Food4all – about right to food, sustainable family farming and agro-ecology

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With Food4all Otherwise and Boerengroep offer a critical perspective to food security and sustainable farming next to the yearly Food4you festival. Food4all starts on Thursday 11 October with a lecture on Land grabs and the right to food, next an expert panel on Feeding the world on Friday 12 October, a regional farmers market on Saturday and it ends with the Dutch premiere of the film ‘Crops in the Future’ on Tuesday 16 October. Food4all is organized in colaboration with ILEIA and SOS Faim (Belgium).

Celebrate food and farming in Wageningen, the Netherlands! Food4all is a festival that takes you on a journey through sustainable family farming, agro-ecology and the right to food. The Food4All festival is a critical supplement to the “Food4you festival”. The festival seeks to provide a critical perspective on global food security, and give voice sustainable alternatives.

Look at http://grassrootsscience.nl/ for the programme.

Food nostalgia

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Can you see beyond a paradigm when you are inside it – immersed, educated, experienced? I wondered this watching yet another episode in the ‘intensify or die’ debate that erupted from the opening of the academic year. The episode can be seen here where Louise Fresco argues for nuance and warns against romantic food nostalgia, such as cows in pasture. Continue reading →

Feeding the world sustainable – agroecology v industrial agriculture

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Feeding the world in a sustainable way is vehemently debated these days. In international fora the debate is not just about how to increase food production to feed the world’s growing population but also whether increasing food production is adressing the key issue of the relation between poverty and hunger. Increasing food production is not a neutral matter. Although some voices like to put it that way to sustain their claim that ‘facts’ show that their solution is the only right one. A solution is never neutral just because of the combination of technological and institutional means and the social and environmental impact it has. This is not new at all all. The impact of the (first) Green Revolution has been heavely disputed and this socalled neutralness of technology has been key issue in the massive techology and innovation studies of last decades. One cannot simply ignore the wider impact of technological fixes in the debate about how to provide the world’s population in a sustainable way.

In an editorial Eric Holt-Gimenez,  Executive Director of Food First / Institute for Food and Development Policy (www.foodfirst.org) in response to a recent study in Nature has added a contribution to this ongoing debate. He argues that there is a difference between between producing more food and ending hunger.  Read his editorial at on what kind of agriculture can best solve the problem of the growing number of hungry people: agroecology or conventional industrial agriculture at http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/magazines/global/farmer-organisations/opinion-eric-holt-gimenez or at Nourshing the planet (the weblog of the Worldwatch Institute). One can also see video of a lecture on Food movements, agroecology, and the future of food and farming.

The Christensen Fund made an interesting infographics evaluating the major differences between agroecology and industrial agriculture:

Beyond Divides: An International Winter School and Forum on Contemporary Agri-food Issues

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The Marie Curie Initial Training Network PUREFOOD project team will host a winter school and forum in Barcelona from 12-22 November 2012. The forum will be a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary event, with the joint participation of the PUREFOOD research fellows and supervisory team, a diverse group of external Ph.D. students, and respected local and international scholars and practitioners. The forum will create an atmosphere of debate, exchange, and collaboration.  The academic program will feature three distinct learning modes – expert-led discussions, peer-led paper review, and thematically integrated site visits – and will include modules oriented to some of the most prominent themes in agri-food system scholarship today.

Key themes are:

  • Food security, rights and sovereignty;
  • Social imperatives, ethics and justice;
  • Food and alterity;
  • Food policy and governance;
  • State, market and society;
  • Innovation;
  • Tradition.

Speakers at the Winter school are:

  • Dr. Patricia Allen, Director of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, University of California, Santa Cruz, United States
  • Dr. Jesús Contreras Hernández, Professor of Social Anthropology, Director of the Food and Foodways Observatory, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
  • Dr. Mike Goodman, Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography, King’s College London, United Kingdom
  • Dr. James Kirwan, Reader in Food Studies and Society, Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
  • Dr. F. Xavier Medina, Director, Department Food Systems, Culture & Society at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Academic Director at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

For more information about the Winter School click on  Beyond Divides – Program and Application Form. If you want to participate, please complete the application form and send it to Jessica Spayde (spaydejj@cardiff.ac.uk) by 3 October 2012.

Uitgegeten? #3 ‘De Toekomst van het Platteland’

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Zonder het platteland geen voedsel! Maar, heeft u er wel eens bij stilgestaan dat ons voedselsysteem en consumptiepatroon van invloed is op hoe het buitengebied eruit ziet? De afgelopen decennia voelden veel boeren zich genoodzaakt om te investeren in megastallen of om te stoppen. Dit heeft niet alleen economische consequenties, maar is ook bepalend voor andere waarden die we aan het platteland verbinden, zoals; een aantrekkelijk landschap, een gezonde leefomgeving en kennis over de herkomst van voedsel. Tijdens het derde en laatste publieksdebat van de serie Uitgegeten? gaan we met ‘waarden-experts’ in op de toekomst van het agrarisch platteland. Welke waarden willen we behouden of juist ontwikkelen voor de toekomst? Hoe zou het platteland eruit zien als we onze voedselproductie vanuit die waarden zouden organiseren? En, kan duurzaam voedsel de link tussen boer en burger herstellen?

Met: Ton Duffhues (Stichting Atelier Waarden van het Land), Ina Horlings (onderzoeker en docent rurale sociologie, Wageningen Universiteit), Maria Hopman (arts en hoogleraar integrale fysiologie, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen). Met cabaret van Irene van der Aart.

woensdag 26 sept | LUX zaal 7 | aanvang 20.00 uur | entree gratis, met proeverij regionale producten van Oregional | kaarten bestellen via www.lux-nijmegen.nl of aan de kassa van LUX

Uitgegeten? De toekomst van duurzaam eten is een verdiepende debatreeks over duurzaam voedsel georganiseerd door stichting Landwaard in samenwerking met LUX. Onderwerpen die eerder in de reeks aan de orde kwamen waren; de nieuwe voedselketen en stadslandbouw.