Christian Reinhard Vogl

• Prof. Dr.
• Head of the Institute of Organic Farming at BOKU University

The creative process that leads to farmers’ innovations is rarely studied or described precisely in agricultural sciences. For academic scientists, obvious limitations of farmers’ experiments are e.g. precision, reliability, robustness, accuracy, validity or the correct analysis of cause and effect. Nevertheless, we propose that ‘farmers’ experimen...

Background The sustainable management of animal health and welfare is of increasing importance to consumers and a key topic in the organic farming movement. Few systematic studies have been undertaken investigating farmers’ local knowledge related to this issue. Ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) is a discipline focusing on local knowledge and folk met...

This article explores the relationship between institutional funding for research and community-based or co-enquiry research practice. It examines the implementation of co-enquiry research in the COMBIOSERVE project, which was funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme for research and innovation, between the years 2012 and 201...

Plant species in Alpine homegardens in Eastern Tyrol (Austria) are managed along a continuum that ranges from species which are planted or sown every year to species which are left to spontaneously reproduce in the gardens. The importance, management practices and the cultural context of spontaneously reproducing species was studied in 196 gardens...

Due to the collapse of the socialist systems in 1989, Cuba's government promoted a series of structural changes to deal with resource scarcity and to enhance agricultural productivity. The upcoming crisis triggered adaptation strategies and led to a large-scale transition process towards a more sustainable model of agriculture. Farmers' experiments...

Farmers have always lived in changing environments where uncertainty and disturbances are inevitable. Therefore, farmers need the ability to adapt to change in order to be able to maintain their farms. Experimentation is one way for farmers to learn and adapt, and may be a tool to build farm resilience. Farmers’ experiments as defined in this paper...

Farmers’ experiments can be defined as the autonomous activities of farmers to try or introduce something new at the farm, and include evaluation of success or failure with farmers’ own methods. Experiments enable farmers to adapt their farms to changing circumstances, build up local knowledge, and have resulted in countless agricultural innovation...

Background The demand for natural product-based treatment options for livestock is increasing by animals’ owners, veterinarians and policy makers. But at the same time, the traditional knowledge about it is at risk of falling into oblivion in Europe. The present study recorded this knowledge for the linguistically and geographically interesting Swi...

Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have emerged from initiatives introduced by farmers and civil society to ensure the organic quality of products by directly involving producers, consumers, and other stakeholders in the guarantee process. While actor participation in PGS provides the foundation for these systems, it also presents challenges, ye...

In einer Studie wurde das traditionelle Erfahrungswissen zu pflanzlichen Hausmitteln und deren Anwendungen bei Nutztieren erfasst und ausgewertet. Gerade in Bayern ist dieses traditionelle und lokalspezifische Wissen noch weit verbreitet. Dies birgt zahlreiche Anwendungsbeispiele und Potenzial für die Weiterentwicklung der Veterinärphytotherapie

Growing worldwide interest in Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) requires an exploration of how countries approach PGS institutionalization. Through document analysis and semi-structured interviews, a comparative crosscountry study was conducted in nine Latin American countries to examine how PGS are defined, regulated, and promoted at a nationa...

Wiederholte botanische Datenerhebung in den Hausgärten und Befragung der BewirtschafterInnen, z.B. zu Aspekten wie Herkunft und Nutzung der Pflanzenarten, oder Gründen für die Bewirtschaftung der Hausgärten. Evaluierung der geschichtlichen Entwicklung bzw. der ethnobotanischen Veränderungen der Hausgärten im vergangenen Jahrhundert durch strukturie...

The importance of Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) as an alternative organic certification to third-party certification (TPC) has grown remarkably in recent years. PGS are argued to be less costly than TPC, and adopt the exchange of advice and knowledge as a key element of farm inspections. For these reasons, PGS are promoted as being more acc...

Traditional rice agroecosystems face socioeconomic, political, technical and environmental challenges that are resulting in changes in the traditional land use and management system and its contributions to indigenous farmers. This study explored the contributions made by swidden and wet rice agroecosystems in a traditional rice cultivation landsca...

In dieser Broschüre werden Menschen des Pustertals und angrenzender Regionen mit jenen Kulturpflanzen porträtiert, von denen diese Menschen Saat- und Pflanzgut vermehren. Die Kulturpflanzenarten sind in Gruppen nach der Nutzung eingeteilt. Zu jeder Kulturpflanze werden Personen porträtiert, die aktuell (Stand: Jahre 2021 und 2022) eine Herkunft de...

