Jan DOUWE VAN DER Ploeg

Wageningen University & Research | WUR · Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Development

p>This paper discusses how newly constructed peasant markets are increasingly extending beyond the boundaries (and limits) of the local. This brings their new potentials in relevance and transformativity. The paper includes a comprehensive definition of peasant markets. It is also meant as a reply to those who argue that capitalism cannot be fought...

This article presents and discusses ‘Stepmother Earth', a novel written by the Frisian author Theun de Vries and published, for the first time, in 1936. This novel is a classic work in the tradition of agrarian studies. It stands out in linking critical theory with people’s everyday experiences and language. The text also reflects the political str...

The Covid-19 disease is quickly developing into a deep, global and enduring politico-economic crisis that involves a rapid disarticulation of the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food. The badly balanced world market and the high degree of financialization of both primary agricultural production and food chains are decisive f...

This paper examines agroecology within Europe, its dynamics, its position within a broader politico-economic framework and its political significance. It argues that agroecology is contesting and, at least in some places, effectively changing the main social relations of production in today’s agriculture. In this respect, it has a strategically imp...

This article aims to unravel underlying reasons for the enigmatic outburst of farmers’ fury that swept large parts of Europe in the autumn of 2019. It does so by focussing on the Netherlands where the upheaval was particularly striking. Farmers’ resentment against ‘agribashing’ was a common theme in the many protests. This refers to, and simultaneo...

This article discusses the economic dimensions of agroecological farming systems in Europe. It firstly theoretically elaborates the reasons why, and under what conditions, agroecological farming systems have the potential to produce higher incomes than farms that follow the conventional logic. This theoretical exposition is then followed by a prese...

The commonplace notion of extractivism relates to the production of value through physically extractive processes (mining, oil extraction, certain kinds of agriculture, etc.) where value generation is necessarily temporary and generally followed by barrenness and an inability to sustainably reproduce livelihoods in the affected habitat. In this art...

In the Global North, local inter-farm cooperation offers opportunities for farmers to better access and manage equipment, labor and material resources. Yet, its potential to pave the way to organize the local collaborations needed for the agroecological transition remains hidden. This paper, based on the experience of French farm machinery cooperat...

Muitos pecuaristas franceses, sócios de cooperativas de maquinas, procuram se tornar mais autônomos em relação aos mercados. Para concretizá-lo, eles desenvolvem novas práticas através de uma maior cooperação entre produtores. Nosso trabalho, baseado na análise de seis cooperativas de maquinas, visa esclarecer esse fenômeno, com base no trabalho an...

Muitos pecuaristas franceses, sócios de cooperativas de maquinas, procuram se tornar mais autônomos em relação aos mercados. Para concretizá-lo, eles desenvolvem novas práticas através de uma maior cooperação entre produtores. Nosso trabalho, baseado na análise de seis cooperativas de maquinas, visa esclarecer esse fenômeno, com base no trabalho an...

Many French livestock farmers, member of farm machinery cooperatives, seek to become more autonomous in relation to markets. To realize it, they develop new farming practices by relying to a greater extent on peer-to-peer cooperation. Our communication, based on the study of six machinery coops , aims to shed new light on this phenomenon, building...

Autonomy is a key principle of agroecology. First scientific works of Gliessman and Altieri have positioned autonomy from the markets and external forces as one of the goals of the agroecological prospect. Farmers' and peasants' organizations, firstly in Latin America, have adopted this goal to strengthen their action for the emancipation and the l...

There is a long-standing debate about the nature, impact and significance of processes of differentiation in driving agricultural development. This contribution discusses three ways in which such processes have been conceptualized: modernization theories that put markets centre stage, Marxist theories that focus on class, and Chayanovian approaches...

p>This work has as its theme the common natural resources and the management models that allow new governance systems in the rural areas in the surrounding of protected areas. In this sense, this paper aims to discuss the collective action of social actors in the management of common natural resources in the surroundings of the National Park of Ser...

This paper discusses agri-food economies and how they evolve over time. It also analyses how these economies, which often have contradictory dynamics, are theorized. A central thesis of the paper is that different theoretical representations not only reflect the differences in agro-economies and their developmental tendencies, but are also importan...

In Western European agriculture, an increasing number of conventional farmers are actively augmenting the autonomy of their farm enterprises. They do so, amongst others, through decreasing the external inputs, whilst simultaneously improving the use of internal resources. Thus, low external input farming systems emerge that increasingly enhance eco...

The deregulation of markets and the increasingly interlinked global markets make it very difficult for small farmers to survive. Thus, small primary agricultural producers must search for new ways to continue farming and earn a reasonable income. In many places, this has triggered a process of repeasantization that is reversing the once seemingly i...

Important social and agrarian changes are taking place on the agricultural plain of the Saı¨ss in Morocco. Rural young men and women are key players in this process. In this article, we use the experiences, aspirations and dreams of rural young people in the Saı¨ss to describe and discuss current agrarian dynamics to 1) illustrate how these are int...

