Rural regional learning in the Comarca de Verín, Galicia, Spain

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Within the European research project DERREG, we are investigating how public policy can best be arranged to stimulate capacity building within development initiatives operating at grassroots level in rural areas across the European Union.

To find out how public policy interventions can best be arranged, we and our research partners have spoken to various stakeholders in different rural regions across the European Union to find out how they intend to support and facilitate learning and innovation and- most importantly- how the support and facilitation agreed upon is actually provided to the grassroots development initiatives. To find out what is working well and what isn’t working well yet, we have spoken to a number of grassroots development initiators in the participating DERREG case study areas and ask them to evaluate the current support and facilitation received.

To be able to compare the results obtained in the different case study areas, I have travelled to Alytus County, Lithuania in October and Oberlausitz, Germany in December of 2010. In January of this year, I was able to visit our colleague Lola Dominguez Garcia of  Universidade de Vigo in the Comarca de Verín in the South-West of Galicia, Spain. In this blog, we intend to share our experiences. Continue reading →

Working group at 24th ESRS congress in Chania, Greece 22-25 August 2011: Call for papers

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Imre Kovách ( Institute for Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest), Petra Derkzen and I are organising a working group on “the governance of semi-subsistent food and farming strategies in the countryside and city- a compartive perspective” at the 24th ESRS congress in Chania (Greece) from 22-25 of August 2011. We would like to invite all interested researchers to submit their papers dealing with empirical or theoretical reflections on the driving forces, structure and mechanisms of semisubsistence food and farming strategies in the countryside and-or cities, both within developed and developing countries. Abstracts may be submitted  to Imre Kovach (ikovach@mtapti.hu) AND chania2011@agr.unipi.it until the 30th of April 2011.  For a more detailed description of the workshop please read further…

Courtesy of European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism

Continue reading →

Join the Rural Sociology excursion place-based development to Lent-Nijmegen!

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At Wednesday morning 23th of March, an excursion will be organized to Lent/Nijmegen on place-based development. This excursion is not only for students who follow the course Understanding Rural Development, but also open for other students. Karolien Andela of the city of Nijmegen will inform us about recent projects such as: ‘Space for the river Waal’ to adapt to climate change), the shift of the river dike which will create a new island and space for recreation and events, ‘the Waal jump’ (new urbanization in Lent), the ‘Waal front’ (reconstruction of a business area) and landscape development.
If you are interested, please sign in by sending a mail to lummina.horlings@wur.nl before March 16th.

The kids menu and the industrialised palate

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`It is entirely possible to have a thriving restaurant trade and a bankrupt food culture at one and the same time´

writes Carolyn Steel in her book Hungry City p239. It seems to me that this observation holds true for Dutch food culture too, from the fieldwork that students did during the course food culture at the foreign cuisine restaurants in Wageningen (see earlier blog).

Carolyn Steel gave two guest lectures during the course where she focused on the Chapters Kitchen and Table. American fast food companies and the wider fast food rationalities easily rolled over Britain as they rolled over the Netherlands in stark contrast to the resistance it met in France or Italy. With little gastronomic heritage to defend we developed an industrial palate, characterised by processed rather than fresh, by heavy reliance on meat and by spicing down to salt and sugar while adding thick sauces to cover up.

We discussed the existence of special kids menu´s which most of the restaurants had, sometimes with Disney names. There were other signs of adaptations. Schnitzel with french fries at the Greek, bread with melted cheese at the Turkish and salmon with sauce at the Spanish restaurant are among the examples of non-ethnic choices available. All restaurant owners felt compelled to offer these choices in order to keep their customer base happy, thus the kids menu ends up with a frikandel and french fries.

Equally, the plethora of cooking programs and celebrity chefs is sure sign that the food culture at large became alienated from the value and intimacy of food and cooking. Carolyn but also others, such as Revel in The Taste Culture Reader, argue that professional and domestic cooking should be related.

 `Where food cultures remain strong professional and domestic cookery can co-exist in a mutually beneficial relationship’.  This allows for maintaining ´´vertical´ cuisines, in which different levels of cookery (rustic, regional, amateur and professional) continue to inform one another` (p238/239).

In weak food cultures, however, restaurants become a substitute for cooking. We want to be entertained based on a vague idea of ´otherness´. And the food? Oo yeah, it was okay.

Carolyn’s book Hungry City has been translated to Dutch as De Hongerige Stad published by NAi publications  and will be presented on various locations between 15th and 17th of March

Altijd al eens willen modderworstelen, of toch liever een boeren barbecue?

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De Taskforce Multifunctionele Landbouw heeft een studieprijs uitgeschreven voor leerlingen en studenten van het MBO, HBO en Universiteit:

Gaat jouw studieonderwerp over Multifunctionele landbouw? Doe mee met de Studieprijs Multifunctionele Landbouw en win, met vrienden en vriendinnen, een geheel verzorgde VIP-dag bij De Boerinn. Je mag zelf een dag samenstellen, met bijvoorbeeld polderchallenge, klompengolf of kaasmaken en barbecue.

Je moet het studieproject hebben afgerond tussen 1 januari 2010 en 15 april 2011, of ervoor kiezen volgend jaar mee te doen. Kies dan een opdracht-, project-, stage- of scriptie-onderwerp uit de multifunctionele landbouw. Wil je meer weten over de spelregels of je aanmelden? Kijk op http://www.multifunctionelelandbouw.nl/studieprijs

Wat is multifunctionele landbouw? Dit omvat agarische bedrijven die naast hun veehouderij-, akkerbouw- of tuinbouwbedrijf andere activiteiten uitoefenen, gekoppeld aan het primaire landbouwbedrijf. Deze activiteiten zijn zorglandbouw, recreatie, agrarische kinderopvang, boerderijeducatie, agrarisch natuur- en landschapsbeheer en/of de productie en verkoop van streekproducten. Een onderwerp zou dus kunnen zijn: het maken van een ontwerp voor een minicamping of de gevolgen van de bezuinigingen in het zorgstelsel voor zorgboerderijen. Maar (juist) ook andere ideeën zijn welkom!