Publicaties

© 2012 Wageningen Academic Publishers. All rights reserved. The discussion about the functions of agriculture needs to be broadened beyond the Food-Fuel-Fibre discussion. The '6F' framework has been proposed that incorporates most - if not all - functions of agriculture: Food, Feed, Fuel, Fibre, Flower, and Fun. In an increasingly resource restricted world, agriculture is confronted with an increased demand for each of the 6 Fs. Climate change ...

MotivationCountries of Africa have, through the Maputo and Malabo declarations and the companion Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) committed to increased public investment in agriculture. If implemented, this should contribute substantially to realizing several development goals, including reduction of poverty and hunger and making rural populations more resilient to climate change. PurposeHow much would ...

Archaeobotanical evidence from southwest Asia is often interpreted as showing that the spectrum of wild plant foods narrowed during the origins of agriculture, but it has long been acknowledged that the recognition of wild plants as foods is problematic. Here, we systematically combine compositional and contextual evidence to recognise the wild plants for which there is strong evidence of their deliberate collection as food at pre-agricultural ...

In the last decades the reduction of protectionist regulations through international trade agreements has led to a globalization of the food market. Although this has promoted the availability for the consumer of a wider variety of food products at lower prices, governments, retailers and consumers around the globe are becoming more and more concerned about the safety and quality of their food products. As food is produced on a global scale, ...

The basic neo-classical model implies that agricultural employment responds positively to increases in farm income. This argument is assumed by proponents and critics of agricultural subsidy programs in their discourse in favor of or against government support for farmers. However, empirical evidence on the relationship between agricultural employment and farm income (and subsidies) is mixed, and some studies find evidence that an increase in ...

European agriculture and rural areas are facing multiple socio-economic changes, including a transition from an agriculture-based to a service-based economy. This restructuring forces agricultural and rural actor-networks to reformulate their (self-)definitions. One reformulation prevailing both in policy and scientific circles focuses on the notion of multifunctional agriculture (MFA). This paper critically examines the dominant role that this ...