1. Smeets, P. J. A. M. (2011). Expedition Agroparks. Research by design into sustainable development and
agriculture in the network society. Wageningen University Press, Wageningen.
Synopsis:
The scientific aim of this thesis is to find answers to the questions of whether agroparks contribute to
sustainable development in metropolises, how an agropark is developed and how it must be designed.
Under examination are seven designs for agroparks, which were created from 2002 onwards in the
Netherlands, China and India. The research by design method is used for the purpose. The research is
conducted in the context of the network society, with urbanisation as a driving force, in which
metropolitan agriculture is defined as a new manifestation of agroproduction. The agropark designs are
analysed using the resource use efficiency theory, which leads to conclusions about the positive
contribution that agroparks make to sustainable development. The agropark designs are also analysed
using the landscape theory, which leads to conclusions on the necessary integrality of the design, which
should include aspects of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, and on the scale level of the
design, whereby both the local level of the landscape as well as the global level of the logistics network
must be included. The process by which the designs came to fruition and were implemented is analysed
using the co-design theory. This leads to conclusions on the necessary involvement of knowledge
institutions, entrepreneurs and governments and on the transdisciplinary nature of this process. Via these
conclusions the research by design provides insight into the wider applications of these theories. The
applicability of resource use efficiency, previously used in crop parcels, crop systems and land use, is
extended to industrial ecology. The landscape theory supplements spatial development policy, particularly
in the way in which this has to be applied in developing countries. The co-design theory is enriched with
knowledge about the collaborations, that are needed, about sustainable development as a qualitative aim
and about collaboration in a transdisciplinary mode. The research by design method used can itself also be
added, as a blend of induction and deduction, to the repertoire of co-design as a design theory.