The first step towards a worldwide network for metropolitan agriculture has been taken.

The first workshop was held at the Gordon Institute for Business Science in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Friday 13 November 2009. Workshops in five other world cities are to follow shortly. The workshops are the foundation meetings of the Metropolitan Agriculture Innoversity. The Metropolitan Agriculture vision and the Innoversity initiative have been received highly enthusiastically in Johannesburg.

Zoetermeer, 8 July 2009

Urban consumers want sustainably produced food. They want the chicken to have scratched outside, the environment to be conserved and the farmer to receive a reasonable price. All this means that there is ever-growing interest in regional, sustainably produced food. The way in which food is sold is also becoming increasingly important: preferably not in an impersonal supermarket but in locations where you can taste and experience the food and meet the farmer himself. It is for this reason that the LandMarkt project was set up. LandMarkt will be a covered market place on the edge of the city meeting these sorts of needs. It will provide a venue for farmers and local processors to sell their daily fresh regional products, without the intervention of wholesalers. Customers will also be able to do their other daily shopping there. The direct contact with consumers means that suppliers know more precisely what the customer wants, so that products can be geared more closely to people’s wishes. In this way customers obtain a voice in supply, production and processing and come into contact again with their food – exactly as called for by Agriculture Minister Verburg in her Sustainable Food policy document. Behind the LandMarkt project is a group of researchers, knowledge institutes, financiers and entrepreneurs. Research is conducted into consumer wishes, cooperation in the chain and the planning of the food system. How for example can the demand for locally produced food be met by the local supply of fresh and processed products? And how far away does something still remain “local”? Policymakers are also being asked how they take account of the urban food supply in the system of spatial planning. Project-director Anne-Claire van Altvorst of the TransForum innovation programme, together with Jan Willem van der Schans and Mariët de Winter of the LEI Wageningen UR research centre, are responsible for bringing together the necessary knowledge. Van Altvorst is proud of the project: “It is highly unusual for all the parties to get round the table together at the start of the project and to get stuck right into turning the goals into reality. I am convinced that this project will provide an example for many other initiatives.” The first LandMarkt will be open in mid-2010. 

Cees Veerman calls for Metropolitan Agriculture pilot project The former Minister of Agriculture, Cees Veerman, has challenged international agribusiness to set up a large-scale Metropolitan Agriculture pilot project. Veerman did so last Sunday during a video interview shown at the World Forum of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IAMA) in Budapest. The interview may be viewed on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYTddp5yNVc A film on Metropolitan Agriculture is available on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sE7CqjjlDE. Veerman considers that the exponential growth in demand for food makes it a matter of the utmost urgency for the food system in big cities to be radically overhauled. According to Veerman, fresh food needs to be produced close to the city, whereas the rapid growth of cities means that agriculture is in fact being driven out of the urban environment. At the same time he notes that small-scale initiatives such as urban agriculture will not enable the doubling in demand for food to be met. The Metropolitan Agriculture vision shows that new combinations of agricultural production can continue to provide the products and services required by the growing urban population on a lasting basis. This vision developed in the Netherlands occupied a central place in the annual IAMA Conference last Sunday. Metropolitan Agriculture focuses on the challenge of placing the food system of large metropolises in the world on a radically more sustainable basis. Veerman considers the time has come for resolute action and to show in practice the sustainability gains that can be made in this way. In his analysis Veerman was supported by the secretary-general of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture, Lázsló Vajda, who expressed the desire for the concept of Metropolitan Agriculture to occupy an ever more prominent place in the years ahead in both boardrooms and policy documents as part of the drive towards further symbiosis between agriculture and city. The Metropolitan Agriculture vision was presented in Budapest on the basis of projects run by the Dutch innovation programme TransForum and the Wageningen research institute Alterra. The two bodies are cooperating on the concept of Metropolitan Agriculture as well as in innovative projects in the Netherlands, India and China, where the vision is being translated into new business propositions.

