“Sugar in Dutch foods throughout the years” – MSc-thesis possibility with Rural Sociology and Food Technology

Posted on by

Sugar in Dutch foods throughout the years: proposal for a Rural Sociology Master’s Thesis supervised by dr Jessica Duncan of the Rural Sociology Group and dr ir Ralf Hartemink of the Food Technology Group of Wageningen University.

Note: the research question is proposed by Knowledge Centre for Sugar & Nutrition (Kenniscentrum suiker & voeding). They will review the thesis and potentially use findings to develop a fact sheet on the history of sugar use in the Netherlands.

Research context and problem:

Today, it is not uncommon to read warning of the impacts of increasing amounts of sugars being added foods and drinks and thus increasing sugar intake by consumers. But is this the case in the Netherlands? Are Dutch people using more sugar in their cooking? Are they consuming more sugar in ready-made products? Has the sugar content in these products increased over the years? If so, by how much and why? In order to establish an overview of trends in sugar use in some typical Dutch products the researcher will:

  1. Research and map sugar trends in foods and drinks throughout the years (both domestic cooking and industrially prepared foods);
  2. Research the functionalities of sugar in a variety of products in the context of the trends.
  3. Analyse the  social and technological drivers and implications of the trends

Continue reading →

Stedelijke herstructurering via onderhandeling

Posted on by

Next to the many agricultural and food related researchers and PhD candidates, I sometimes feel a little bit odd within the Rural Sociology group. During my PhD research I study land transactions between governments and private landowners. The link to food is present, but not so obvious. Yet, land is a basic resource for food production. If you look at it that way, my research might be less ‘odd’ as it seems at first sight. Via my employer ‘Kadaster’ I write a monthly blog on urban renewal, that I would like to share with you. I think that some of the issues that I find during my research have similarities with issues during food research. Unfortunately for the non-Dutch readers, the blog is in Dutch.

Onderhandelen komt voor in alle tijden en culturen. We onderhandelen over de prijs van ons huis, de verdeling van de taken in het huishouden (doe jij de boodschappen, dan begin ik alvast met koken), onze arbeidsvoorwaarden en nog veel meer. Door te onderhandelen kunnen partijen met verschillende belangen tot een gezamenlijke overeenkomst komen. Maar we zijn het onderhandelen in Nederland de laatste jaren ook steeds verder verleerd. In veel oosterse landen is het nog heel gewoon om over de prijs van je dagelijkse boodschappen te onderhandelen. Wij hebben gewoon prijskaartjes. En mogen we een keer onderhandelen over bijvoorbeeld de prijs van een woning, dan laat menigeen dat liever aan een expert over.

Met regels en richtlijnen hebben we een samenleving gecreëerd waarin onderhandelen steeds minder nodig is. Vaak is dit maar goed ook. Ik moet er niet aan denken om dagelijks te moeten onderhandelen over de snelheid die ik op de weg mag rijden, of over de prijs van een brood. Maar met alle regels en richtlijnen die we in de loop der tijd hebben ontwikkeld is de flexibiliteit die aanwezig is tijdens een onderhandeling ook verdwenen. Want regels zijn regels, en daar hebben we ons dus aan te houden.

Een van de problemen bij stedelijke herstructurering is dan ook dat gebrek aan flexibiliteit en samenwerking. Onderhandelen zit niet in onze planningscultuur en systeem. De overheid is gewend een plan te ontwikkelen, daar eventueel de mening van de inwoners over te vragen, het op basis hiervan waar mogelijk wat aan te passen, om vervolgens het plan te gaan realiseren. Regelgeving is er voor vrijwel elke stap in het proces. Een nieuw plan moet bijvoorbeeld zes weken ter inzage liggen. En dan zijn we vervolgens verbaasd als dat hele proces moeizaam gaat of langer duurt dan gepland. Het belang en de mogelijkheden van onderhandeling zijn in dit proces schromelijk onderschat. We zouden inwoners en eigenaren als samenwerkingspartners moet zien, in plaats van als lastige burgers die moeten participeren. En ons echt verdiepen in hun belangen; met ze in gesprek gaan, luisteren en onderhandelen. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat je daar veel meer mee kunt bereiken dan met een starre planprocedure volgens de wettelijke kaders. Die kun je altijd nog gebruiken als je er echt niet samen uitkomt.

