS) of Wageningen University jointly participate as a partner in SOLINSA. For information you can contact either Laurens.Klerkx@wur.nl (CIS), Frans.Hermans@wur.nl (CIS) or Dirk.Roep@wur.nl (RSO).

Citizens and animal farming… an ongoing debate…

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Over the last years I’ve been studying the socio-cultural sustainability of animal farming by looking at citizen perceptions in the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark of  two farming systems; dairy and pig production (see former blogs). The debate is ongoing and I am happy to see that an increasing number of researchers are actively involved in this field.

However,  I’ll be moving into another – also very interesting – field… also animal farming… also sustainability, but this time in Mozambique and smallholder goat production.  Hence, this is my final blog for Rural Sociology. From the 15th of June I’ll be working as post doctoral researcher for the International Livestock Research Institute (www.ilri.org) in Africa and India.

For those of you interested in the field of citizens and animal farming in Western societies,  below is a list of my publications, including two recently published papers. One paper includes the results of pig farm visits (see former blog), the other is a very compact review paper of my PhD thesis, only 9 pages…. Two other papers are published in open access journals, so I’ve included the link to the full paper for you. You’re free to use them (with correct reference of course) 🙂  

Continue reading →

Torri Superiore Ecovillage: resisting the abandonment of rural marginal areas in Italy

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 MSc-thesis by Alberto Giani

Modernization of agriculture has clearly shown not to be a viable solution for marginalized areas, while a mix of retro-innovation, fantasy and passion is showing a possible novel way forward for the re-utilization of abandoned areas and the revitalization of its socio-economic life.

Torri Superiore Ecovillage is such as case, that I studied in my MSc-thesis (click here for my full thesis report), part of my Master Organic Agriculture in Wageningen Univesity.

Torri Superiore Ecovillage can be defined as a bounded space re-created by in-migrants (new-rurals) that came and establish their lives in a place out from the mainstream society, utilizing external resources (both human resources and capital) and skills to revitalize through a neo-endogenous process the economic potential of a semi-abandoned low productive rural area.

Agriculture in a marginal area can rarely be a remunerative activity. In particular if an area has been abandoned for years and offers no opportunity for mechanization. Making a living in agriculture thus demands a break with the mainstream perspective on agricultural production. A capitalistic approach to land use, based on the integration in markets, is barely impossible in these areas. However from a different rural development approach still work can be created in the production of quality food remunerating a little salary to built a decent life, allowing people to live as much as possible in harmony with the environment without depleting it from its natural resources. Patrimonialization, broadening, deepening, re-grounding, creating local outlets are all strategies that can stimulate the rebirth of a local nested economy embedded in the territory, as is the case in Torri Superiore Ecovillage. This case represents a positive experiment in the restoration of economic efficiency in a marginal rural area.

Current policies discourses do stress the importance of creating proper conditions to make people stay in or return to marginal areas, but in practice the cost of the land, the bureaucracy and the taxes make it almost impossible for anybody to stay in marginal rural areas or for people without any experiences (so called new-rurals) to return to these areas.

PUREFOOD Research Vacancy ‘Comparative analysis of urban food strategies’

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The vacancy for a position as Early Stage Researcher (ESR) for the project  ‘Comparative analysis of urban food strategies in European cities’ within the PUREFOOD research and training network has been re-opened. More information about PUREFOOD can be found below and on the PUREFOOD website (which is still under construction).

Job description

For this PUREFOOD project ‘Comparative analysis of urban food strategies in European cities’ we are looking for an Early Stage Researcher who is interested in the topics of urban food provisioning and the relations between food and policy domains as public health, education, environment, et cetera from a sociological, political science and/or planning perspective. The research will focus on how food policies are articulated and motivated in different European cities and what  the consequences are for their implementation. This focus is inspired by the fact that more and more city governments are taking up food as a key policy area to enhance human and environmental urban health. The challenges of policy articulation and implementation are big. The articulation of food policy has so far been reliant on individual politicians and on a political level vulnerable to electoral shifts. Institutionalization of food policy in city governments has just started and different patterns of institutionalization are emerging with particular pitfalls and successes. This study will explore the preconditions, political processes, strategy articulation and implementations of urban food strategies in different European cities in comparative perspective to enhance the understanding of the conditions for successful urban food policy implementation. Continue reading →

Uitnodiging Studiedag Multifunctionele Landbouw

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Op woensdag 15 juni a.s. organiseert de vakgroep Rurale Sociologie (samen met collega’s van Educatie- en Competentiestudies) een studiedag rond het thema multifunctionele landbouw. Deze bijeenkomst vormt de afsluiting van van het tweejarige onderzoeksproject ‘Dynamiek en Robuustheid van Multifunctionele Landbouw’.

De studiedag vindt plaats op Landgoed Heerlijkheid Mariënwaerdt en is bedoeld voor iedereen geïnteresseerd in en betrokken bij de huidige en toekomstige ontwikkelingen van multifunctionele landbouw in Nederland (ondernemers, onderzoekers, beleidsmakers, adviseurs etc.). Aan deelname zijn géén kosten verbonden.

Download hier de volledige uitnodiging. Voor meer informatie en aanmelding kijk ook op de website van het onderzoek ‘Dynamiek en Robuustheid van Multifunctionele Landbouw’.

Tot ziens op 15 juni a.s.!