Workshop Almere 2019
Deadline extended
As requested by many, we have extended the deadline for registering to the next AESOP Sustainable Food Planning PhD and Young Professionals Workshop that will be held in Almere on March 27-29. You now have until Friday January 25th to submit your short paper and registration form.
If you are an early-stage PhD student and do not have a full paper or outline ready, please feel free to be creative with the short paper template we provided on our website. For instance, you can skip the Results section, or submit an extended abstract of your (PhD, Post-Doc or professional) project or proposal and/or present a poster with your research project achieved so far at the workshop.
For any questions or clarification, please send a mail to aesop.sfp.phd@gmail.com
Aim of the workshop
Almere is a new town of 200,000 residents, just 30 km east of Amsterdam. Food and agriculture are within city’s DNA, because of its position between the Amsterdam Metropole Region and a polder designated to agriculture. Almere, as a co-signer of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, increasingly aims to strengthen the regional food production of its agricultural hinterland. One of its goals is to regionally resource 10% of its food basket. The city presents an interesting environment that offers a lot of space for cooperation between alternative food networks, food businesses, education, research and policy making. It is also a very diverse city in terms of population, both socio-economically and culturally. Almere harbors the Flevo Campus, a newly established research and education institution which focuses on urban-related food issues. Almere organizes also the Floriade (https://floriade.com/), the international horticultural exhibition in 2022. The key theme of Floriade is Feeding the city, the aim is to stimulate innovation and the development of solutions that can benefit us all. It will be a living laboratory and a platform for smart solutions on food, health, energy and green infrastructure.
The location of this 3rd AESOP SFP workshop for PhD students and Young Professionals is thus ideally situated to discuss the role of the city as a food actor. Can cities feed themselves? Are cities places that can feed their surrounding environment through experimentation and alternative, sustainable practices? Or are cities places that feed themselves on their hinterland and on the social sphere, leading to an unequal division of benefits and costs of environmental problems? In other words, should we speak of ‘Feeding the City’ or rather of ‘the Feeding City’?
How to participate:
This conference is primarily intended for PhD students but is also open to other young professionals such as practitioners, civil servants or grassroots activists – both members and non-members of the AESOP ‘Sustainable food planning’ group.
Please send the short papers following the template provided and the enclosed registration form before January 15th, 2019 to the following e-mail address: aesop.sfp.phd@gmail.com
Downloads:
AESOP_SFP_Almere2019_information_flyer
aesop_sfp_almere2019_template_shortpaper
aesop_sfp_almere2019_registrationform_0119
Participants will be charged a fee of 50 €, which covers program materials, breaks and the field-trip. Details on how to pay the fee (by bank transfer) will be communicated by the organisers on acceptance of the registration form.
We are looking forward to welcome you in Almere on the 27th of March 2019!
Key dates:
Call for papers released: December 2018
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 25 January 2018
Notification of acceptance: by February, 1st, 2018
Registration opens: February, 13th
Programme
Wednesday 27 March [day one]
- Morning: Arrival
- Afternoon: Masterclass with Nevin Cohen and Sigrid Wertheim
- Evening: Joint dinner with policymakers and professionals in field of urban food policies
Thursday 28 March [day two]
- Morning: Paper presentations
- Afternoon: Training session about Infographics
- Evening: “Life beyond the PhD” session
Friday 29 March [day three]
- Morning: Fieldtrip to Oosterwold
- Afternoon: Lunch and Farewell
Contributing Experts
Dr. Nevin Cohenis Associate Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health, and Research Director of CUNY’s Urban Food Policy Institute. He has a PhD in Urban Planning and Policy Development from Rutgers University, a Master in City and Regional Planning from Berkeley, and a BA from Cornell. His scholarship explores the policies, governance systems, practices, and infrastructure to support socially just, healthy, ecologically resilient, and economically viable urban and regional food systems. Current research projects include: a study of the food practices of older adults; an examination of food retail in New York City; the intersections of zoning, planning, and food access; the effects of social equity policies on food systems; and an evaluation of the effects of urban farms in New York City Housing Authority developments
Dr. Sigrid Wertheim-Heckis a professor of Food and Healthy Living at Aeres University of Applied Sciences. She also works as a senior researcher for the Environmental Policy department of Wageningen University. She has a master in history and international relations, a master in Russian and Eurasian Studies and received her PhD in 2015 at Wageningen University with a thesis on Food safety concerns and shopping for daily vegetables in modernizing Vietnam. Her main area of interest lies in food security (access, safety, diversity and nutrition). Dr. Sigrid Wertheim-Heck is Director Marketing and Business Development of Fresh Studio® and founder of the innovative platform Food Synectics. Sigrid is working in the field of research and policy advice as well as growth strategy and innovation consultancy in particular in Vietnam, Myanmar andPhilippines. She is regularly consulted as strategic policy advisor agro-food by different companies, research institutes and governments on issues related to food security in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia.
