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Introduction
I'm interested in relational and place-based approaches to sustainable, or better, regenerative development in agriculture, rural areas and food provisioning. I have expertise in joint learning and innovation processes, grassroots innovation and transition pathways, transformative agency, collaborative governance and institutional arrangements and reform. I participated in various national and EU-funded research projects: IMPACT, MULTAGRI, SUS-CHAIN, DERREG and SOLINSA. Since 2015 I'm coordinating the MSCA ITN SUSPLACE project. I'm teaching BSc and MSc course and supervising PhD-candidates.
Publications
Publications (121)
Chapter 3 focuses on the process of rural regional learning in the Westerkwartier, a district in the northern Netherlands forming part of the province of Groningen. In this chapter, Roep et al. explore the particular expressions of how an area is shaped and reshaped in the context of global forces and how the enhancement of individual and regional...
Conventional gender analysis of development policy does not adequately explain the slow progress towards gender equality. Our research analyses the gender discourses embedded in agricultural and rural development policies in Myanmar and Nepal. We find that both countries focus on increasing women’s participation in development activities as a core...
p>Abstract: Understanding heterogeneity in farm development strategies is important in order to design effective policies and support programs to increase the sustainability of agriculture in relation to its socio-material context. Using a unique case study of 102 dairy farmers in The Netherlands, all operating in a highly similar socio-material co...
This contribution draws on original data relating to a land settlement case in Araponga, an administrative area in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The settlement of the land and subsequent building of robust, more self-dependent, land-based livelihoods have followed a joint experimentation trajectory in which the agro-ecologicalisation of agrarian production...
Natural resources and bioeconomy studies 102/2022 SBN 978-952-380-565-1 (Print) ISBN 978-952-380-566-8 (Online)
Community supported agriculture (CSA) is a producer–consumer union that aims to shift the predominant paradigm in agriculture towards a model based on social justice, fairness, and participation. However, the long-term existence of CSA initiatives, and their ability to build the social capital envisioned by the initiators, can be challenged by a st...
The shift in policy focus from agriculture to rural development enables rural families to diversify their economic activities. Household-based resources, particularly human capital, are essential for capitalizing on newly developed opportunities. Locals with sufficient resources seize possibilities in agriculture and emerging economic sectors such...
Notions of care for humans and more-than-humans appear at the margins of the sustainability transformations debate. This paper explores the merits of an ethics of care approach to sustainability transformations. It argues that more radical, transformative change can be fostered via three mutually reinforcing dimensions: a) ethically-informed practi...
Green Care practices have received increasing scholarly attention in the last decade. Yet most studies are concerned with the aspect of human well-being, with less attention given to other caring dimensions and their relation to sustainability. This paper aims to contribute to an integrative understanding of Green Care by proposing an analytical fr...
The eight papers in this Special Feature result from the EU funded SUSPLACE collaborative programme that aimed to explore the transformative capacity of sustainable place-shaping practices, and if and how these practices can support a sustainable, place-based development. The programme encompassed 15 research projects investigating a wide range of...
Critically engaging with literature on post-politics, blockchain and algorithmic governance, and drawing also on knowledge gained from undertaking a three-year empirical study, the purpose of this article is to better understand the transformative capacity of government-led blockchain projects. Analysis of a diversity of empirical material, which w...
System innovations, which comprise changes in socio-technical networks, rules and routines governing particular fields of practice, are generally regarded as essential to a transition towards sustainability. Various researchers have tried to unravel the pathways of system innovations in order to understand how these innovations can be stimulated or...
This paper empirically identifies differences between dairy farmers in their perception of opportunities for farm development. The construct ‘perceived Room for Manoeuvre’ (pRfM) is used which is defined as: ‘the opportunities perceived as viable in order to obtain a (substantial part of) business income’. A unique case study of 79 dairy farmers op...
Nature and landscape are increasingly appreciated as public goods and community assets in need of protection. Policy schemes aiming to protect vulnerable nature and landscape assets affect options for farm development and thus the opportunities for farm income strategies. Farmers as small business owners need to counter an ongoing income squeeze in...