Alternative food networks (AFN) are argued to provide platforms to re-socialize and re-spacealize food, establish and contribute to democratic participation in local food chains, and foster producer–consumer relations and trust. As one of the most recent examples of AFN, Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have gained notable traction in attempti...

Background Rice field agroecosystems produce food for more than half of the world’s population and deliver important services supporting farmers’ livelihoods. However, traditional rice field agroecosystems are facing a variety of problems, including pests or markets that are hard to access. This research explored indigenous farmers’ perceptions of...

Second Edition Ten years of the Oxapampa - Asháninka - Yánesha BIOAY biosphere reserve: testimonies, reflections and achievements is a compilation of material to mark the tenth anniversary of the approval of the biosphere reserve by UNESCO. This book is the outcome of the research project «Lessons learned for the management policy of the Oxapampa...

Ethnopharmacological relevance While the interest in finding medical solutions for the worldwide antibiotics crisis is rising, the legal possibility of simplified authorization of herbal veterinary medicinal products is dwindling. An important basis for both the preservation and development of knowledge in veterinary herbal medicine are pharmacolog...

Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) provides the interface for the meeting of farmers and scientists. This is a meeting of different social worlds, contesting agendas, cultures of cooperation and networks of actors. Like in other disciplines, scientists in AR4D have developed their own culture of science. However, the role of their culture...

Background Local plant knowledge typically is unevenly distributed within a community. This knowledge variation is important in understanding people’s relationship with their environment. Here we ask about knowledge variation among farmers’ families in the Napf region of Switzerland. Methods In 2008 and 2009, 60 adults and children living on 14 fa...

Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) provide an alternative certification system for smallholder organic farmers producing for the domestic market. Officially recognized in Chile since 2007, PGS certification has grown in momentum in recent years. We used semi-structured interviews, surveys and participant observations to shed light on the PGS mov...

Ten years of the Oxapampa - Asháninka - Yánesha BIOAY biosphere reserve: testimonies, reflections and achievements is a compilation of material to mark the tenth anniversary of the approval of the biosphere reserve by UNESCO. This book is the outcome of the research project «Lessons learned for the management policy of the Oxapampa - Asháninka - Yá...

Organic farming is a demand-led—rather than policy-driven—development. The introduction of regulations, controls and certification was intended to protect consumers from fraud, and to protect producers from unfair competition. The farmers’ willingness to participate in organic schemes is a prerequisite, which depends on their attitudes to the certi...

Organically-certified wild plant foods are rarely addressed in scientific or public discourses on organic food even though 30% of the world’s organically-certified land is dedicated to wild plant gathering. This oversight may leave organic consumers unaware of the market relevance of wild plant foods. The aim of this study was therefore to understa...

Participatory guarantee systems (PGS) have become increasingly important for organic quality assurance. PGS are promoted as more suitable than third-party certification (TPC) for smallholder farmers in the Global South. The advocated benefits of PGS include the promotion of organic agriculture, farmer empowerment, and the facilitation of food syste...

Organically-certified wild food plants are rarely addressed in scientific or public discourses on organic food even though 30 % of the world’s organically-certified land is dedicated to wild plant gathering. This oversight may leave organic consumers unaware of the market relevance of wild food plants. The aim of this study was therefore to underst...

Homegardens in Lienz, Eastern Tyrol (Osttirol), Austria, featuring the ethnobotany, plant diversity, plant use, and related change, dynamics, as well as historical and recent development.

Ethnopharmacological relevance: In the pre-antibiotic era, a broad spectrum of medicinal plants was used to treat livestock. This knowledge was neglected in European veterinary medicine for decades but kept alive by farmers. Emergence of multidrug resistant bacterial strains requires a severely restricted use of antibiotics in veterinary medicine....

Substantial urbanization has allowed individuals to become increasingly spatially and psychologically distanced from the food system and agricultural practices. Food literacy (FL) has been described as a promising approach to reconnect the city with the country and furthermore address public health issues such as obesity and diet-related disease. T...

The gathering and commercialisation of non-timber forest products (NTFP) in Europe has repeatedly been praised for its potential to support rural development. However, political support mechanisms explicitly targeting NTFP remain underdeveloped. In this study, we aimed to contribute to the design of support mechanisms by understanding the factors t...

Participatory guarantee systems (PGS) are an emerging strategy in the organic farming and agroecology movement for ensuring the sustainable origin of food. This study focused on the perspectives of stakeholders involved in PGS in Peru (Lima and Apurímac) in order to acquire a greater understanding of how these PGS operate and the context in which t...

