No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Food production was mostly perceived as an agricultural issue grounded in a rural hinterland. However, with the social, political and economic crisis especially in the European South urban agriculture is rapidly developing and becoming increasingly important for city dwellers. Drawing on a case-study of a municipal allotment garden in Northern Greece this article set out to explore the motives of urban dwellers for engaging in urban gardening. We elaborate a typology of gardeners using statistical analysis and Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. We then move from motives to placemaking and argue that despite the recent surge of gardens as places of production and satisfaction of basic level needs, new needs are emerging from lived experiences. Meanings, emotions and memories are embedded in the garden. Self-actualisation needs are fulfilled, new skills are developed and virtual communities are also grown. This symbiotic relationship of agriculture and the city has yet to reach its full potential in helping city dwellers to overcome what they are deprived of due to the crisis, not only material goods and social benefits but moreover a sense of belonging and self-respect.

No abstract

The aim of this research was to identify the factors affecting women farmers' participation in agricultural education programmes (AEPs) and to investigate the motives and expectations that influence women's willingness to participate in AEPs. Data were drawn from a random sample of women farmers from northern Greece, while a witness sample of male farmers was used to test the moderating effect of gender on the motivation to participate in AEPs. The results of multivariate analysis indicate that the most crucial parameters in the prediction of women's participation in AEPs are those reflecting their level of involvement in agriculture. Compared with men, women farmers report significantly higher levels of motivation to participate in AEPs deriving from self-actualization needs. Interestingly, the findings reveal that the expectation of gaining economic benefits is a far less important predictor of willingness to attend AEPs. The implications for agricultural education administrators, limitations and future research directions are noted.

The paradoxical picture of Greek agriculture according to which small family farms with fragmented agricultural land remain in the productive system, as well as the increasing feminisation of agriculture and the ageing of farm heads is currently under consideration. Drawing on field research in a rural area of northern Greece, we focus on the official farm heads' cohort and investigate aspects of their involvement in farming, dwelling choices and farmland ownership. The basic aim is to convey an authentic picture of the reality of family farming in modern Greece that often lies concealed behind official figures and myths. In so doing both a quantitative analysis (two-step cluster analysis) of 1,295 farm heads and interview narratives were used. The fiction created in rural Greece and the heterogeneity of farm heads (absent or present from the village or the farm, or both) is the result of cross-cutting issues: administrative and policy framework, the proliferation of rural development programmes, the way that ownership of the farmland is conflated with headship of the farm, the spatial mobility of the rural population, multiple dwelling-places and the struggle of the family farm to preserve its agricultural identity and survive through times of rural restructuring and socioeconomic instability.

No abstract