Parallel Sessions
In the transition towards new sustainable food systems, we discern three key positions: Food, City and Society. At the crossroads between these three positions, we see focal points of change of the food system. Three subthemes are subdivided based on these crossroads between Food, City and Society. Each theme takes either Food, City, or Society as a starting point and connects it to the other key positions.
We particularly look for critical contributions that address one or more of the following three points:
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Political economy and ecology of sustainable urban food
This theme deals with political economic- and ecological theories and approaches to food system transformation. It aims to discuss the current configurations of the urban and regional food economy in relation to alternative food schemes. This economy incorporates the social-material metabolic structure through which food is produced and distributed, as well as the practices through which food is purchased and consumed. It also involves considering the relation between cities and their hinterland that drives this as a priori contested and political ?. Should the interaction be depicted as an historical expression of capitalism that is inherently incompatible with ecological considerations? Or do the actors in cities and regions have the capacity to reflect on and altering the future? In other words, can food entrepreneurs and businesses through sustainable schemes and initiatives reshape its inner structure? Or is a more radical departure from the existing system necessary?
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Planning for healthy and sustainable food
Today’s reality of rapidly expanding conurbations prompts the worldwide debate on how to feed cities in a healthy and sustainable way. Cities and citizens prominently engage in the food systems debate and start to experiment with new forms of food production under the heading of urban agriculture. Despite some attempts in recent history, food remains a stranger in (peri-)urban and territorial planning. Practitioners in urban planning grapple with the position of (urban) agriculture. Food and agriculture poses a new dimension not only to the (peri-)urban space but also to the future course, stakeholders and functions of a city. Which forms of urban agriculture and food provisioning contribute to a healthy and sustainable city? And how can urban planning contribute by elaborating policies and influencing practices to sustain localized and innovative forms of food production?
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Social equity in urban food systems
In thinking about transitioning to healthier and more sustainable food systems, an important theme is social equity: who is in- or excluded in such transitions? Healthy and sustainable food seems mostly accessible to and consumed by a ‘green elite’ of white, well-educated people. Modern cities comprise a wide variety of cultures and classes, which begs the question of who exactly is this ‘City’ that is being fed. How can we make the urban food system more just, sustainable and healthy? And what are the effects of social equity policies on food systems?
Venue
This workshop will be hosted by the AERES University of Applied Sciences in Almere, which is located in the city center of Almere. Almere can be reached in 30 minutes by train from Amsterdam Central station and Amsterdam Schiphol airport. There are several possibilities for affordable accommodations in Amsterdam that are close to the train station to Almere, including the Stay Okay hostel in Amsterdam Zeeburg which has shared dormrooms ranging from 63 to 70 euros for a two-night stay. Booking a room in Almere is possible as well. Hotels like the Bastion and Finn are however slightly more expensive (approximately 155 in total for a private room). It is also possible to look for an affordable private or shared room on AirBnB in either Amsterdam or Almere.
AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Alemere Workshop 2019 Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following partners for their support::
AERES University of Applied Sciences Almere is specialized in applied higher education on the topics of food, nature and urban green. It offers Bachelor and Master programmes and has an applied research team.
Flevo Campus is a scientific hotspot for innovations in terms of food and urbanization issues for the future.
The Organizing Committee:
Anke Brons, AERES University of Applied Sciences Almere and Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands
Koen van der Gaast, AERES University of Applied Sciences Almere and Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands
Jan Eelco Jansma, AERES University of Applied Sciences Almere and Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands
Luca Lazzarini, DiST/Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy
Colin Perrin, INRA/Montpellier, France
Radu Mircea Giurgiu, Melissa Foundation & UASVM Cluj-Napoca, Romania
For info, please contact:
whatsapp +31 6 30372489
whatsapp +40 742 00 16 57
AESOP 'Sustainable food planning' group 
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