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Paper short abstract

In our presentation, we will review the complex fruit-growing knowledge of Kóspallag, a settlement of 700 people in the Hungarian middle mountain range. We will also review the many roles these plants played in local society, economy, and the complex attitudes of local residents toward them.

Paper long abstract

Since the summer of 2020, we have been conducting research on local fruit varieties in Kóspallag, a village of 700 inhabitants in the Hungarian middle mountain range, in a broad interdisciplinary collaboration with a participatory and action-oriented approach. Our aim was to map the entirety of fruit-growing knowledge and the social and cultural role of fruits in the village, as well as to assess the potential of this knowledge in current village development and to put it to practical use. This is justified because fruit growing is a particularly important area in the economic life of similar mid-mountain settlements, which not only covers conscious cultivation and agricultural activities, but also includes gathering and the use of the available natural resources. Fruits played a significant role in self-sufficiency and commodity production, and therefore meant an area of local life full of emphatic, complex relationships and strong emotional connotations. In our presentation, we will explore the many ways in which fruits has played a role in local society in the past and present, how it has affected people's lives in many different ways, how it appears in various narratives, and how local conscious agricultural and nature-transforming activities have affected the landscape through fruit cultivation. We will also discuss the practical role that local fruit varieties and related knowledge can play in shaping the future desired by the village residents, and what specific actions we have taken so far in cooperation with them to achieve this.