Recap: VoedselAnders - Now the Cow Debate

We had the honour of having a widely experienced and knowledgeable expert-panel, consisting of:

1. Katrien van ‘t Hooft, veterinarian and coordinator of Dutch Farm Experience
2. Kees van Veluw, lecturer at Wageningen Univesity and researcher for Louis Bolk institute
3. Irene van de Sar, dairy farmer and board member of the Dutch dairymen-board
4. Frens Schuring, teacher at bio-dynamic agriculture school Warmonderhof
5. Clemens Driessen, philosopher and human geographer at Wageningen University

In this session we found answers to the central question:
(1) What kind of knowledge and innovations should be shared and developed for sustainable dairy farming, (2) how could we organize that and (3) what should be the role of Wageningen UR?

(1) The kind of knowledge that should be shared and produced should most of all be practical and tailor made. Also a lot of opportunities where seen in sharing and shaping hybrid innovations by combining ideas from different practices, different knowledge traditions and even different parts of the world. Even in striving for naturalness, high-tech innovations might find a place. Like the mobile milkingrobot that Clemens Driessen helped to developed with a group of farmers, which could milk cows in a nature reserve in the future. Moreover, scientists should visit farms and locally see specific problems, to set up a useful research agenda:

you just need to be humble to go there, to see what is happening and to gather people who have specific knowledge and who can support somehow that. Because we do not know more then the farmers, we know less then them (Brazilian PhD candidate)

Frens Schuring advocated that research questions should be future-oriented initiatives which start from an impulse that comes to a person if he opens his mind, heart and will for what the future is calling him to do. Our rationality is always influenced by the past and is therefore not the right starting point.

(2) Initiatives of farmers and their practical problems and home-made solutions should lead researchers to the right research questions. Several people mentioned that we should not expect the government, supporting or enabling transition to sustainable approaches for dairy-farming. Especially not the current government. The influence of the primary sector should be more evenly spread, while now mainly the large-scale producers and industry influence the agenda setting and policy-making. Next to farmers, the consumers and civil society organizations be in the circle of power around the dairy sector. An other bottleneck are the banks which only want to invest if a farm increases its production in quantity and they do not understand/support quality improvement.
Possibilities are seen in learning from, and together with, other farmers and veterinarians from countries. Katrien van ‘t Hooft facilitates this for example by cooperatively working on the shared goal of reducing anti-biotic use.

(3) There was a shared pessimism about the role of Wageningen UR for research. Because of the reductionist approach, reducing cows to production-units, striving for up-scaling and reducing costs. WUR is serving the few big export-oriented dairy-producers. The research that is relevant for them is really different from what the average dairy-farmers in the Netherlands now needs. Wageningen UR is incorrectly legitimizing their approach by referring to the moral “we need to feed the world”.
Kees van Veluw was also sceptical about the role of Wageningen UR in research, however he was more optimistic about education:

I can teach what I want. That is true, so in that sense, Wageningen can play a role. But completely participatory, with farmers, and forget about that reductionistic approach. Because farmers, you (pointing at Irene) you don’t have a reductionistic approach, you are forced to have it but in your heart.. (Kees van Veluw)

An other role proposed for the university and research centre is to bring farmers from different places together who have a very different approach and facilitate them to exchanging their ideas and knowledge. This could also provide input for further research.