Start Teaching them Young: Connecting Children to the Local Food Chain (thesis/internship)

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This thesis/internship assignment will investigate the opportunities of educational programs for school pupils on the topic of local food and farming. It will draw from a literature review and work on a local case of the Tiny Restaurant, located in the municipality of Laarbeek in the Dutch province of North Brabant.  

The Tiny Restaurant is a grassroots, non-profit initiative aiming to bring producers and consumers together. It takes a form of a pop-up (mobile) restaurant that provides a meeting place for (in)formal exchange of knowledge. One of the projects of the Tiny Restaurant is educating children about the food chain through an experiential culinary program. The Tiny Restaurant wants to ensure its educational approach fits the schools’ learning goals and contributes to the ultimate purpose of creating a long-term connection between farmers and consumers. The goal of this assignment is to evaluate the current approach and advise on how the educational program can be improved. The following questions form a starting point:  

  • How can educational programs enhance awareness about local food production? 
  • How does the theme of local food chains fit schools’ curricula and learning goals? 
  • What is the optimal balance of head (conveying information), heart (shaping attitudes) and hands (learning by doing) in these educational programs?       

Depending on the student’s preference, the assignment can be more academic (e.g. using a literature review to learn about education for sustainability) or more applied (e.g. working on the Tiny Restaurant educational program, together with local farmers and teachers). The vacancy is part of a broader Science Shop project which, together with local stakeholders, explores possibilities of connecting producers to local inhabitants in Laarbeek. Starting dates are flexible, with results delivered by the end of May the latest. For more information contact Lucie Sovová lucie.sovova@wur.nl

Internship opportunity: How to bring local food closer to consumers? Formulating the vision of the Tiny Restaurant

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The Tiny Restaurant in Laarbeek

This internship opportunity is part of a Science Shop project in which Wageningen University works together with MIEP foundation, an NGO based in the Dutch province of Nord Brabant. The goal of MIEP foundation is to bring together rural inhabitants and local farmers. In 2019, MIEP launched the project of Tiny Restaurant: a pop-up restaurant deployed at various places (such as schools, sports clubs, village squares) which prepares food using sustainable, artisanal, seasonal, regional and Fairtrade products and which can be used as a space for meetings, educational or other events.

MIEP foundation approached the WU with a request to evaluate the functioning of the Tiny Restaurant, and its successfulness in creating lasting relations between producers and consumers. A first assessment, carried out within a framework of an ACT project in autumn 2021, indicated that the potential of the Tiny Restaurant is not yet fully used. One of the weaknesses was the lack of clarity in the restaurants’ vision and core message. MIEP foundation is currently working with farmer ambassadors to formulate a vision and concrete goals through which the Tiny Restaurant can support local producers.

We are looking for an intern with high communication and facilitation skills that will assist the MIEP foundation in this process of formulating their vision and goals as well as setting criteria to assess their progress. We welcome and encourage creative methods and outputs, e.g. a popularization flyer, a public event to promote the Tiny Restaurant, etc.

Starting dates are flexible, with results delivered by the end of May the latest. For more information contact Lucie Sovová lucie.sovova@wur.nl

Beyond farming women: queering gender, work, and the family farm

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In our November blog, prof.dr.ir. Bettina Bock looks back at her 44 years of research around gender and rural development. While issues of gender and agriculture have been on the research agenda since the 1970s, only recently has rural sociology started shifting its attention from the production of traditional gender roles, or the recognition of the role of the women-farmer, to an exploration of the farming cultures of queer farmers.

News article about Prisca Pfammatter’s master thesis, published in the Swiss BauernZeitung on December 10, 2021

Master student Prisca Pfammatter traced back how on traditional family farms in Switzerland, gender is the main axis along which labour is divided and power relationship shaped. Then, drawing from the approaches of performativity theory and weak theory, she investigated how queer farmers understand their farming performances and how these interact and intermingle to create gender and sexual identities that, in turn, inform their farming practices. 

Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork and seven interviews with queer farmer, Pfammatter evidences how through their performances queer farmers not only redefine male and female and masculinity and femininity, but also challenge the gendered division of labour on the farm. As a result, their subversive gender performances have the potential to redefine agriculture as gender-neutral and contribute to a filling of the scholarly gap on how to move agriculture away from the (re)production of the traditional gender binary and its inequalities.

Pfammatter’s research makes three main contributions to the literature. First, it evidences the glaring lack of research around and the invisibility and non-recognition of queer farmers in Switzerland. This lack that is exposed extends to the mechanisms through which farmers are turned away from farming as a livelihood on the basis of their gender, sex and/or sexuality – for example, through the celebration in Switzerland of heterosexual cisgender family farms. Second, the thesis highlights subversive performances and how these challenge the production of binary gender, sex, sexual, and farming identities as well as the attribution of skills on the basis of these socially constructed categories to imply alternative possibilities, roles and futures. Third and finally, it is suggested that farming can be an accommodating space where people can become who they feel they want to be.

