Both ENDS
Recently, we visited food forest Ketelbroek with a group of colleagues. This project was initiated by food forest pioneer Wouter van Eck and our own Pieter Jansen. What a beautiful place! Located between monocrop fields of ryegrass, beetroot and potatoes, the food forest is a green oasis. Birdsong fills the air and there is a constant buzz and fluttering all around. Hares, badgers, foxes and wild boars are regular visitors. And let's not forget the beavers.
Our manifesto "The Dutch Agriculture Agreement reaches further than the Netherlands: offer prospects for sustainable farmers and consumers worldwide" has now been signed by over 70 civil society organisations, agricultural organisations and companies, environmental organisations and scientists from around the world. Below, a few of them give their personal motivation why they support the manifesto.
While agriculture and livestock food production in the world have become increasingly large-scale, industrial and ever more efficient for decades, the damage and inequality this food system causes is also becoming increasingly clear. Across the world, more and more people are therefore engaged in alternative, sustainable food production that ensures many generations to come to still have access to fertile, healthy land and clean water.
In this talkshow, we highlight some of these examples and hope to fuel the dialogue about this topic.
Farid Tabarki - Studio Zeitgeist
Inspired? Join our 'The Future We See' - talkshow on September 28th! You can either attend live or online, quietly listen or actively participate in the discussion - or during the drinks afterwards. We hope to see you there!
To get a glimpse of the atmosphere, see a short video of our last session (about economic systems): https://youtu.be/AUNGcROovnc
And to dive in a little deeper, watch this compilation: https://youtu.be/nzuwIREeiNo
When Both ENDS-colleagues visit partners, they often go on a "field trip" to see how our joint work affects people and communities. This year, we did the same in the Netherlands. Food forestry pioneer Wouter van Eck demonstrates a group of Both ENDS partners how regenerative agriculture can offer solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises.
The Netherlands is well on its way with the energy transition at home, but our country continues to encourage Dutch investments in fossil projects elsewhere. This is obviously not in line with the climate goals and, moreover, these kinds of projects cause major problems in the countries where they take place. What can a new cabinet do to reduce the Dutch footprint abroad? Ellen Mangnus discussed this with several experts: today part 2.
The parliamentary elections in the Netherlands are over, and the dust has somewhat settled. No matter what government emerges from the process, one thing is clear: in the Netherlands the main focus is on the Netherlands. Foreign affairs were hardly mentioned during the elections and the same applies to the process of forming a new coalition. More alarmingly, some of the winners in the elections want to cut themselves off even further from the world around us.
In the weeks following the elections, Both ENDS is looking at how Dutch foreign policy can be influenced in the coming years to reduce our footprint abroad and to work in the interests of people and planet. We will be doing that in four double interviews, each with an in-house expert and someone from outside the organisation.
The Dutch Agriculture Agreement, which is currently under development, is too much focused solely on the Netherlands. That is the opinion of a broad coalition of more than sixty NGOs, farmers' organisations, scientists and companies that have today sent an urgent letter to agriculture minister Piet Adema and foreign trade and development minister Liesje Schreinemacher. The government's agricultural policy should also aim to reduce the Netherlands' enormous agrarian footprint beyond our borders, by taking food security and the preservation of biodiversity as its starting points. The coalition has published a manifesto in which it sets out how reform of the Netherlands' foreign agricultural policy could be given shape.
