Boerenbond Chair Agriculture and Society |
Making agriculture more sustainable is ensuring economic performance, while taking account of ecological issues and societal norms. Boerenbond (the largest agricultural union in Belgium) and K.U.Leuven wish to support the agricultural sector by joining forces in the newly installed "Boerenbond Chair Agriculture and Society". "The Centre for Science, Technology and Ethics (CSTE) is the perfect partner to support our farmers in developing a more sustainable agriculture", says Noël Devisch, president of Boerenbond.
For the next 2.5 years, Boerenbond will invest 73000 EUR in the Chair. Rector Marc Vervenne and president Noël Devisch signed the memorandum on June 19, 2007.
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We are what we eat? |
Not only the climate is working its way into the media and our collective consciousness, but so is our food and our eating habits. Could it be that An Inconvient Truth has inspired those who are fighting for a different food production to start using images instead of (blaming) retorics?
Whatever the background, it cannot go unnoticed that two documentaries about modern food production have made it to the big screen during the last months. Our Daily Bread set the trend and now there is We Feed the World to prick our conscience ... and do we still remember Darwin's Nightmare and Supersize Me?
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Feeding the world |
In Ethical Perspectives Eric Tollens and Johan De Tavenier concern themselves with feeding the world community. The developing world can feed itself best, they argue, by carrying out market reforms within a development perspective. Poverty is best solved through agricultural reform, but in turn, effective reform there depends on the same factors that enable healthy markets in the First World.
The journal editor states "the contribution of Tollens and De Tavenier is remarkable in pointing out not only the relationship between food and poverty, but also in exploring the incredibly complex web woven by development aid and the market economy."
The ethical challenge is bringing about the political will for policies enabling the poor to help themselves out of poverty.
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NanoSoc |
On February 1st 2006 we have launched the project "Nanotechnologies for tomorrow's society" (NanoSoc), funded by the IWT.
The research consortium is made up by 2 groups of the University of Antwerp - the Research Centre for Technology, Energy and Environment (STEM) and Electron Microscopy for Materials Science (EMAT), the Interuniversity Micro-Electronics Centre (IMEC) and ourselves.
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New book |
This book (in Dutch) tries to deal with the different aspects of the human-animal relationship in a non-polemic way. We deal with topics as the scientific background of animal welfare, the ethical and philosophical theories, slaughter, animal disease control, ...
The book is based on scientific knowledge, but is written for an non-specialist audience.
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The future of agriculture |
 The COSMOPAD modelling framework: Conceptual System Dynamics Model of Planetary Agricultural & Biomass Development. How will the planetary agriculture evolve in the next 30 years? You can download the full document here
A working group on animal production in the 21st century (DP21) has drawn up 3 possible scenarios for the evolution on animal production in Belgium. Take a look at the document here. (in Dutch)
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Club of Rome |
Here you can find different documents and presentations of the Club of Rome, e.g. these presented at the Johannesburg Summit. More information on the Club of Rome and the Johannesburg Summit can be found through the links page.
For more information, contact Raoul Weiler
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