Alle eerdere blogs zijn te vinden op: http://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/ruimte-en-milieu/partners/kadaster/sanne-holtslag-broekhof.9175800.lynkx

 

Imagining Research for Food Sovereignty (video)

Posted on by

This video – ImaginingResearch for Food Sovereignty – highlights the outcomes of the farmer exchanges and the St Ulrich workshop deliberations.

For more information about the St. Ulrich Workshop on Democratising Agricultural Research for Food Sovereignty and Peasant Agrarian Cultures and theDemocratising Food and Agricultural Research initiative go here:http://www.excludedvoices.org/st-ulrich-workshop-democratising-agricultural-research-food-sovereignty-and-peasant-agrarian-culture

Life in the Alpujarra (Spain)

Posted on by

YEGEN-53Since the beginning of February my family and I have been in the Alpujarra; south side of the Sierra Nevada in Spain. We are here to experience the rough side of life: being a farmer in a tough arid land. We are trying to get a glimpse of the other side of the food story and feel what it is like to work the land (mainly by hand labour); and give our brain a bit of a rest. But despite the huge amount of physical work we do each day, the mind doesn’t rest. There is just too much going on here: the shrinking and greying villages, the contrast between coastal and hill-side farmers, the young versus the old, the ‘extranjeros’  vs the locals, fighting bush fires vs keeping a varied landscape, organic farmers selling mainstream to the world market, etc etc… I will start by telling you a bit about the village structure here, in Yegen.

Yegen is a small, typical white Moorish village in the centre of the Alpujarra. It seems just another village, but it is bit more special than all the other white towns. A certain Gerald Brenan (a British self-appointed anthropologist) was already fascinated by the life and customs in this village more than 90 years ago. He experienced Yegen as rather backwards (a way of life that he couldn’t imagine still existed) while at the same time the villagers as being extremely open to new comers. He ended up living in Yegen for about 30 years and produced a very popular book. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to get a hold of a copy but I did discover a 45 minute documentary about Gerald Brenan’s return to the village in 1974 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAAYPVsQQ4). Interestingly enough, he talks about the huge progress of the village and the change in customs and traditions, whereas to me – born in the late 1970s – it seems to be a pre-War setting. I couldn’t believe it was actually 1974; the streets were huge irregular stones mixed with sand on which only mules were to be seen, the women washed their clothes in a river, no motorised traffic at all. At the same time, Continue reading →

Food Sovereignty conference Yale and ISS – 30 videos, 94 papers and 12 JPS articles available

Posted on by

The conference “Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue” was held twice: on 14-15 September 2013 in Yale University, USA, and on 24 January 2014 at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Hague. It brought together the world’s leading scholars and activists, both sympathetic and supportive of the idea of food sovereignty, as well as those highly skeptical of the concept. They fostered a critical dialogue on the issue examining its various meanings, interpretations, and political implications.

The Transnational Institute has published 30 video clips from of the presentations held during the conferences at Yale University in September 2013 and at ISS in January 2014.

The combined processes towards the Yale conference and the ISS colloquium, there are now 94 working papers and 3 Discussion Notes. You can download these papers at : http://www.iss.nl/research/research_programmes/political_economy_of_resources_environment_and_population_per/networks/critical_agrarian_studies_icas/food_sovereignty_a_critical_dialogue/

Journal of Peasant Studies: 12 articles available free of charge 

12 papers by Henry Bernstein, Bina Agarwal, Jack Kloppenburg, Phil McMichael, Marc Edelman, Ryan Isakson, Jennifer Clapp, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, Madeleine Fairbairn, Annette Desmarais & Hannah Wittman, Kim Burnett & Sophia Murphy, and Peter Rosset & Maria Elena Martinez-Torres are officially published by The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS), one of the co-organizers of the critical dialogue. As contribution to the critical dialogue, JPS has made all these 12 articles downloadable from its website free of charge in a Special Issue:  http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fjps20/41/6