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- Convenors:
-
Philippa Ryan
(Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
Mark Nesbitt (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
Dorian Fuller (University College London)
Jose Julian Garay-Vazquez (University College London)
Krystyna Swiderska (International Institute for Environment and Development)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Globally, many traditional farming systems are rapidly changing. An interdisciplinary approach is essential in conserving crop diversity and food heritage, by considering crops within their local cultural, ecological, and historical context, and from cultivation to cooking and consumption.
Long Abstract:
We invite contributions that discuss the conservation of agricultural and food heritage, for example addressing - the role of traditional and indigenous crops and cultivation practices in resilience; approaches to conserving endangered crops, other neglected species and associated knowledge; links between local crops, foods, cultural practices and values; changes within indigenous and traditional crop and foodsystems in recent decades; and perspectives from the historical or archaeological record on the long-term regional history and benefits of 'orphan' crops and traditional cultivation practices.
Agricultural heritage as a concept can encompass crop diversity and uses, the wider agricultural landscape and culturally specific cultivation and crop processing practices, related material culture and intangible heritage. Agricultural and food heritage are further connected by the crop varieties that provide the raw resources for cuisine. All these elements are situated and sustained within Indigenous peoples' knowledge systems, cultural and spiritual values, and holistic worldviews, or 'biocultural heritage'. Key issues include the need to better understand how these components relate to each other, and how this can help their conservation. For example, how do new crop introductions alter agricultural practices and foodways? how can approaches bring together botanical and environmental sciences, humanities, and local perspectives? What is the impact of globalisation on local agri- and food-systems, and how can a better understanding of local contexts can address global challenges?
Key words - environmental and botanical sciences and humanities, ethnobotany and archaeobotany, orphan crops, food
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 October, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
We will describe the approach, methodologies and results of our work on Local Food Plants for Nutrition of the Sowing Diversity = Harvesting Security program (SD=HS, www.sdhsprogram.org).
Paper long abstract:
This presentation describes the approach, methodologies and results of the work on Local Food Plants for Nutrition of the Sowing Diversity = Harvesting Security multi-stakeholder program (SD=HS, www.sdhsprogram.org). SD=HS aims to empower indigenous peoples and smallholder farmers to improve their food and nutrition security, while promoting gender equality and conserving agrobiodiversity. The main goals of our key intervention on Local Food Plants for Nutrition are: (a) to improve the diversity and quality of the diets through the conservation, use and management of agrobiodiversity, particularly neglected and underutilized species; and (b) to strengthen communities’ strategies to cope with the recurrent seasonal cycles of food scarcity through the improved used of these species.
The starting point for our support is a community’s local knowledge, and its associated cultural values, needs and priorities. Our work relies on indigenous peoples and smallholder farmers’ capacities to manage plant diversity, supported through Farmer Field Schools (FFS) and other participatory approaches. Our activities range from cultivation to cooking and consumption of local food plants. By the end of 2020, SD=HS had supported 234 FFS, including 5,317 farmers, and in that context had trained 436 master trainers and facilitators in Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Peru, Guatemala, Laos and Nepal.
Finally, we will reflect why the conservation of traditional knowledge and agrobiodiversity hold the key to building rural household resilience and food and nutrition security during the COVID-19 crisis.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses how different degrees of rural-urban interaction in Rio´s metropolitan countryside give rise to spatial diversity, farming resilience, and rural innovation. Agency within the place-assemblages of farming communities is distributed through various human and non-human components.
Paper long abstract:
Agriculture in urban and peri-urban areas is an integral part of hybrid landscapes and stimulates local production and consumption of quality food that contributes to the development of dynamic farming systems. In opposition to regional and local policies, which do not fully recognise the diversity of agricultural environments and the potential of agriculture in the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, the research identifies small-scale farming systems undergoing processes of adaptation. The diverse and dynamic strategies of smallholders in the countryside of Greater Rio illustrate how farmers adapt their farms to suit their personal interests, family situation, understandings and knowledge of the farm's agro-environmental conditions, regional traditions, and market opportunities.
The case studies show that social and organisational innovation plays a vital role in renewal at the farm level and in rural economies at the rural-urban interface. This paper discusses how farmers in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region combine social strategies creatively to adapt to spatial change and to strengthen resilience. Small-scale farmers have long played a significant role in shaping rural landscapes, and their necessarily embodied practices and experimental knowledges create a particular relationship between themselves and the land (Chambers et al., 1989; Fonte, 2008; Karisson, 2018; Šūmane et al., 2018). Agency within the place-assemblages of the farming communities is not concentrated with political leaders or entrepreneurial individuals but, rather, is distributed through various human and non-human components.
Paper short abstract:
The usage of mixed methods approaches to trace crop histories through time can serve towards reconnecting/recovering ancestral Taíno knowledge. On this paper, the case of Maís, Yuca, and Batata within the island of Borikén will be presented as examples.
Paper long abstract:
Currently, the claim of ancestral Taíno heritage remains unrecognized for Caribbean peoples due to the indigenous extinction myth post late 15th century by diseases/colonization/enslavement. However, during the 1970s the Antilles witnessed a strong resurgence of individuals reclaiming their ancestral Taíno heritage, and various yukayekes have been working towards revitalizing language (Canchibalo), spirituality (Guatu-Ma-cu A Borikén; Sacredtainohealing), medicine (salvajeysilvestre), artistic crafts (Taller Cabachuelas), and repatriation of ancestors (Jornada indigena de Borikén). The subject of Taíno culinary practices is understudied, which in turn has created the assumption that modern Caribbean cuisine received little to no influence from them (Díaz de Villegas 2004). Furthermore, archaeological research in the Caribbean has remained on species identification, with little attention to meal reparation processes. Thus, echoing Sherrat (1991) and Fuller & Rowlads (2011) there is a need to start seeing food as “meals” rather than species. Therefore, the usage of a mixed methods approach that incorporates ethnobotany, archaeobotany, experimental archaeology, and historical sources is an effective way towards recovering ancestral knowledge across the Caribbean. Thus, in this paper, the results of tracing the histories of various indigenous crops within the island of Borikén will be presented to demonstrate how applying a mixed methods approach contribute towards reconnecting/recovering the knowledge of our sleeping “abueles”.
Paper short abstract:
The agricultural and food systems of the indigenous people of the Rio Negro are particularly complex and diverse, but have recently been subject to changes. In order to preserve the agricultural and food diversity of that region, this agricultural system was registered as intangible heritage.
Paper long abstract:
The presented data are issued from a 12 years research program led by Brazilian and French researchers in collaboration with Amerindian associations. The authors, a botanist and an anthropologist, respectively studied the agricultural and the food system in the middle Rio Negro, a multiethnic region in the Northwest of the Brazilian Amazon, where the main ethnic groups belong to the Arawak and Eastern Tukano linguistic families. The research methods and the results will be presented here. The agricultural system common to these ethnic groups is particularly complex and diverse. About hundred crop species are food plants. Some species include different varieties, cassava being the most diverse crop. In the last years, both the agricultural and the food system have been threatened by urbanisation, globalisation and public policies. The collaboration between local Amerindian associations and the multidisciplinary research team led to the heritagization in 2010 of this agricultural system by the Brazilian Institute of the National Historical and Artistical Heritage (IPHAN). Actions of safeguarding are going on and innovations are taking place.