Ethnopharmacological relevance: The term “traditional” is well established in European (human) medicine and even appears in recent European regulations on herbal medicinal products connected to a simplified registration. In contrast, a scientific discussion of a Traditional European Veterinary Herbal Medicine is still lacking in spite of a rising i...

The increasing number of producers and consumers of organic products means that there is an increasing need to guarantee the organic characteristics of organic products. Certification is a tool that bridges the information deficit between demand and supply, ensuring that a product complies with the specified standards. Third-party certification (TP...

European countries are split over the appreciation of wild berries, fruits, mushrooms, and herbs. While some countries provide public statistics on wild plants, others seem to neglect wild plant gathering and commercialization. In this study, we aimed to understand if wild plant commercialization is neglected or irrelevant in Austria, a country tha...

Background Home gardens are an integral part of many traditional land use systems around the world. They are subject to various conversion processes and undergo a variety of changes. We were interested if change is an ongoing process in farmers’ home gardens of Eastern Tyrol (Austria). Methods In Sillian, 16 farmers’ home gardens (FHGs) were studi...

Third-party certification (TPC), the most common organic certification system, has faced growing criticism in recent years. This has led to the development of alternative certification systems, most of which can be classed as Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS). PGS have been promoted as a more suitable, cheaper and less bureaucratic alternative...

Background: Food knowledge and consumption in the context of migration is an important topic in ethnobiological research. Little research is done on the process of how external factors impact food knowledge amongst migrants. Taking into account social organisation and power relations of food knowledge transmission and distribution of food knowledg...

Rural development shaped by global pressures aims to improve livelihoods and market access in remote communities. However, rural development measures can alter landscapes, and change the embedded natural resources and access to them. In Mexico, rural women and their livelihoods are frequently most affected by changes in water resources. This study...

Purpose: Place based foodstuffs have gained salience in markets worldwide and Geographical Indication (GI) products are prominent examples. In this paper, we focus on the governance (formal and informal institutions) of the European and Japanese GI schemes, discuss the variety of procedures of implementing the features of the governance system (inc...

Background Ethnoveterinary knowledge in Europe may play an important role as a basis for sustainable treatment options for livestock. Aims of our study were (a) to compare the ethnoveterinary practices of two culturally and sociodemographically different regions of Switzerland, (b) to compare results with earlier ethnoveterinary studies conducted i...

The performance of agriculture worldwide clearly shows that the current mainstream agricultural pathway is not sustainable, causing a diversity of ecological, social and economic problems (McIntyre et al., 2009). Currently, innovation (e.g. Smits et al., 2010; EU SCAR, 2012) is seen as the buzzword and the key concept for supporting the urgently ne...

Background Ethically sound research in applied ethnobiology should benefit local communities by giving them full access to research processes and results. Participatory research may ensure such access, but there has been little discussion on methodological details of participatory approaches in ethnobiological research. This paper presents and disc...

Studies of farming symbols in modern agriculture indicate that soils and agricultural land are important factors when it comes to the construction of farmers' identities. This article uses Bourdieu's framework of habitus along with his theory of capital to discuss the importance of soils in this construction process of farmers' identities. A range...

Didactic material for the excursion of students of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (Austria; BOKU) to the organic urban farming and gardening cooperative "Vivero Alamar" in 2015.

Didactic material for the excursion of students of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (Austria; BOKU) to the organic urban farming and gardening cooperative "Vivero Alamar" in 2015.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) causes high morbidity in cattle, and extensive antibiotic treatment is leading to increasing resistance of BRD pathogens. Medicinal plants (MP) used traditionally by Swiss farmers for BRD might be a potential future therapeutic option. Since 2011 ethnoveterinary surveys have been conducted in Switzerland, with some...

Wild plant gathering becomes again a popular and fashionable activity in Europe after gathering practices have been increasingly abandoned over the last decades. Recent ethnobotanical research documented a diversity of gathering practices from people of diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds who gather in urban and rural areas. Few efforts...

Urban agriculture in Cuba has played an important role for citizens’ food supply since the collapse of the Eastern Block. Through the land reform of 2008 and the Lineamientos of 2011, the Cuban government has aimed to support agriculture in order to increase national food production and reduce imports. However, the implementation of the designed me...

Origin labels, more specifically Geographical Indications (GIs), allow organised producers to define quality standards and defend their food products’ reputation while highlighting their geographical origin and value to consumers. Café de Colombia was the first non-European food product registered as Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) under EU...

Background: Discussions surrounding ethnobiological classification have been broad and diverse. One of the recurring questions is whether classification is mainly based on the "inherent structure of biological reality" or on cultural, especially utilitarian needs. So far, studies about ethnobotanical classification have mainly been done in indigen...