This article offers three insights. First, the renewed global land rush is indeed global: it occurs in the Global North too. Second, the ongoing trend of (generic) land concentration is just as problematic as land grabbing. Third, political processes involving actors at various sites and levels of the state and society mediate corporate and state i...

From a more general point of view the initiatives and novel practices of farmers represent 'seeds of transition'. They are the 'sprouts' out of which new socio-technical modes for organizing production and marketing emerge - 'sprouts' that, taken together can be described under the term 'rural development'. The examples are, on the whole, well-know...

Comparing rural development with agricultural modernisation, there are fundamental differences. Industrial development of agriculture more and more segregates agriculture from other functions and is based on an ‘individualised transaction model’ in which the world consists of loose particles that are linked by markets (atomistic world view). Conver...

Rural development is, above all, constructed by actors operating at grass-root level. These actors are increasingly facilitated by specific policy programmes, but these programmes often follow the initiatives and practices already developed by the grass-root actors themselves. Policies follow, they do not trigger nor drive. This chapter is a second...

This book focuses on empirical experiences related to market development, and specifically new markets with structurally different characteristics than mainstream markets. Europe, Brazil, China and the rather robust and complex African experiences are covered to provide a rich multidisciplinary and multi-level analysis of the dynamics of newly emer...

This book focuses on empirical experiences related to market development, and specifically new markets with structurally different characteristics than mainstream markets. Europe, Brazil, China and the rather robust and complex African experiences are covered to provide a rich multidisciplinary and multi-level analysis of the dynamics of newly emer...

The concept of food sovereignty presents us with an important theoretical and practical challenge. The political economy of agriculture can only take up this gauntlet through improving its understanding of the processes of agricultural growth. It is very difficult to address the issue of food sovereignty without such an understanding. Developing su...

This article discusses the multiple meanings of land in the peasant economy of modern China. It argues that the three-generation structure of the peasant family and the circularity of labour migration ensure that land remains a central and non-substitutable resource. This implies that the, oft-articulated, thesis that migrant work represents a defi...

Farming styles are distinctive patterns through which agricultural production is organized and developed. Different styles result in different levels of intensity and sustainability. This means that encouraging and stimulating specific farming styles might result in considerable agricultural development and growth of total food production. Currentl...

This article summarizes the development of farming styles research in the Netherlands. It shows how these research results positively articulated with several new developments in Dutch agriculture. At the same time, though, these results also ran counter to the hegemonic views embodied in the Ministry of Agriculture, the Farmers Union and the Agric...

Theoretical approaches to multifunctional agriculture often posit a dichotomy between ‘productivist’ and multifunctional agriculture. However, this theoretical dichotomy runs counter to the tendency among many ‘productivist’ farms to now rely, to varying extents, on newly‐developed multifunctional activities. In this article we identify four of the...

Full text includind summary available at: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-6_Investing_in_smallholder_agriculture.pdf

This paper presents and analyses the notebook of a Chinese farmer. The notebook contains a wealth of farm accountancy data. The data and the many interrelations contained in them, are used to describe the structure and dynamics of farming in NW China. The availability of former notebooks that played an important role in agrarian history of Europe,...

This article discusses the different mechanisms that sustain labour-driven intensification in contemporary Chinese agriculture. They include: labour investments directed at improving resources; the intensification of cropping schemes; fine-tuning production processes, resulting in yield increases; embedded specialization; the reorganization of spac...

Even in the International Year of Family Farming there is confusion about family farming. What is it, and what distinguishes it from entrepreneurial farming or family agribusiness? The confusion tends to be highest in places where the modernisation of agriculture has led society further away from farming. Jan Douwe van der Ploeg takes us into the w...

Dit rapport doet verslag van een statistische analyse uitgevoerd op een bestand van Nederlandse melkveehouderijbedrijven. Het doel van deze analyse was na te gaan wat de effecten waren van de melkprijsdaling, die zich voordeed in de tweede helft van 2008 en de eerste helft van 2009. De toenmalige prijsdaling beschouwen we als een voorbode van de si...

Many impressive studies on the changing nature of the global food system have been published, and nearly all address changes at the macro level. The far less visible changes occurring at the micro level have received relatively little attention, especially in the realm of critical rural studies. This book is a reflection of the far reaching and com...

Questo articolo discute l’agricoltura contadina come la principale istituzione-lavoro in Europa. Si afferma che sia il lavoro sia la terra sono socialmente difniti. Essi sono materialmente costituiti sulla base di tali definizioni e, laddove le definizioni sociali mutano, il significato, l’uso e e la posizione della terra e del lavoro nel processo...

This article discusses and compares the rural development processes and practices currently occurring in China, Brazil and the European Union. Although these are strongly rooted in the specificities of time and space, they also share important commonalities. We argue that rural development can be viewed as an evolving set of responses to market fai...

This paper contains a critical reflection on a comparative analysis of rural development processes in Brazil, the European Union and China. It argues that those contextual elements and/or process characteristics that are mostly ignored by a case-study approach (for being more or less invisible and/or for being more or less self-evident) might come...

