The Food and Agricultural History Network is a network for (especially young) researchers in this field, who present and discuss their own work as well as that from other scholars and new books. The network is an initiative by Amber Striekwold (UU) and Anna Teijeiro (VU). This is their website: fahnn.nl.
Program 2025-2026
8 december (15.30-17.00 JK 2-3 room 220) Floor Haalboom will pitch her ideas for new research titled ‘Growing doubt: The strategic production of scientific ignorance on health and the environment in the postwar European agro-industry’. In the face of major health and environmental damage caused by present-day food systems, there is an urgent democratic need to understand why change is so hard, particularly amid growing distrust in public institutions for health and the environment. I will discuss a research plan to help rethink why transitions to sustainable and healthy diets stagnate despite long-standing scientific consensus on their urgency. To do so, I envision a research project that studies the strategic production of scientific ignorance on health and environmental issues associated with the agro-industry in postwar Europe. Combining conceptual advances in agnotology (the study of ignorance rather than knowledge) with historical research of particular agro-industries, such a project would renew our understanding of complex commercial influences on health and environmental knowledge and policy in European integration history
February 16th (15.30-17.00) Antonia Weiss (WUR) and Sanne Steen (Erasmus University) will discuss their respective researches into urban agriculture. We will dive into this topic from the early modern to today!
This year the nework started on October 6th 2025 with a discussion on the book by Niek Koning Food Security, Agricultural Policies and Economic Growth. Long-term Dynamics in the Past, Present and Future. London and New York: Routledge, 2017. The book is one of the new modern classics. To get an impression from the book, you may read the following review: https://antonschuurman.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/RHA76_WEB_resenasNiekKoning.pdf.
November 10th (15.30-17.00 room: TBA) there was a meeting with the theme: ‘Unequal global economic power relations (and how to bridge these gaps)’. Peter van Dam (UvA)and Grace Leksana (UU) presented their work during this meeting. Peter van Dam reflected on the theme from the perspective of the history of Fair Trade, and Grace Leksana discussed her new project that investigates place-based knowledge on food and agriculture in Indonesia before the Green Revolution.
Website voedselgeschiedenis.nl
Parallel to the FAHN website, Amber Striekwolda and Jon Verriet will revitalize the website www.voedselgeschiedenis.nl. This website is currently still in development but will contain information about Dutch Food and Agricultural History in the form of short blogs.
We hope that we can make use of the knowledge in this network to fill the website with interesting stories about Dutch Food and Agricultural History! The website is meant to inform students, journalists and other people who might be interested in Dutch Food and Agricultural History.
pagina bijgewerkt 19 november 2025
