Archive for the ‘activities’ Category
Transforming our global food system
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.
Food,Farmers&Forks Rainbow Dinner
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Join us for an evening of deliciously colorful food, delightful conversation and a film. Please bring a dish of a specific color. (remember to bring your own plate & utensils)
For example you could make:
Red-beet soup or salad or anything tomatoey Orange-Pumpkin pie or a large box of clementines Yellow-Squash soup Green-uhhhh the possibilities are endless Blue-a bit more challenging…surprise us Purple-Red Cabbage stew Brown-Lentil…..or other brown foods… Black-Black beans White-Mashed potatoes (post the color of your choice and what you plan on making on facebook so we done end up with the same thing.) There are plenty of choices. Be creative and try to make a meal with as small of a carbon foot print as possible. Making a vegetarian or vegan dish using locally grown vegetables is a great way to do just that. May in season vegetables are available for a great price at the Hoge Born. If you have any questions please feel free to send us an e-mail. Saturday December 17 at 7:30pm, common Barrack Droevendaal
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Farming is the new Rock ‘n’ Roll!
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
[i] Food, Inc., No Impact Man, Greenhorns, The Future of Food
[iii] For example: Hungry City (Carolyn Steel) and Urban Agriculture (David Tracey)
[iv] The number of newspaper articles on local produced food and urban agriculture published in the Dutch newspapers Trouw, Volkskrant and NRC Next are increasing.
[v] Organic and gardening clothes but also T-shirts with ‘Grow your own’ or ‘Support local agriculture’
[vi] Do you know the words: polytunnel, aquaponics, hydroponics, eat-in, crop-mob?
[vii] Campaign of several organisations such as the grow campaign, good food campaign, the real food campaign and the right to food campaign.
The Future of the EU farmer
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
Agri-food commodity chains
resist or embrace?
A step forward in development of small scale farmers is often assumed to be more market involvement. However, being more dependant on global commodity chains for revenues as well as for farm inputs, has its downsides too…
With speakers of the Centre for Learning on Sustainable Development ILEA, the Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation ICCO, and Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations SOMO.
Time: December 13 at 19:30h
Place: Forum building Wageningen
Register: here to reserve a seat
Mannenbroeders van Kootjebroek
Het is nu 10 jaar geleden dat bedrijven werden geruimd in Kootwijkerbroek. Was het terecht? Die vraag speelt nog steeds! Evenals emoties, wantrouwen, en dus helaas nog geen duidelijke lessen voor de toekomst. Boerengroep draait in Movie-W de Film Mannenbroeders van Kootjebroek. Met toelichting van Lau Jansen (Stichting Onderzoek MKZ Crisis Kootwijkerbroek) en Tjirk van der Ziel (schreef zijn phd thesis over deze zaak).
Op maandag 12 december om 20:30 uur. Toegang gratis.
Mannenbroeders van Kootjebroek is een portret van documentairemaker Geertjan Lassche over het Veluwse dorp Kootwijkerbroek. In het voorjaar van 2001 brak mond-en-klauwzeer uit. In maart 2001 wordt ook bij een kalf in Kootwijkerbroek MKZ vastgesteld. Inwoners van Kootwijkerbroek geloven niet dat de ziekte er is, omdat de besmetting niet leidt tot een uitbraak. Na hevige rellen worden de dieren toch geruimd. Tien jaar later zijn de massale ruimingen nog steeds een open zenuw. Nog steeds worden er processen gevoerd, nog steeds worstelt de geloofsgemeenschap met het verleden. ■ Tijdens deze filmavond wil Stichting Boerengroep terugblikken op de crisis van 10 jaar geleden. Na de vertoning wordt met een aantal betrokkenen en experts de gevolgen van de crisis besproken en lessen voor de toekomst bediscussieerd.
Grassroots Voices in Giant Institutes
Join an exciting evening with professor Kami Pothukuchi from the famous urban agriculture example of Detroit, our own Wageningen emeritus professor in Communication Niels Röling, and Brazilian agronomist with plenty experience in ngo’s: Mariana Wongtschowski.
when: Tuesday November 29 at 19:30h
where: Forum building in Wageningen
register: click here to reserve a seat
Description:
The global food crisis has been attributed the exclusion of consumers and farmers in the governance of food and rural development. In this session we will explore how these grassroots voices can be institutionalised in giant institutes such as universities , (inter)national research organizations and policy.
This evening is part of the series Food Farmers and Forks.
work with us for Makandra!
On Saturday November 26 Boerengroep will help carefarm Makandra preparing wood. We will cut and transport wood, to make it available for the clients of the carefarm to work on. Apart from hard work (a nice workout!) and the opportunity to help people with special needs, this is also a great day of fun, meeting people, and (probably) receiving a delicious hot lunch! Subscribe at st.boerengroep@wur.nl
Global Food Security Debate
Can organic agriculture feed the world? Is development aid outdated? Is hunger in the South due to excesive consumption in the west?
Students of the course “Global Food Security” (YSD-50806) prepare propositions to (dis)agree with. You are invited to join their disussion!
date: December 1
time: 20:00 h
place: canteen Leeuwenborgh
entrance: free (please be in time!)
Regionale Boerenmarkt
Op dinsdag 15 november is op proefboerderij Droevendaal de Regionale Boerenmarkt. De Boerengroep organiseert deze markt samen met Stichting Otherwise en Wageningen Environmental Platform (WEP). Doel is om te laten zien hoeveel lekkers wordt geproduceerd in de directe omgeving. U vindt kraampjes met honing, kaas, vlees, melk en eieren, maar ook appels en perensap, groente, en zelfs wijn en thee, allemaal uit de buurt.
Onderdeel van de Regionale Boerenmarkt is de Eat-in wedstrijd “dont be a couch potato!”. U kunt meedoen door het koken van een maaltijd met streekproducten.
Verder worden bijzondere initatieven (kort) gepresenteerd: CC2, De Nieuwe Ronde, Organic Village, en Wageningse Weelde uit Wageningen, G.A.S. uit Italie, “Fun on the Farm” uit China, Versvoko, en meer.
Life muziek van de Skippickers, lange houten tafels met kaarslicht, en de grote boerenschuur maken het tot een sfeervol informeel gebeuren. Dé plek om met boeren te praten of gewoon gezellig met vrienden of familie te komen eten.
Tijd: dinsdag 15 november vanaf 17:30uur
Plaats: Kielekampsteeg 32 (linksaf bij de eerste stoplichten op de grote weg naar Ede)