Este artigo traz uma reflexão crítica sobre a análise comparativa dos processos de desenvolvimento rural no Brasil, na União Europeia e na China. Argumenta- se que os elementos contextuais e/ou as características do processo, em grande parte ignorados em abordagens do tipo estudo de caso (seja porque são mais ou menos invisíveis e/ou porque são mai...

Animal welfare in today's husbandry systems has become the subject of intense public debate, especially in the Netherlands. The debate reflects the moral tensions that exist between farmers, on the one hand, and the general public on the other, whose attitudes towards animal welfare vary considerably. The debate also shows that current legislation...

Within the EFSA Article 36 project “European Tool Usual Intake” (ETUI) a workshop was organised in May 2010 where the different available models to calculate usual intake were presented and discussed. This report integrates the workshop background document, the presentations given by experts, and the discussions during the workshop. The purpose of...

This paper examines some of the interrelations that exist between rural China's peasant economy and the wider economy in which it is embedded. In doing so it focuses on the circular flows that link town and countryside. Multiple job holding is strategic in this respect. The paper draws on research undertaken in a peasant village in Hebei Province....

This paper provides an analysis of knowledge generation and ‘novelty production' into new social arrangements within a sociotechnical transition scenario. The purpose is to contribute to the debate about convergences between creativity, learning and collective action for enhancing the sustainability into agriculture. By raising a Multilevel, Multi-...

Host and vector distribution of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense was studied in relation to habitat types and seasons. Six (19.35%) of the 31 mammal species recorded in Bipindi were reservoir hosts. Cercopithecus nictitans was confined to the undisturbed forest and the low intensive shifting cultivation zones, while Cephalophus monticola, Cephalophus d...

This paper argues that the food crisis cannot solely be equated with abrupt food price increases or seen as merely market induced. The unprecedented price increases of the first half of 2008, and the extremely low prices that followed, are expressions of a far wider and far more persistent underlying crisis, which has been germinating for more than...

This article examines the re-emergence of the peasantry. It argues that farming is increasingly being restructured in a peasant-like way. This restructuring is an actively constructed response to the agrarian crisis that has grown out of five decades of state-induced modernisation and is currently being accelerated by the financial crisis and the g...

De vereniging Noordelijke Friese Wouden is een belangrijke intermediair tussen diverse overheden en NGO’s enerzijds, het gebied en haar bevolking anderzijds. De gebiedscoöperatie speelt een belangrijke rol in het beheer van natuur en landschap door agrariërs; de coöperatie is ook actief in de ontwikkeling van een meer duurzame landouw: het zogehete...

Credit is often seen as an indispensable vehicle for the poor to get out of poverty, or as the tool that allows farmers to get access to new technologies, to increase productivity and their incomes. But many existing credit programmes often undermine farmers’ independence, tie them into dependency relationships, and oblige them to take all the risk...

Dit nieuwe boek van ruraal socioloog Jan Douwe van der Ploeg is een pleidooi voor een nieuwe boerenlandbouw als een agrarisch systeem dat het best en meest duurzaam de zorg op zich kan nemen voor de vele cultuurlandschappen die de wereld rijk is. De oude landbouw wordt namelijk steeds meer gedomineerd door wereldwijde conglomeraten als het Italiaan...

This article examines the re-emergence of the peasantry. It argues that farming is increasingly being restructured in a peasant-like way. This restructuring is an actively constructed response to the agrarian crisis that has grown out of five decades of state-induced modernisation and is currently being accelerated by the financial crisis and the g...

Dierlijk eiwit leidt in vergelijking met plantaardig eiwit bij zowel pluimvee als varkens tot een gelijke of iets betere productiviteit van de dieren. Ook is in enkele studies aangetoond dat de darmgezondheid verbetert wanneer dierlijk eiwit wordt gebruikt. Het risico op pikkerij bij legpluimvee kan verminderen bij toepassing van diermeel. Bij voed...

This paper provides an analysis of knowledge generation and ‘novelty production’ into new social arrangements within a sociotechnical transition scenario. The purpose is to contribute to the debate about convergences between creativity, learning and collective action for enhancing the sustainability into agriculture. By raising a Multilevel, Multi-...

To evaluate the role of wildlife in the resurgence and perenisation of human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), we investigated the influence of habitat and seasonal variations on the diversity and spatial distribution of wild mammals, with special reference to those recognised as potential host-reservoirs of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense in Bipindi (so...

- Empire is a new mode of ordering and governance. Food empires are monopolistic networks that control large, and expanding, parts of the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food. But food empires are not necessarily involved in the physical realities associated with these processes. Food empires control the routing and the asso...

The dramatic decline in the presence of farmland birds during recent decades has provoked much attention in agri-environmental policy and ecological research. However, the still limited understanding of the socio-economical mechanisms that govern the decline in bird presence hampers the formulation of effective adjustments in land-use and farming p...