Satoyama Stories: A Glimpse on the Movement for Regeneration of Matsutake Forests in Kyoto

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The Rural Sociology Group and Kyoto University maintain a close collaboration. Flora Sonkin, a MSc student at RSO, participates in a summer school and participated in field work near Kyoto this month. In this posts she shares her experiences.

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I arrived in Kyoto, Japan a few days ago as a visitor for the FEAST project at RIHN (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature), and to join the Kyoto University Graduate Seminar on Sustainability Studies.

Being in Japan in autumn has a special effect on one’s senses. Feeling awakened by the warm yellow and red colors that paint the mountainous landscape, and by the fresh smell of fallen leaves and pine trees. On the first day of my visit, Mai Kobayashi (my host at the RIHN) took me to a Satoyama nearby RIHN, were a community-led forest management project is trying to regenerate a red pine forest – and hopefully matsutake mushrooms along with it. Continue reading →

The future of Peasant studies: Seminar and farewell address by Jan Douwe van der Ploeg

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jd-seminar-1 Following his official retirement as Professor of Wageningen University, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg will give on January 26, 2017 his farewell address entitled ‘The importance of peasant agriculture‘. The ceremony will be in the Auditorium of Wageningen University from 16.00-17.00 CET and will be live streamed at WURTV. The ceremony is followed by a reception with the opportunity to congratulate Jan Douwe. Continue reading →

Local Public Policies for Food Sovereignty – A recap of the International Seminar in Donostia, Spain

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Former RSO student Jordan Treakle blogs about his experiences at the Public Policies for Food Sovereignty conference held last month.

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By Jordan Treakle

This entry is part of a special series of blog posts about the UN’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS): The Future of the CFS? Collectively reflecting on the directions of UN’s most inclusive body. Read more about this project here. This is not an exclusive project. If you would like to participate, please let us know: foodsecuresolutions@gmail.com

This week we take a diversion and focus on the outcomes of the International Seminar on Local Public Policies for Food Sovereignty that took place in mid-November in the Basque Country.  In this post Jordan Treakle identifies key themes to emerge out of the Seminar. We note that these themes relate to discussions taking place at the CFS and are thus relevant for this special series. Further, while focussing on global policies, there is a need to also address local-level policies.

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In mid-November over a hundred participants from across…

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Call for abstracts XXVII European Society for Rural Sociology Congress

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In July 2017 (24-27) the XXVII European Society for Rural Sociology Congress will be organised in Krakow, Poland. The topic of this year’s congress is ‘Uneven processes of rural change: on diversity, knowledge and justice’. The conference hosts several working groups, organised along three thematic lines: ‘Space, place and (in)equalities’, ‘Knowledges in processes of rural change’, and ‘agri-food systems and the rural’. For more information, click here. One of the working groups, part of thematic line one (Space, place and (in)equalities), concerns ‘Contested approaches to land-use: sustainability adjustments in social practices in global space’. See the call for abstracts below: Continue reading →

Food forests as an upcoming phenomenon in the Netherlands

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Eva de Groot wrote an essay about food forests and how this phenomenon is gaining momentum in the Dutch agriculture. In this blog she shares some of her findings. Continue reading →