Welcome to the blog of the Rural Sociology Group at Wageningen University. Here, we share insights about people, projects, and publications within our group. Our focus lies in the exploration of food provisioning dynamics, agrarian transformations, as well as rural and regional development from a comparative perspective.
Boerderijovernames als mogelijkheid voor landbouwtransitie: van stoppende conventionele naar startende ecologische boer
Marcha van Wijk*
Introductie
Deze blog is een samenvatting van mijn masterscriptie over de overname van conventionele boerderijen naar ecologische boerderijen. Het scriptieonderzoek heeft deze overname verkend als potentieel onderdeel van een landbouwtransitie naar meer ecologische vormen van landbouw. Terwijl boerderijovernames vaak worden bekeken vanuit een financiële lens, belicht mijn onderzoek de emotionele en relationele aspecten, die vaak over het hoofd worden gezien, terwijl ze een grote invloed hebben op de overname.
Meer dan de helft van de Nederlandse boeren van boven de vijfenvijftig jaar heeft nog geen opvolger. Dit is een van de oorzaken dat gemiddeld drie boerenbedrijven per dag worden gestopt in Nederland. Vooral kleinschalige boeren vinden vaak geen opvolger, wat ervoor zorgt dat steeds meer kleine boerderijen verdwijnen en grote boerderijen groter worden door het opkopen van vrijgekomen land. Dit is in tegenspraak met opkomende visies over duurzame voedselsystemen, zoals de Farm to Fork Strategy (2020) en iPES FOOD (2016) die juist pleiten voor natuur-inclusieve en kleinschalige landbouw.
Mijn onderzoek verkent een alternatief op deze trend. Wat als we de overname van conventionele boerderijen door ecologische – bijvoorbeeld biologische, regeneratieve en agro-ecologische – boeren kunnen faciliteren? Dit zou zowel het gebrek aan een opvolger oplossen, als een landbouwtransitie richting ecologische landbouw op gang brengen.
Echter, toegang tot land is een grote barrière voor zij-instromers. Hoewel dit vaak in verband wordt gebracht met de financiële kosten van grond en een boerderij, onderstreep ik de noodzaak van een holistische aanpak en onderzoek ik affectieve processen tijdens deze overname. Wanneer een boerderij wordt overgedragen, vinden er namelijk grote veranderingen plaats en dat heeft emotionele en relationele invloed op de boeren.
Return to Village: Turkey’s state building in rural Kurdistan
Joost Jongerden contributed with two chapters to the book “A Hundred Years of Republican Turkey: A History in a Hundred Fragments” edited by Alp Yenen and Erik-Jan Zürcher and published by Leiden University press. One of these chapters, “The Return to the Village: Turkey’s State-Building in Kurdistan” discusses Turkey’s efforts to change the rural settlement structure in the Kurdish East and Southeast.
As part of its counter-insurgency strategy to reclaim the countryside in southeast Anatolia from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), the Turkish Armed Forces evacuated and destroyed rural settlements on a massive scale in the 1990s. According to official figures, 833 villages and 2,382 small rural settlements, totalling 3,215 settlements, were evacuated and destroyed in fourteen provinces in the east and southeast of Turkey. Several plans for resettlement or the controlled rural return of Kurdish villagers had already been made and discussed when the evacuations took place. It took until 2001, however, for a comprehensive plan to be released, one that, as it turned out, was more concerned about the settlement structure in Turkey than with the forced migrants, and this must be seen against the background of the Kemalist elite in Turkey, which has been preoccupied with the production of places and people as bearers of Turkish identity since the establishment of the Republic.
Continue readingNavigating Precarity: (Un)documented immigrants in Spain’s agri-food industry
In the master thesis “Navigating Precarity: (Un)documented immigrants in Spain’s agri-food industry” Merissa Gavin discusses the strategies employed by immigrants in navigating precarity from the perspective of the immigrants themselves and new forms of being political are being created. The main question that guided her research was: “How do undocumented immigrant workers in Spain’s agri-food industry engage in claim-making and claim-living to navigate precarity?”
Over the last two decades, immigrant workers have become a structural element of Spain’s agri-food industry. Arriving to Spain undocumented, immigrant workers have few options other than the exploitative working conditions of the agricultural sector. The present research centres on the precarity of these workers, highlighting the multitude of ways they navigate vulnerability and uncertainty. This research is important, firstly, to raise the voice of undocumented immigrant workers and demonstrate how they exercise agency in everyday activities. Secondly, to investigate the socio-spatial conditions that facilitate, or obstruct, the emergence of a collective political being.
Continue readingThe Netherlands and the prosecution and trial of Islamic State suspects in Rojava
After the liberation of Kobani from the Islamic State (IS) in January 2015, the Dutch government repeatedly informed Parliament about assistance to the Northern Syria region, which is also known as Rojava, subsequently renamed as the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). This agricultural region is Syria’s breadbasket, but it endured significant suffering and destruction during the war with IS.
After the defeat of IS, a democratic and decentralized governance system was developed, and agriculture diversified, in which the Kurdish movement played a prominent role. Ministers Ploumen (2016), Koenders (2016), and Blok (2019) made commitments to provide support to the region. However, given Turkey’s hostility, delivering aid has been a matter of political sensitivity
The government of the Netherlands made references to various forms of aid – emergency aid, humanitarian aid, reconstruction aid, assistance in political processes – yet what support has been given to whom remains unclear. In pursuit of this information, a Freedom of Information Act (WOB-WOO) request about this aid was submitted in January 2022. Recognizing that prosecution and justice were pivotal areas of focus during this period, a question regarding these matters was incorporated in this request.
In April 2022, documents were released, but disappointingly, they contained minimal information about assistance to the region. The documents primarily revolved around endeavors to prosecute and try IS suspects. Based on the data received, this article delves into the Netherlands’ efforts to explore potential collaborations with the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria for prosecuting and trying IS suspects.
Read more here: https://journals.tplondon.com/com/article/view/3130
Rural Sociology Wageningen University 