Today the Limburg Chamber of Commerce hosted the first day of the provincial tour of the Foundation Urgenda, a foundation aimed at innovation and sustainability. Members of Urgenda are spending 3 days in the province of Limburg to visit a range of iniatives about sustainable regional development. I was asked by the Limburg Chamber of Commerce to give a lecture about the role of food in sustainable regional development. In my lecture I first explained the unsustainability of the prevailing food regime as it has resulted in a wide variety of problems, such as the obesity epidemic, malnutrition among the elderly and poor, and environmental impact due to food waste and food transport. I then presented and discussed several examples of sustainable food networks (in different stages of development) that are (potentially) capable of addressing one or more of the problems just mentioned. Examples discussed were for Continue reading
Tag Archives: Food
From CAP to CRP and CFP
The Common Agricultural Policy is in a continuous process of reforms. Price and market regulation are gradually reduced, income support is increasingly linked to the provision of public goods and a gradually growing portion of the budget is made available for rural development activities. In general these reforms are inevitable and timely, yet I wonder if they are sufficient considering today’s realities and tomorrow’s challenges. In particular I am thinking of the blurring boundaries between urban and rural (in particular with regards to economic activities and employment opportunities), urbanisation of the countryside, the diminishing economic significance of agriculture in rural areas and the rapid increase of food-related health (obesity, malnutrition) and environmental (waste, food miles) problems.
Rethinking US food policy
I have been out of office a lot the last weeks and in this era of e-communication this automatically means a full e-mail box. Yesterday and today I’ve made an effort to read, answer and either save or delete most of them. Among the many mails, was one that contained a link to an article written by Michael Pollan, entitled ‘Farmer in Chief’, in which he addresses the president-elect (the article was written before the elections) by saying “It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food.” In a very interesting article Pollan, well-known for his well-written and thought-provoking books ‘The omnivore’s dilemma’ and ‘In defence of food’, outlines his agenda for food policy reforms. What I particularly like and admire in his essay is his comprehensive approach to food, i.e. he convincingly demonstrates that food is related to a multitude of problems that contemporary society is facing: health problems (obesity and maltnutrition), environmental pollution, social and economic inequalities, etc… According to Pollan, the many food-related problems of contemporary society are on the one hand due to the reliance of the food system on fossil fuels and on the other hand due to an eating culture based on fast, cheap and easy food . The policy agenda he proposes to overcome the many problems and its causes are threefold: 1) to resolarize the farm, 2) to reregionalize the food system and 3) to rebuild eating culture. For those interested in Pollan’s vision, a 90 minute interview with him can be found on the website of the Dutch documentary programme Tegenlicht (Backlight).
The Good Food Movement in the USA
From 22 – 30 October 2008 Prof. Cornelia Butler Flora (Professor of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Sociology and Director of the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development at Iowa State University, USA) visited the Netherlands to participate in the European Eemland Conference and the Agriculture in Transition Conference. She concluded her stay in the Netherlands with a seminar for the Mansholt Graduate School of Social Sciences of Wageningen University about the Good Food Movement in the USA. It was very interesting to learn more about the genesis of this movement, in particular how a diversity of interests are somehow aligning around this broad notion of good food. To give some examples of this diversity of social movements and interests:
- The ‘labor movement’ emphasizing a fair income for agricultural workers;
- The ‘social justice and economic security movement’ seeking affordable food (especially for the lower income groups);
- The ‘anti-globalization movement’ in favour of locally produced food;
- The ‘green movement’ focussing on strategies to reduce the environmental impact of food production;
- The ‘humane farming movement’ addressing animal welfare concerns in food production;
- The ‘anti-obesity movement’ advocating healthy eating as part of a healty lifestyle;
- The ‘farmers’ movement’ striving for a fair farmers’ price.
The notion of ‘community based economic development’ seems to be a development trajectory capable of uniting these sometimes competing (e.g. fair farmers’ price vs. affordable food for low-income groups) movements and interests. Although still a niche, the ‘good food movement’ is growing rapidly. It would be very relevant for many European countries, regions and cities to learn more about this ‘good food movement’ and the role played by the food policy councils that many states and cities in the USA have. These councils are also seen as a means to enhance food democracy.
Rural Sociology Wageningen University 