Prisca Pfammatter. 2021. Beyond Farming Women: Queering gender, work and family farms, Master Thesis: https://edepot.wur.nl/557032

On 23 – 25 March 2022, the study will be presented at the International German-language conference “Frauen in der Landwirtschaft”.

Contact: Prisca Pfammatter, prisca.pfammatter@gmail.com

One village, two worlds: How do rural dwellers perceive local farmers? Thesis/internship opportunity

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This thesis/research internship opportunity is a part of a broader Science Shop project which, together with local stakeholders, explores possibilities of connecting producers to local inhabitants in the municipality of Laarbeek of the Dutch province Nord Brabant.

Preliminary insights suggest a disconnect between the inhabitants of this rural area and the local farmers. We are thus looking to conduct a survey to explore local opinions. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see how media representations and national-wide debates on issues such as the nitrogen crisis or the protein transition shape local understandings and relations between citizens and farmers.

The research speaks to broader debates on rural development and the role of agriculture in society. The results should indicate possible avenues for bridging the gap between producers and citizen-consumers. 

The precise delineation of the research and the methods used are open to student’s creative suggestions. Considering the research population, a working knowledge of the Dutch language is an asset. Starting dates are flexible, with results delivered by the end of May the latest. For more information contact Lucie Sovová lucie.sovova@wur.nl

Stage mogelijkheid voor studenten met agrarische affiniteit

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Dirksen Management Support

Bij agrarisch adviesbureau Dirksen Management Support brengen we melkveehouders uit heel Nederland bij elkaar in agrarische studiegroepen. Het doel? Leren van elkaars ervaringen, vergelijken van bedrijfsresultaten en discussiëren over bedrijfsstijlen en keuzes. Om de meest leerzame en interessante gesprekken te creëren, maken wij onze groepsindelingen op basis van regio’s. Met als resultaat dat onze boeren kunnen sparren over problemen die voor hun van toepassing zijn. Daarnaast geeft deze indeling op een juiste manier weer hoe boeren presteren in relatie tot vergelijkbare andere bedrijven. Dit houdt je als melkveehouder scherp en geeft relevante inzichten. Zowel in onderdelen waar het bedrijf goed presteert of waar nog kansen liggen die benut kunnen worden. Ons motto luidt dan ook: “Alleen ben je sneller, samen kom je verder!”

Dirksen Management Support werkt al vanaf 1996 met gegevens vanaf het melkveebedrijf. Dit heeft geleid tot een enorme dosis ervaring en kennis op het gebied van verwerking van deze data. Naast studiegroep begeleiding werkt DMS voornamelijk veel samen in projecten voor de kringloopwijzer. De kringloopwijzer loopt als een rode draad door het melkveebedrijf heen. Op basis van kringloopwijzercijfers komt er veel informatie naar voren over oogst-, rantsoen-, en efficiëntie resultaten. Meer recentelijk zijn er ook samenwerkingen omtrent CO2, biodiversiteit, mestbeleid (BEP-pilot). Enkele hoofdonderwerpen die besproken worden zijn: Kringloopwijzer, Bodembeheer, Voermanagement en nog veel meer… Voor kringloopwijzers heeft DMS een geavanceerd systeem ontwikkeld waarmee de cijfers gecontroleerd en verwerkt worden tot analyses in compacte overzichten. Niet alleen het analyseren van data, maar ook het begeleiden van project groepen en het managen van projecten in het algemeen is een onderdeel binnen Dirksen Management Support.

Wanneer je stage loopt bij Dirksen Management Support krijg je de kans om een kijkje te nemen bij de brede taken van het bedrijf. Bij het deelnemen aan studiegroepen leer je veel van de sociale kanten en het overbrengen van kennis richting de boer. Onderzoek kan worden gedaan naar het innovatietraject richting kringlooplandbouw, het gebruik van nieuwe technologieën in de landbouw, acceptatie richting kringlooplandbouw voor zowel boer als consument, bewustwording van “the need to develop” voor de boer, communicatie strategieën voor boeren en consument, etc. Mocht je liever met het data bestand en cijfers werken voor een wat meer Bèta onderzoek kan dat natuurlijk ook! Ideeën voor onderwerpen zijn welkom!

Profiel kandidaat

We zijn op zoek naar een student met affiniteit voor de agrarische sector. Een student die gemakkelijk contact legt met zowel de boer als andere actoren in de sector. Om die rede zoeken we dan ook een student die goed Nederlands spreekt.

Nog steeds geïnteresseerd? Mail ons, inclusief je CV en interesse voor een stageonderwerp. Wat zijn jou skills die je graag zou willen toepassen bij DMS, of willen verbeteren? Wanneer zou je willen beginnen en hoe lang wil je stage lopen? We zijn benieuwd!

Contact

  • Kim Hahn, kimhahn@dmsadvies.nl
  • Hans Dirksen hansdirksen@dmsadvies.nl

Voor de aanvang van deze stage neem je contact op met Thesis.RSO@wur.nl ter goedkeuring van de stage