Op de IAMA bijeenkomst die komend weekend in Boedapest wordt gehouden, is een special session gewijd aan Metropolitan Agriculture. TransForum zal een presentatie hierover houden, gevolgd door een open space sessie waarin de mogelijkheden van Metropolitan Agriculture worden onderzocht. Tevens zullen twee films over Metropolitan Agriculture worden vertoond. Bekijk hier de introductie van de film Metropolitan Agriculture.

Het eindrapport van het project 3MG : Meervoudige Milieu Monitoring voor Gebiedssturing is gepubliceerd als TransForum Working Paper 9. In dit onderzoek is een milieukundige analyse gedaan op lucht- en waterkwaliteitsdoelen in de Noordelijke Friese Wouden. De resultaten kunnen bijdragen aan de formulering van gebiedsdoelen en de monitoring daarvan door de bewoners van de Noordelijke Friese Wouden. Door de uitwisseling van kennis en ervaring die hierbij worden opgedaan wordt verder gewerkt aan de duurzame ontwikkeling van de Noordelijke Friese Wouden en andere Nationale Landschappen.

Via Publicaties/wetenschappelijke projecten kunt u het rapport downloaden. Wilt u liever een hardcopy, stuur dan een e-mail naar This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

07 November 2008

Sustainable delta-agriculture takes shape in the Day of the Future 

At the Day of the Future on 10 November in Papendal, the Dutch agricultural industry will show just how innovative it is. This is how farmers are cooperating with scientists, government authorities and other businesses to build a new and sustainable future. TransForum is helping with the provision of knowledge, skills and resources. The result is sustainable delta-agriculture, i.e. agriculture that coexists with and is furthered by the cities in the Dutch delta.

The urbanisation of the Netherlands has resulted in competing claims for land use: food production vies for space with roads, housing, industrial sites and recreation. Town and countryside are no longer segregated worlds; rural areas have become ‘gentrified'. Members of the public want to know how their food has been produced and impose demands with regard to quality, sustainability, the landscape and animal welfare. Entrepreneurs therefore have to develop new methods of production, new products and new markets. This means that they need to work increasingly closely not just with retailers but also with consumers and interest groups. Together they deliver safe, healthy, diversified and responsibly produced food. At the same time, the countryside provides space for living, working and recreation in an attractive landscape. This is Sustainable Delta Agriculture. 

The way this can work is shown by the TransForum projects: Green Care, Our South Limburg Land, the Golden Egg, Northern Friesian Woods, Sustainability in Retailing, Greenport Venlo, Greenport Shanghai, Dairy Adventure and Mijn Boer. Greenport Venlo will also be discussed in a lecture by Pierre Sommer, director of the development organisation Klavertje Vier of Greenport Venlo. In addition TransForum will be running a session on ‘New values in the green space of the Dutch Delta Metropolis' concerning the incorporation of the New Farm agropark planned for Grubbenvorst in the North Limburg landscape and the scope for quantum leaps in rural areas.

The following TransForum projects will be profiled on the Day of the Future:

• Green Care, Our South Limburg Land, Mijn Boer, and Northern Friesian Woods are establishing new links between rural areas and the city. New forms of demand are being generated by the city: the need for healthcare, peace and quiet for recovery and rehabilitation purposes, an attractive landscape and regional products. Urban and agricultural entrepreneurs are cooperating, thereby creating new partnerships, new markets and new alliances.
• Sustainability in Retailing and The Golden Egg show how urbanisation is also introducing new ‘urban values' in the agrosector. These values make new demands on entrepreneurial methods of production. In Sustainability in Retailing, a supermarket chain is working on sustainability as an integral element in management. The Golden Egg  has introduced a new type of chicken farming combining large-scale operations with animal welfare.
• Greenport Venlo, Dairy Adventure and Greenport Shanghai are examples of food production in highly urbanised areas, where specific attention is also paid to the quality of life and sustainability for human beings and animals.