“We need policy rupture not incremental conservatism”: Toward a #commonfoodpolicy

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The EU-project TRANSMANGO is focussed at sustainable pathways to changing the food system. This project aims to combine and integrate different theoretical approaches to gain insight into Food and Nutrition Security (FNS).
In light of that, TRANSMANGO’s Terry Marsden has written an opinion paper about transitioning from the CAP to a Common Food and Nutrition Policy to start the debate.

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A Common Food and Nutrition Policy for Europe?
Having been fortunate enough to have attended and participated in several international conferences and working groups over the spring and summer of this year, and had a change to explore and discuss the current ‘state of play’ in what seems to be the increasingly dysfunctional global food system, I have recently begun to seriously reflect on European policy, and the questions of radically changing the current EU CAP into a Common Food and Nutrition Policy. This was mentioned by Damien Canare, from Montpellier at a meeting of the FLEDGE research programme in Waterloo in September this year, and in my preparation and discussions for a presentation on the TRANSMANGO EU project at the Agriculture and Urbanising Society Conference in Rome thereafter.

“Some have perceived this as being something of a naive question, given the overall complexity and political inertia in the glacial process of CAP reform experienced over the past 25 years”

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RSO Students at Summer school at Kyoto University in Japan

20150914_144117On the fifth day of our program of the 2015 Kyoto Graduate Seminar on Economic Development and Sustainability Studies we went on a field trip excursion on food, agriculture and environment. The bus from Kyoto University brought us into the beautiful foresty hills just outside of Kyoto, where we visited Yamaguni Sakikage Center and Tagayashiuta Farm. The Yamaguni Sakikage Center makes, grows and develops various typical Japanese products such as the basic ingredient for the well known miso soup. The miso is made by fermented ecologically produced soybeans and said to have many health benefits to it. The center is a reaction to the increasing depopulation of Kyoto’s rural backyard, mainly populated by elderly  part-time farmers, and dependency on overseas import of genetically modified soybeans. Continue reading

Call for Paper Abstracts – Sustainable and Just Rural Transitions: Connections and Complexities

FoodGovernance's avatarFood Governance

XIV World Congress of Rural Sociology
August 10-14, 2016,  Toronto, Canada
Call for Paper Abstracts: Open May 19 – November 1, 2015
Sustainable and Just Rural Transitions: Connections and Complexities
Global environmental changes, shifting resource scarcities, deepening social inequalities, both innovation and crisis in urban centers, and new patterns of voluntary and involuntary migrations are among the conditions and dynamics now shaping the futures of rural places and people. Intensifying and intertwining forces of commodification, industrialization,  neoliberalization and globalization over the last several decades have produced uneven and arguably illusory gains, given evidence of the increasingly precarious position of labour and livelihoods throughout the rural world and the widespread distribution of environmental harm and ecological degradation. Within these general patterns and trends, circumstances can vary greatly across rural contexts within and between continents.
Rigorous analysis of the interconnected challenges now experienced by rural people and places, as well as…

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