Porto Alegre’s 22 year old farmers’ market

On the saturday of my arrival in Porto Alegre, the “Feira dos Agricultores Ecologistas” was celebrating its twenty-second birthday. The market is situated at the border of the big Parque Farroupilha Redenção in the city centre and is at least a kilometer long. Back then, the market started with a group of citizens in Porto Alegre in search for healthier food [...]

AFNs in Pelotas, Brasil

This week I am visiting the city of Pelotas, some 250 kilometers from Porto Alegre. As one of the three in the whole of Brasil, the Universidade Federal de Pelotas has a specialised Bachelor degree in anthropology. Today I will give a guest lecture within the course on food culture of Professor Renate Menasche on the link between Alternative [...]

DERREG – Final conference and proceedings

Two weeks ago, from October 12-13, we had our final conference of the EU-funded research project DERREG (www.derreg.eu)  in Murska Sobota, Slovenia. Here the major findings of the project were presented. DERREG coordinator prof. Michael Woods first presented (see presentation) an overwiew of the project and an interpretative model (see below) on how regions are affected by and respond [...]

A school meal in Dois Irmáos (3)

The school meal program in Dois Irmáos is an exceptionally good example for multiple reasons. First, there is a dialogue between rural extension, family farmers, the nutritionists and the municipality. This cannot be taken for granted and the absence of mutual understanding and trust is often a barrier in other places. The state is often not trusted by [...]

Vacture PhD Sociologie bij ILVO (Vlaanderen)

Het Instituut voor Landbouw- en Visserijonderzoek (ILVO) in Vlaanderen heeft een vacature voor een PhD (Rurale) Sociologie. Zie de website van ILVO voor nadere toelichting van de vacature. Contact persoon bij ILVO is Joost Dessein (joost.dessein@ilvo.vlaanderen.be).

Capita Selecta ‘Global sense of place’ – a tutorial reading group

Earlier the Capita Selecta course ‘A global sense of place’ was announced here as optional course for master students in the 2nd period, starting Monday October 31, 2011.  Seen the number of students attending the course, the earlier outlined weekly lectures and workshops are now replaced by a tutorial reading group that will meet once a week with the lecturers to discuss the literature of the week [...]

A school meal in Dois Irmáos (2)

The Brazilian School Food Program underwent a lot of changes and, as posted earlier, the biggest change is related to localisation of the school meals. Previously, national menu’s with national tendering contract for enormous quantities to which only big companies were able to bid competitively were what the program was about. To give an idea, for 2010 the [...]

A School meal in Dois Irmáos

Brasil has a School Food Program since 1955. In the last decade or so it underwent a lot of changes. Maybe one of the biggest changes is that the program was progressively decentralised since 2000. The school food program became part of a number of connected policies under the umbrella of Zero Hunger. As part [...]

CS: Food crisis? Strategies to transform our food system: course outline

On the 16th of October it is World Food Day. The theme this year 2011 is ‘Food prices –from crisis to stability’. Price swings, upswings in particular, represent a major threat to food security in developing countries. It is predicted that instability in the world food economy will continue during the decade to come. What [...]

Is facilitating citizen initiatives a food strategy?

One can be quite busy at the moment just going to interesting food strategy events. After all, it is harvesting time. Hence, we have the Week of Taste with activities all over the country and the Capital of Taste which is Groningen this year and the Food4You festival in Wageningen and.. probably many more events that I [...]