Archive for the ‘activities’ Category

Optreden Inspringtheater bij NEWAGRI

Het Inspringtheater is gevraagd om op 13 maart een optreden te verzorgen op een symposium van New Agri. New Agri is een initiatief van een groep boeren en wetenschappers die elkaar gevonden hebben in de interesse voor innovaties in de landbouw en groene sector. Samen hebben ze afgelopen jaar verschillende innovatieve ondernemingen bezocht die zich richten op het gebruik van water, energie en nutriënten en de keten van land- en tuinbouwproducten naar voedingsmiddelen. Een voorbeeld daar van is de Vegetarische Slager. De bijeenkomst op 13 maart is het slotakkoord van dat avontuur. Daar zullen een aantal sprekers hun ervaringen delen en zullen de bezoekers met elkaar om tafel gaan om hun ideeën uit te wisselen. Het Inspringtheater zal daar aanwezig zijn om de onderwerpen te illustreren met een aantal luchtige scènes.

We zoeken nog een laatste speler voor het optreden. Lijkt het je leuk om mee te doen? Mail dan naar st.inspringtheater@wur.nl

Niet alleen de spelers van het Inspringtheater zijn uitgenodigd om deel te nemen aan de dag. Ook anderen zijn welkom om deel te nemen aan de discussie. Geef je daarvoor op via bovenstaand emailadres. Kijk voor meer info op www.newagri.nl

Op 20 februari is er een open spel les van het inspring theater in LA 13.

Vanaf februari gaat het IT van start met maandelijkse spellessen onder leiding van Suzanne Prak. Tijdens de spellessen leer via verschillende methoden de kneepjes van het theater maken. De lessen zullen dus een soort workshops worden, maar de focus ligt vooral op lekker samen toneel maken. De eerste spel les is op 20 februari van half 8 tot 22.00 op LA 13

In Duitsland en Nederland is een nieuw virus aangetroffen dat is vernoemd naar de Duitse plaats Schmallenberg, waar het virus in november onder runderen werd aangetroffen. Het Schmallenbergvirus kan ziekte veroorzaken bij zowel koeien als schapenlammeren zo is gebleken. In augustus en september van dit jaar heeft de Gezondheidsdienst voor Dieren (GD) diverse meldingen gehad over runderen met diarree en productiedaling. Sinds december krijgt de GD meldingen over misvormd geboren schapenlammeren. Zowel in bloed van een aantal zieke runderen als in hersenen van twee lammeren is door het Centraal Veterinair Instituut (CVI) het Schmallenbergvirus aangetoond. Het is zeer aannemelijk dat zowel de misvormd geboren schapenlammeren als de diarreeproblemen en productiedaling bij melkvee door het Schmallenbergvirus zijn veroorzaakt. Bron: Agriholland

20-1: 254 meldingen waarvan 70 aangetoond in schapen en 2 in geiten. De rest nog in onderzoek of niet aangetoond.
20-1: Import stop Rusland en Mexico
23-1: Nu ook 2 meldingen in kalveren
23-1: Nu ook meldingen in Engeland

Met: Wim van der Poel (CVI), Willem Takken (Entomologie WUR), Berdien van Everdingen (LTO)

Datum: 13 februari 2012
Tijd: 19:00 – 22:30
Locatie: Forumgebouw

As a student you can follow Grassroots Sciences as a capita selecta. You attend at least five lecture of the series, read provided literature, and write an essay. The course outline can be found here. Deadline for registration is February 29.

Schedle of Lectures*:

Monday February 13 – Agroecology as a science, movement and a practice: can it feed the world?

Wednesday February 29 – Political developments in Bolivia: their impact on indigenous people and the environment

Monday March 5th – Shell, Seeds and Saving the Planet: Rights and Livelihoods in a Global Economy

Thursday April 5^th – Family farming as a starting ground for rural development

Monday May 14 – Building on farmers’ knowledge

Monday June 11 – Rural Sovereignty

*this schedule was updated on Febryuary 14th. More lectures might still be organised, check Boerengroep website for updates

Na twee veelbesproken en goed bezochte debatreeksen in de Rode Hoed (2009 en 2010) waarin bedrijven, boeren, maatschappelijke organisaties en burgers elkaar vonden rond belangrijke thema’s gerelateerd aan landbouw en voedsel, komt er een derde reeks.

Het eerste debat vindt plaats op 7 februari 2012 in de Rode Hoed. Te gast zijn ondermeer: staatsecretaris Economie, Landbouw & Inovatie Henk Bleker en Carolyn Steel, architect en auteur Hungry City. De moderatie is in handen van Felix Rottenberg.

link naar Rode Hoed aankondiging
link naar programmadetails

Wil je naar deze reeks, laat het ons weten dan organiseren we dit (verzamelpunt, reserveringen etc.).

Are you looking for a topic for you thesis (msc, hbo, small, large) or internship (official internship for your studies or a self-arranged-informal-one just to get workig experience in the field): check out these vacancies at Ecolonie farm in France!

Topics:

Vegetables:
- Seed production, also for others
- Effective Microorganisms, EM
- Homemade preparations
- Low energy food processing
- The effects of using cupper tools
- Reduced-till techniques
- Green manure cover crops, including seed saving techniques

Goats:
- Bushes and herbs for nutrition

Chickens:
- develop a mobile chicken pen to be used in the goat field

Herbs:
- ask for possibilites

Check their website for more possibilites.

Of course you can also try one of the dutch farms in our list for farmwork exchange. Or look at wwoof.org or helpx.net

Let’s get our hands dirty!

We are honoured to have organized a last minute event on Thursday 15 December 2011 with the world renowned speaker, Eric Holt-Gimenez.