Farm development strategy is affected by, and affects, the biophysical and socioeconomic context of the farm leading to agri-environmental challenges for farm development. For effective policies and support programmes it is important to understand the drivers for choices farm development. Threefold embeddedness is used to study how farmers relate t...
Michael Woods (2011) DERREG Summary report
Purpose: We investigate how the structural conditions of eight different European agricultural innovation systems can facilitate or hinder collaboration and social learning in multidisciplinary innovation networks.
Methodology: We have adapted the Innovation System Failure Matrix to investigate the main barriers and enablers eight countries (Englan...
Place-based approaches to rural development require the collaboration of public and private actors. Such collaboration may be stimulated through joint learning and innovation processes which are supported by various institutional arrangements. There is, however, reason to question the effectiveness of existing institutional arrangements. The learni...
Farmers are challenged to integrate changes in the biophysical and societal environment in the farm strategy.
Scale enlargement is a dominant strategy for dairy farmers in The Netherlands and is a possible threat to
vulnerable assets of regions. Regional development programmes aim to support farm development in such a way
that vulnerable assets are...
The relation between farm development and its direct surroundings is of renewed interest. Growing urbanization and changes in societal demands increase the need for farmers to integrate developments in their direct surroundings in farm development. Especially in densely populated regions with high natural or cultural-historical value, farmers are c...
Based on the reconstruction of the development of 14 food supply chain initiatives in 7 European countries, we developed a conceptual framework that demonstrates that the process of increasing the sustainability of food supply chains is rooted in strategic choices regarding governance, embedding, and marketing and in the coordination of these three...
Regional learning and innovation is a key to promote more resilient, robust and inclusive rural areas. Current analytical frameworks focus on support for knowledge spill-over from academia to industry and sector-oriented learning. The high diversity of actors and activities contributing to rural regional development is thereby not addressed. In thi...
The application of genetic selection technologies in livestock breeding offers unique opportunities to enhance the productivity, profitability, and competitiveness of the livestock industry in Scotland. However, there is a concern that the uptake of these technologies has been slower in the sheep and beef sectors in comparison to the dairy, pig and...
In this paper we investigate the organisation and functioning of the formal AKS and how it can support or inhibit innovative bottom-up approaches to knowledge co-creation and social/joint learning. We have investigated how the main actors interact within their respective innovation systems and how they are influenced by various institutional charac...
System innovations, which comprise changes in socio-technical networks, rules and routines governing particular fields of practice, are generally regarded as essential to a transition towards sustainability. Various researchers have tried to unravel the pathways of system innovations in order to understand how these innovations can be stimulated or...
This report gives an analysis of the current organisation and functioning of the Dutch AKIS, with special attention to the position of Learning Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture (LINSAs)
System innovations, comprising changes of socio-technical networks, rules and routines governing particular fields of practice, are generally regarded as essential to a transition towards sustainability. Different scholars have tried to unravel the pathways of system innovations in order to understand how system innovations can be stimulated or fac...
Knowledge production and utilization should be better tuned to sustainable regional development
practices. Generally three basic problems are indentified:
1) a lack of interaction between different modes of knowledge production and utilization (such as
scientific research and learning by doing) and consequently a lack of interactive learning among...
Organic farming principles give rise to multifunctionality: different activities are combined at farm level to create ecological and economic synergies. These principles do however allow for different operationalisations and different farm development strategies, for example with regard to the use of external inputs or the decision whether or not t...
Op welke wijze kan het samen leren doen bij gebiedsontwikkeling worden ondersteund en wat kan een landelijk kennisnetwerk vitaal platteland daaraan toevoegen? Dit was het vertrekpunt voor een aantal werkbezoeken van de werkgroep kennisnetwerk vitaal platteland aan enkele regionale kennisarrangementen als onderdeel van een gezamenlijk leertraject. D...
