New book – Sustainable Food Planning: Evolving Theory and Practice

Half the world’s population is now urbanised and cities are assuming a larger role in debates about the security and sustainability of the global food system. Hence, planning for sustainable food production and consumption is becoming an increasingly important issue for planners, policymakers, designers, farmers, suppliers, activists, business and scientists alike. The rapid growth of [...]

IFSA 2012 workshop ‘The meaning of semi-subsistence farming in different cultural contexts’

Together with Imre Kovach and Catherine Darrot,  I will be hosting a workshop at the IFSA symposium in Aarhus, Denmark from the 1st of July until the 4th of July 2012. The workshop is aimed at exploring the multiple meanings of semi-subsistent food production strategies in different cultural context. Two questions are at the centre of [...]

PUREFOOD Research Vacancy ‘Comparative analysis of urban food strategies’

The vacancy for a position as Early Stage Researcher (ESR) for the project  ’Comparative analysis of urban food strategies in European cities’ within the PUREFOOD research and training network has been re-opened. More information about PUREFOOD can be found below and on the PUREFOOD website (which is still under construction). Job description For this PUREFOOD project [...]

Working group at 24th ESRS congress in Chania, Greece 22-25 August 2011: Call for papers

Imre Kovách ( Institute for Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest), Petra Derkzen and I are organising a working group on “the governance of semi-subsistent food and farming strategies in the countryside and city- a compartive perspective” at the 24th ESRS congress in Chania (Greece) from 22-25 of August 2011. We would [...]

PUREFOOD – 12 vacancies for ESRs are open

As mentioned in an earlier post on this weblog, the Rural Sociology Group has been granted the the coordination of a Marie Curie Initial Training Network  entitled ‘Urban, peri-urban and regional food dynamics: toward an integrated and territorial approach to food (PUREFOOD)’ funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework PEOPLE program. The objective of PUREFOOD is to train a [...]

PhD position: Knowledge brokerage to promote sustainable food consumption and production

In January 2011 the project ‘FOODLINKS’ (Knowledge brokerage to promote sustainable food consumption and production: linking scientists, policymakers and civil society organizations) will start. This project is funded by the European Commission and will be carried out by a consortium of 14 partners (universities, regional and local governments and civil society organizations) from 9 European [...]

Second European Sustainable Food Planning Conference – a last reminder

As mentioned in one of my previous blogs the  Urban Performance Group of the University of Brighton (UK) will host the second European Sustainable Food Planning Conference on 29 and 30 October 2010 under auspices of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP). Although the deadlines for submission of abstracts and selection of papers and [...]

Through a Food Lens…

By Simone Plantinga – MSc student For the Dutch version of this text follow this link A year ago, I started with the research for my MSc Thesis in Rural Sociology. The research was carried out in Tilburg, a city in the Province of Noord-Brabant, in the south part of the Netherlands. After a couple [...]

Als door een voedselbril…

Door Simone Plantinga – MSc student For the English version follow this link. Mijn afstudeeronderzoek naar Food Policy Councils, is gestart naar aanleiding van een aantal verkennende gesprekken binnen de vakgroep Rurale Sociologie van Wageningen Universiteit, met de Brabantse Milieufederatie in Tilburg en de Provincie Noord-Brabant en gaat over de randvoorwaarden, mogelijkheden en de beperkingen [...]

Second European Sustainable Food Planning Conference

As a follow-up of the first European Sustainable Food Planning Conference, which took place on 9 and 10 October 2009 in Almere (The Netherlands), the Urban Performance Group of the University of Brighton (UK) will host the second European Sustainable Food Planning Conference on 29 and 30 October 2010. Like the first one, this second [...]