Tag Archives: Regional Development

Kick-off new EU-research project – DERREG

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derreg_logo2Last week we had a kick-off meeting of the DERREG research project in Brussels. DERREG is the acronym for  ‘Developing Europe’s Rural Regions in the Era of Globalization’.  The project will last for three years and involves 9 partners from 8 EU-countries and 10 case-study-areas.  Aim is to study how, especially disadvantaged regions respond to key-challenges arising from globalization. Focus is on rural business, migration, sustainable development and capacity building.

The Rural Sociology Group, in my person, will coordinate a workpackage called ‘Capacity building, governance and knowlegde systems’. We will study how public policies and knowledge-infrastructure are connected to bottum up initiaves and thus facilitate regional learning. And, in the end, recommend stakeholders how this regional learning can be further improved.

Coming months we will start up research activities and soon a website will be launched with detailed information. And we will keep you posted at our blog.

From CAP to CRP and CFP

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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.

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Is diversification desirable?

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Should farms and rural regions specialize or is it, both at farm and regional level, more desirable to diversify? Based on ample research carried out by my group during the past decade I’m inclined to plea in favor of diversification. At farm level there is much evidence that diversification of economic activities is desirable: Continue reading →

The tension between rural and regional development

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Last week I participated in a conference in Vienna entitled “Rural potentials for regional development“. One of the issues discussed in one of the workshops at that conference was the field of tension between rural development and regional development policies. Rural development policies focus on the sustainable provision of agriculture’s primary products (food, feed and fibre) and on the other good and services provided by farmers, such as biodiversity, landscape, tourism and care in rural areas. The importance of urban and peri-urban agriculture tends to be somewhat neglected. Regional development policies focus on spatial development and on the economic development of and employment in industry and non-agricultural or rural activities and services. The importance of agriculture in regional development largely remains unnoticed.   Continue reading →

The Good Food Movement in the USA

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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.