Dit rapport brengt de specifieke uitdagingen in kaart waar multifunctionele ondernemers mee te maken hebben en die te wijten zijn aan het moeten werken in meerdere, vaak elkaar vreemde, regimes. Tevens wordt geïnventariseerd welke strategieën men kan inzetten om deze uitdagingen succesvol het hoofd te bieden. Als casus wordt ingezoomd op de zorglan...
The notion of agriculture's Multifunctionality (MF) emerged in the 1980s. It then followed two trajectories since the 1990s: a conflicting period linked to its use in the international trade negotiations on the one hand, a spreading in terms of meaning, use and geographically on the other hand. Specific meanings appeared in connection with policy m...
This paper provides a mapping of the different uses of the word multifunctionality. To explore the diversity of meanings and interpretations, a comparative analysis was conducted through five national case studies in France, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Switzerland. The analysis conducted at national level makes it possible to identify eight...
Abstract : The public recognition of the multifunctionality of agriculture and rural spaces has launched a new perspective for agriculture activity and public policies. In some European countries (France, Norway, Switzerland, Holland) it has been considered as a basis for designing specific public policies. In EC countries in general, multifunction...
Pork production in the Netherlands is dominated by an agro-industrial approach, which has led to several sustainability problems. Due to path dependency, this prevailing mode of production is difficult or seemingly impossible to alter. Hence, in order to address sustainability concerns, there is a need to construct a new pork supply chain. The arti...
In het voorafgaande project ‘Innoverende melkveehouders’ zijn innovatieve werkwijzen van melkveehouders, waarmee zij aansprekende resultaten behalen bij het verduurzamen van de melkveehouderij, in kaart gebracht en beschreven. Het huidige rapport blikt terug op het vervolgproject. In dit project is ‘slim experimenteren’ als methode beproefd bij het...
Due to regulations organic farming is sub- jected to a different regime then conventional farm- ing. This results in different environments for ani- mals. The question is whether one overall breeding goal is sufficient to cover all different demands of organic farmers. A survey among 132 Dutch organic dairy farmers revealed that 55% of the farmers...
The conceptualisation of multifunctional agriculture in Dutch policy and research has to be understood within the specific Dutch context and can be related to different perspectives on agriculture and the rural area. In the past, the modernisation perspective dominated agriculture and rural area for decennia. The growing volume and intensity of pro...
Voedselketens kunnen een belangrijke rol spelen in het verduurzamen van voedselproductie en een bijdrage leveren aan een vitaal platteland. In dit rapport worden de belangrijkste resultaten samengevat van een aantal initiatieven op dit gebied, gevolgd door een serie aanbevelingen
This book offers an empirically grounded perspective into the creation of
sustainable food supply chains and networks. Building upon experiences
from seven different European countries, this book presents a rich diversity of
examples of food supply chain initiatives. From this diversity of experiences
fourteen valuable lessons are drawn that are ap...
The newly built De Hoeve pork supply chain underpins the importance of aligning with non-commercial, societal stakeholders to create the space for change that runs against vested interests and government regulations. It started with a range of interconnected novel housing techniques, developed by a pig breeder and his consultant. These proved to su...
Capitalisation of research results on the multifunctionality of agriculture and rural areas Definitions, references and interpretations of the concept of multifunctionality and its contributions to a sustainable development Summary report: International analysis of MFA, international negotiations and sustainable development Work package : WP1 Deliv...
Currently, most organic dairy farmers in the Netherlands use conventional breeding methods and production stock. In view of the organic objective of closed chains, organic dairy farmers discussed in workshops the desirability and practical merits of different possible scenarios for realizing breeding programmes that are more in line with organic fa...
Conceptualisation of multifunctional agriculture in Dutch policy and research has to be understood within the typical Dutch context and can be related to different perspectives of agriculture and the rural area. The Netherlands is a densely populated country with a very produc-tive agricultural sector, exporting most of its production. Limited spac...
In this paper the case of the environmental co-operatives VEL and VANLA is reviewed in terms of coevolving technical and institutional change and the strategic lessons to be learned for a pro-active management of such complex technical-institutional design processes. Facing the many-sided crisis in agriculture the two co-operatives developed a radi...