Province of Groningen finances a chair in Nature-inclusive Rural Development

As from 1 September 2020, the University of Groningen has appointed Martijn van der Heide as Professor by Special Appointment in Nature-inclusive Rural Development at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences. With this chair, the Province of Groningen and the University want to help the agricultural sector become more sustainable. Important factors in this include the interaction between what is grown, the soil and the landscape, as well as working together with nature, in such a way that this leads to a good earnings model for farmers. But also seeing nature, farming and countryside as one coherent whole. The Province is contributing € 200,000 to the chair, which consists of a five-year appointment.

The chair by special appointment was created by the Vereniging voor Hoger Landbouw Onderwijs (Association for Higher Agricultural Education; VHLO) and focuses on supporting nature-inclusive measures in agriculture academically, from a spatial and socio-economic perspective. Attention is also paid to translating and applying this scientific research to practice.

Prof . C.M. (Martijn) van der Heide (1973) is an agricultural and environmental economist and has studied agro-economic questions in his position as senior policy officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality since 2018. Before this, he worked on fundamental and applied research at the Wageningen Economic Research institute for years. He also was a lector on ‘integrated nature and landscape management’ for four years at the Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences. This means that he is familiar with both the research and the administrative sides of agriculture.