On March 4, 2025 the Institute of Rural History (Brigitte Semanek & Jessica Richter) organized an international workshop on "Farmers' Knowledge and Farming Practices" together with BAB (Georg Wiesinger). This event took place at the Lower Austrian Library building in St. Pölten where more than 20 experts discussed the economic, environmental and socio-cultural implications of traditional farming knowledge.
Programme
13:00-13:20
Brigitte Semanek (Institute of Rural History – IGLR), Jessica Richter (IGLR) & Georg Wiesinger (Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics, Rural and Mountain Research, Vienna)
Welcome Address
13:20-13:55
Přemysl Mácha (Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences) & Jessica Richter (IGLR)
Farmers Knowledge, Memory and Common Sense
13:55-14:30
Christian R. Vogl & Christoph Schunko (Institute of Organic Farming, BOKU University)
Examples for Research on Local Knowledge at the Institute of Organic Farming at the BOKU University
Chair: Oliver Kühschelm (IGLR)
14:30-14:50 Coffee break
14:50-15:25
Peter Moser (Archives of Rural History, Bern)
Knowledge and Skills in the Agrarian-Industrial Knowledge Society: Power Relations, Actors and Institutions (ca. 1870-1950)
15:25-16:00
Ika Darnhofer (Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Economics, BOKU University)
How do We Conceptualize Family Farmers: As Rational Producer-Entrepreneurs or as Embodied Peasants?
16:00-16:35
Thassilo Hazod (Department of European Ethnology, University of Vienna)
Peasant Knowledge and the Economic Practice of Direct Marketing
Chair: Teresa Petrik (IGLR)
16:35-16:55 Coffee break
16:55-17:30
Andreas Koch (Department of Sociology and Social Geography & Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg)
Local Rural Empowerment Strategies
Chair: Jessica Richter (IGLR)
17:30-18:00 Conclusion and Future Perspectives
