Research Dispatches: Karibu mzungu!

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This post is the first of three reports  by RSO student Florian Neubauer about the MSc research he is conducting in Kenya. Florian has kindly agreed to blog about his research and to provide us with a review of :

  1.  First reflections on researching in Kenya and his host institution, Maasai Mara University.
  2.  Living among the Maasai with a focus on their culture and way of living.
  3.  Results of the thesis. 
Main entrance of Maasai Mara University with the student library in the background.

Main entrance of Maasai Mara University with the student library in the background.

Part 1: Introduction and Maasai Mara University (MMU)

`Karibu´ and ´karibu mzungu` – `Welcome´ or `welcome white person´ – are probably two of the most frequent sentences, I have heard here, since I arrived in Kenya around three weeks ago. Here in the south of the country, I am conducting the field work for my master thesis with RSO group on Understanding changes in land tenure and livelihoods among the pastoral Maasai in southern Kenya.

Over the past decades, pastoral Maasai have been increasingly exposed to various pressures to their pastoral livelihoods such as demographic development, the spread of national and games parks or an increased privatization and commercialization of land. One of the biggest pressures and also the focus of my research are changes in land tenure, or more specifically, transformation processes from formerly communally owned land towards increasingly individualized and privatized land (ownerships) – a development thatroughly began during the 1970s and 1980s and continues since then. I am interested in investigating how this transformation in land tenure is shaping and impacting Maasai pastoral livelihoods and Maasai households on a local level, with a specific focus on implications and impacts on local food (in)security. I will explore the current situation at the local level, as well as retrospectively the past decision-making processes of households, in order to understand when, how and why a household decided for instance (not) to change, diversify or maintain a certain livelihood strategy.      Continue reading →

New journal announcement: SITOPOLIS – Journal of Urban Agriculture and Regional Food Systems

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SITOPOLIS – The Journal of Urban Agriculture and Regional Food Systems is a multi-disciplinary, peer-reviewed and open access journal focussing on urban and peri-urban agriculture and systems of urban and regional food provisioning in developing, transition and advanced economies.

The journal intends to be a platform for cutting edge research on urban and peri-urban agricultural production for food and non-food (e.g. flowers, medicine, cosmetics) uses and for social, environmental and health services (e.g. tourism, water storage, care, education, waste recycling, urban greening). It aims to explore, analyse and critically reflect upon urban and regional food production, processing, transport, trade, marketing and consumption and the social, economic, environmental, health and spatial contexts, relations and impacts of these food provisioning activities.

The journal addresses one of the contemporary grand societal challenges: how to secure the availability, affordability and access to culturally appropriate, nutritious and safe food for a growing and rapidly urbanizing world population in times of increasing resource scarcity, diet-related ill-health and climate change. This contemporary grand societal challenge requires a multi-disciplinary approach and hence SITOPOLIS welcomes contributions from a wide variety of disciplines, such as sociology, economics, marketing and consumer studies, gender studies, human and economic geography, urban and regional planning, architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, political science, agronomy, soil science, water management, and public health studies. The journal publishes original research as well as critical reviews.

The journal is published by Baltzer Science Publishers in collaboration with ACSESS, the Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science Societies in the USA and with the RUAF Foundation. Editor-in-Chief is Prof.dr. Han Wiskerke, supported by an international and multi-disciplinary editorial board.

Life in the Alpujarra (2)

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As promised in my first blog about our adventure in the Alpujarra, I will elaborate a bit more about the relationship between foreigners and the locals as it is an intricate one. Small villages like Yegen are doomed to become ghost villages within a generation if the current trend prevails. Young people leave the Alpujarra to study in Granada (or other nearby cities) to escape the old-fashioned rural life. Once they’ve seen life outside the Alpujarra, there’s hardly ever a way back. They grew up with their parents’ struggle in trying to make a living of the land; strenuous physical work in a harsh environment. Much of the land is now owned by the generation that is between 50-65 years old. They migrated (mainly Germany) many years back to earn money as there was little work and the salaries were low in Spain. Upon their return, the “re-migrants” invested their money in agricultural land as a pension for later. However, their children are not interested in working the land, they rather have a job in the city. So, no pension, no children close by to take care of you plus they’re sitting on a large plot of land that is worth close to nothing. The question that has arisen many times in the past months: what will happen to the villages and to the land? Continue reading →

Student-assistenten gezocht voor de Dag van de Stadslandbouw

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Op donderdag 15 mei vind in De Fabrique in Utrecht de Dag van de Stadslandbouw plaats, dit jaar in samenwerking georganiseerd met het PUREFOOD netwerk dat op 14 en 15 mei haar eindcongres houdt. Voor de Dag van de Stadslandbouw zijn de organisatoren nog op zoek naar een paar studenten die hand- en spandiensten kunnen verrichten op 15 mei (o.a. bij de ontvangst van de deelnemers en bij de start van de workshop sessies). Heb je belangstelling om te helpen, meld je dan aan bij Marco Lipsius van B2B Productions (marco.lipsius (at) b2bproductions.nl).

Voedselvisie “Ede, de proeftuin voor Food”

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Door Lara Sibbing, MSc-student Organic Agriculture (contact: lara.sibbing@wur.nl)

Voedselvisie EdeTijdens mijn stage bij de gemeente Ede heb ik bijgedragen aan het opstellen van een beleidsvisie rond voedsel. Dit heeft geresulteerd de notitie ‘Ede, de Proeftuin voor Food’ die in het voorjaar aan het college van B&W is aangeboden.De voedselvisie van Ede is te downloaden van de webpagina Ede kiest voor Food waar ook een korte toelichting wordt gegeven.

Met deze visie, die voortborduurt op de toekomstvisie Ede 2025, laat de gemeente Ede zien waar zij op in wil zetten op foodgebied: proeftuin voor Food worden door Ede en Edenaren, bedrijven en organisaties te stimuleren en te inspireren op drie hoofdthema’s: (1) Innovatieve bedrijvigheid in de regio, (2) Sociaal & Gezond en (3) Onderwijs & werkgelegenheid. De nieuwe gemeenteraad zal zich binnenkort over de voedselvisie buigen. Op dit moment wordt er hard gewerkt om samen met Edenaren een strategie op te stellen om de doelstellingen uit de visie te bereiken.