The title of this event is “transforming our global food system” and is the first of the new monthly series organised by OtherWise and Boerengroep “Grassroots science: sustainable alternatives from the field”.

Eric Holt Gimenez, Food First, Oakland, California
Convergence in diversity: Food movements and the transformation of our food systems

powerpoint presentation available here
link to his newest book Food Movements: Unite!

 SHORT BIO (source: www.iss.nl)
Eric Holt-Giménez, Ph.D. Eric Holt-Giménez, Ph.D. is the executive director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy. He is the editor of the recent Food First book, “Food Movements Unite! Strategies to transform our Food Systems” (2011), co-author of “Food Rebellions: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice” (2009), and author of “Campesino a Campesino: Voices from Latin America’s Farmer to Farmer Movement for Sustainable Agriculture” (2006). From 1977 to 1998, Eric worked on the ground in Mexico and Central America with the Campesino a Campesino Movement.He then earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the
University of California –Santa Cruz.and carried out a three-country study on “Measuring Farmers’agroecological resistance after Hurricane Mitch in Central America” with 2,000 peasant-researchers. He has taught Development Studies at the University of California in Berkeley and Santa Cruz, and for the Boston University Honors Program in Global Ecology.Prior to coming to Food First he was Latin America Program Manager for the Bank Information Center in Washington D.C.

Isn’t it great to root in the earth or to strum around on a spade?

Just like Rock ‘n’ Roll, food is a way to distinguish yourself. Everything you eat, you have decided upon. Food is more than just a product to consume, it is about lifestyle, fashion, attitudes, status and politics. Similarly, farming is more than food production, it is also a lifestyle and about delivering services and goods to society. 

A lack of transparency of the conventional food chain and concerns on animal welfare, public health, environmental impact results in initiatives to create an alternative to this conventional production system. As in Rock ‘n’ Roll, mainly young people and people from different racial groups, try to make a difference from the conventional system by starting their own initiatives. Guerilla gardening, box schemes, community gardens, city farms and new orchards form together a new food movement.

This new food movement tries to break boundaries and start the debate on the future of our food, and they succeed. The growing attention for food and farming is reflected in films[i], festivals[ii], books[iii], newspapers[iv], clothes[v], language[vi] but also in campaigns of NGO’s[vii]. Especially projects in urban areas are growing rapidly and vary from initiatives to grow food in parks, to have chickens on the roof, pigs in the backyard, aquaponic systems in café’s and organizing eat-ins and crop-mobs. With the new food system, people try to modify the existing system, in other words, a new revolution is starting… the revolution on food. Make sure you don’t miss the new Rock ‘n’ Roll because it sounds great! 

Text: Evelien de Olde

Picture: Friends of the Earth Adelaide – Reclaim the Food Chain

a report of Boerengroep activity of last Tuesday Dec 6, written by Klarien Klingen 

Henk van Zeijts (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) presented very clearly the main concepts of the CAP and the proposed changes. The most important proposed changes are: linking 30% of the direct payments to “green” conditions and redistribution the EU budget for agriculture so that all member states receive the same amount of money. An interesting conclusion, which was shared by arable farmer Joop de Koeijer (NAV Dutch arable farmers’ union), is that the proposed greening of the CAP is not going to result in reduced CO2 emissions. Mr van Zeijts also stresses that the CAP should have more confidence in local participants: it turns out that more benefits for the environment can be gained when there are more possibilities for local solutions.

Joop de Koeijer pleas for the right for all countries to protect their agriculture again, as the current low prices are fatal for agriculture. Subsidies for agriculture (almost half of the EU total budget) are not needed at all if the prices weren’t distorted. Some history to understand this point: the US and Europe agreed that plant proteins and oil seeds could freely be imported from the US into Europe, which resulted in disappearance of 50.000 ha of beans and peas in the Netherlands. This led first to overproduction of cereals, (prices dropped from 24cts/kg in 1981 to less than 15cts/kg in the late 80’s, and many subsequent years farmers produced below cost price of 10cts/kg), and later also to an overproduction and dropping prices of potatoes. Current EU subsidies and hidden dumping keep prices unnecessary low. Results: other producing countries in the world are outcompeted and farmers here are seen as addicted to subsidies in the eyes of the rest of society…

Ramona Langanki focused on alternatives, through the concept of Food Sovereignty. She joined the international Neyeleni forum last summer, where farmers, NGO’s, scientists and civil society organisations came together to empower each other to come to a better food system in Europe and to further take influence on the CAP. Some ideas have already be mentioned in the policy porposal “The missing option”, written by the European food sovereignty movement:
-   Culturally fitting, ecologically and fair produced& distributed food is a human right!
-  Sustainable public procurement is mentioned in the CAP; the policy is about the whole food system and thus also about a healthy society. Healthy local fresh food support at the same time supporting rural development
-  More realistic and stable farm gate prices -> less direct payment needed (Mr de Koeijers point)
-  Safety rules that also allow for small scale food processing
-  Give farm support not based on the number of hectares, but base it omaongst others on the number of people that work on the farm.

During the plenary conversation at the end of the evening, some questions arose. How come we never mention the insurance system they have in the US? There, farmers only get support when prices are too low, in good times they get no support. Another question was: Fairer prices for farmers is one thing, but as the consumer will always choose the cheaper option, there can always be “food empires”* taking advantage of this. This led us to the famous question: is improving the food system in the hands of consumers, producers, or intermediaries in the value chain (retail)?

*Making reference to an earlier Food Farmers and Forks evening,  where van der Ploeg talked about food empires.

more info:
presentation Henk van Zeijts of PBL prepared for this evening
presentation Ramona Langanki
CAP official website 
missing option: food souverignity short movie
Neyeleni FoodsovCAP
Youth Food Movement Amsterdam
Aarde Boer Consument