Project

Social and Economic Possibilities for Food Forestry in the Netherlands

This project studies an emerging land-use practice in the Netherlands, food forestry (FF), from various angles: FF as a social whole (assemblage theory), FF as a site of diverse economic practices, affective conditions that enable or restrain FF, and ethnobotanical contributions to FF design. Additionally, together with an interdisciplinary group of researchers, I am working on a systematic literature review on FF in temperate climates and developing a research agenda.

Background

The industrialisation of food production has improved accessibility and affordability of food products at an unprecedented scale. The resulting industrial food systems, however, have a major ecological footprint. Alternative production systems, which draw on traditional farming methods, are (re-)emerging globally in effort to sustain both human and more-than-human communities. An example of such an alternative is food forestry (FF), a land-use system that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the Netherlands.

Project description

This research project is composed of five different studies that all contribute to the overarching theme ‘social and economic possibilities for food forestry in the Netherlands’. The project is a participant action research project and the various research objectives are the result of an iterative process between the researcher and food forestry practitioners and experts from the field.

The first study approaches food forestry as a social whole using Manuel DeLanda’s take on assemblage theory. Using a survey and an online search, the food forestry phenomenon was mapped and analysed to set the stage for the subsequent studies and future research in general. This study has been completed and was published in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems & Community Development (see publications).
The second study is a collaborative effort where a group of scholars from different disciplines come together to establish a scientific agenda for food forestry research. Through a series of interactive workshops we are creating a framework to establish which themes within food forestry research should be prioritised. We will then conduct a systematic literature review and analyse the resulting original research papers using the framework to assess the state of the art of food forestry research.
The third study concerns the economic diversity in food forests and how this contributes to the livelihoods of food forestry practitioners. This study follows the work of J. K. Gibson-Graham on diverse economies and is based on extensive participatory observation, where I worked alongside food forestry practitioners in four different food forests in the Netherlands to inventory the economic diversity. This fieldwork is complemented with semi-structured interviews.
The fourth study combines the field of ethnobotany with the diverse economies theory and investigates how the different connections humans have to specific plant species could be utilised to contribute to a community economy in a prospective food forest in the Netherlands. This study is based on fieldwork that included participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and a co-design workshop with participants, conducted by Melanie Ziegler, who I supervised for her MSc thesis. The resulting research paper is a joint effort.
The fifth study investigates the willingness of civil servants from various levels of governance in the Netherlands (municipalities, provincial governments and water boards) to accommodate community food forests in case of a bureaucratic gray area. Following Ben Anderson’s work on the analytics of affect, I study the affective conditions in which civil servants support food forestry initiatives using semi-structured interviews with civil servants and a collective workshop in which participants discuss their experiences.

Results

In the first paper of this PhD project, ‘Understanding the emerging phenomenon of food forestry in the Netherlands: An assemblage theory approach’, I studied food forestry with as an assemblage, which I describe as “the coming together of many components which interact, producing emergent properties” (Roodhof, 2024, p. 3), following the work of Deleuze & Guattari (1987) and later DeLanda (2016) and Sarmiento (2020).

As such, my research identified numerous elements of the food forestry assemblage, such as the mentioned experts, food forests, practitioners, networks and coalitions, laws and regulations, subsidies, events, workshops, and other activities in and around food forests. The interactions between these elements lead to various emergent properties, such as increased hope for the future and feelings of belonging. Particularly noteworthy is the shared experience of ‘pionieren’ (pioneering): “practicing FF entails the excitement of being part of a new, grassroots movement that gives a sense of purpose, while also having a sense of insecurity” (Roodhof, 2024, p. 9-10).

Moreover, I described the intricate relations of dominance and difference within the food forestry landscape, influencing recruitment, shared values, definitions, organisation, and infrastructure. For instance, while shared values unite practitioners in their quest for sustainable food systems, differing perspectives on food forestry’s purpose and scope lead to debates over its definition and institutional recognition.

This study demonstrates the complex relations between the many elements that compose the food forestry assemblage in the Netherlands and highlights the rapid development this assemblage is currently undergoing. Its sets the stage for further research about social and economic possibilities for food forestry.