Science is not about knowing, but about a continued (re)searching

Once studying biology in Wageningen, Tjeerd Jan Stomph then accompanied his partner to West Africa to find a job there on the local scene. Eight tropical years and a PhD thesis later, the family returned to the Netherlands via England. After a brief stopover in Twente, he was able to start working at WUR. Now, thirty years later, it really is time to start thinking about something like retirement. And so there will be a farewell symposium for which Stomph - attached to the Crop System Analysis chair group - suggested the topic himself. More on that symposium in a moment. But first a look back at those thirty years: "Well, 'mixed feelings about mixed drinks' to quote Tom Waits. Various mergers made things difficult at times and things went better with some bosses than others, but the work itself has always been a reason to keep going. It's just fantastic, that combination of doing research and working with young people. It suits me."

Outsider's view

Stomph sees system analysis and research methodologies as a common thread in his work. "I worked in so many areas: agrohydrology, agrometeorology, soil-plant interactions, parasitic weeds, relationship plant and human nutrition, mixed cultivation, crop protection, seed systems, agro-biodiversity. Each time with other people who had a lot of expertise in a particular area, where it often was my role to put it properly into a system analysis. I increasingly enjoyed putting things in a broader framework. I am primarily a researcher. The moment I start thinking: I think this is how it works, I notice that I become less sharp. But then when I picked up a new subject, I started looking at it more closely and reading about it. And then I thought: why do they do it this way? It happened to me several times that I discovered a new angle thanks to this outsider's view and suggested using a different methodology. And surprising things came out of that. That's great, that's really what I do it for."

Not-knowing

"I will never call myself a scientist, because science, that's where 'knowing' is, while research is where the not-knowing is, the trying out. That's actually what science is in my eyes: research, because we know very little, especially when it comes to the more complex systems, like food systems. How exactly it works, how the soil functions, what the relationship is between that soil and the health of people and animals, we still don't really know. That's why I prefer to call myself a researcher. Because the longer you work in research, the more you know what we all still don't know."

Original angles, unexpected methodologies, sharp questioning and always thinking in a broader framework, that is what characterises Tjeerd Jan Stomph's work. And this is also evident in the set-up he devised for his farewell symposium on agrobiodiversity and the transition of our food system: "We talk about the need for change, but as scientists, let's realise that our research often only throws light on a small part of the whole within a larger context. Where huge forces are at play where we have to keep asking ourselves: what should I research? I hope we continue to think critically.

That is why I have also asked people from outside my immediate field. Someone from social sciences who thinks quite radically about transition. And someone from human nutrition, someone with a background at the Dutch political group Party for the Animals and the World Wide Fund for Nature. They have a very different view, which is not necessarily my view. But that's what I choose, I want different perspectives, and to think about that further together. I hope that afterwards we'll have the path a little sharper: oh yes, that's what it's about."

Mother

That original style of thinking Stomph got from his mother, he says. "She always did that. Something would be asserted and then with a single question or remark she could suddenly put the matter in a different light, to make the other person think in the sense of: can I do it differently or where can I find the dissenting voice? If I hope to leave anything to my students and colleagues at WUR it is that."

Now there may be a farewell symposium on 22 March, but that does not mean Stomph has left for good. There are another dozen or so PhDs eager to complete their research with him, so for the next few years we will still see him at WUR. And after that? "Then I might be found in Arnhem, volunteering at the Open Air Museum. Or I might help combat the effects of the nitrogen problem by pulling out blackberries on the Dutch heath. That seems like a wonderful thing to do."