The EC Regulation for Organic Farming states that organic livestock should be treated preferably with phytotherapeutic products. In spite of the high importance of organic livestock in Europe, primarily ruminants, today almost no phytotherapeutic product is registered for livestock. Also, information regarding veterinary phytotherapy is rare. The a...

VOGL, C. R., & B. VOGL-LUKASSER (2014): Local knowledge in the Alps about traditional crops and local varieties: Examples from Eastern Tyrol (Lienz district), Austria. Conference: Forum Alpinum - Ressourcen der Alpen Nutzung, Inwertsetzung und Management von lokaler zu makroregionaler Ebene. Darfo Boario Terme (Italy), 17.-19.9.2014. Invited Paper....

Im Rahmen des Sparkling Science Projektes McKioto untersuchten Schüler/innen zweier Klassen der 8. Schulstufe ge-meinsam mit Wissenschaftler/innen die Auswirkungen ihrer Ernährungsweise auf ihre Gesundheit und den globalen Kli-mawandel. Das eigene Konsumverhalten wurde gemeinsam analysiert und Handlungsalternativen für jene Bereiche des Ernährungsv...

Die Arbeit in der tierärztlichen Praxis findet tagtäglich im Spannungsfeld zwischen der eigenen Erfahrung und (neuesten) wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen statt. Im Vergleich zur Humanmedizin findet sich der Tiermediziner, unabhängig von der Therapierichtung, die er bevorzugt einsetzt, jedoch wesentlich öfter in der Situation, Entscheidungen ohne ve...

Very few ethnoveterinary surveys have been conducted in central Europe. However, traditional knowledge on the use of medicinal plants might be an option for future concepts in treatment of livestock diseases. Therefore the aim of this study was to document and analyse the traditional knowledge and use of homemade herbal remedies for livestock by fa...

Farmers' attitudes and expectations towards mainly animal-based welfare assessment tools such as the Welfare Quality® protocol are regarded important for successful implementation. The objectives of this study with beef farmers in Austria, Germany and Italy were to investigate farmers' willingness to join such a comprehensive assessment system and...

Investigations into knowledge about food and medicinal plants in a certain geographic area or within a specific group are an important element of ethnobotanical research. This knowledge is context specific and dynamic due to changing ecological, social and economic circumstances. Migration processes affect food habits and the knowledge and use of m...

This paper examines the relationship between botanical composition of homegardens and the cultural background of their owners, as well as the multiple functions of tropical homegardens and the high diversity of plant species found there. In 2008, an ethnobotanical research study was conducted in 20 Maya and Mestizo homegardens in Calakmul, Campeche...

Black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) cultivation in gher (modified rice fields or ponds located beside canals or rivers) is widespread in southwestern Bangladesh. Shrimp farming plays an important role in the economy of the country, as it earns foreign exchange and provides employment opportunities. Organic shrimp aquaculture has emerged as an alte...

Free Card for the Exhibition on Ethnopedology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU, Austria). Picture: Sebastian Wahlhütter

Free Card for the Exhibition on Ethnopedology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU, Austria) (Picture: Sebastian Wahlhütter)

Free Card for the Exhibition on Ethnopedology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU, Austria). Picture: Sebastian Wahlhütter

Free Card for the Exhibition on Ethnopedology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU, Austria). Picture: Sebastian Wahlhütter

Agricultural policies in Kenya aim to improve farmers' livelihoods. With projected climate change, these policies are short of mechanisms that promote farmers' adaptation. As a result, smallholders are confronted with a variety of challenges including climate change, which hinders their agricultural production. Local knowledge can be instrumental i...

Background In ethnobotanical research, the investigation into traditional knowledge of medicinal plants in the context of migration has been of increasing interest in recent decades since it is influenced and changed by new environmental and social conditions. It most likely undergoes transformation processes to match the different living circumsta...

Purpose – Reflections on negotiation processes between farmers and scientists in research projects provide insights into issues of participation, power and equity. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how actors chose places to meet, negotiate and represent technologies. Design/methodology/approach – The research involved semi‐structured int...

Introduction Worldwide homegardens are an integral part of rural and urban social–ecological systems. Often these gardens are small, not market orientated, not easily detected by outsiders and managed through low input practices. These might be reasons why they are neglected in agronomic research. In comparison, landscape planning and urban plannin...

Wild plant gathering is an essential element in livelihood strategies all over the world. However due to changing circumstances in Europe, the reason for gathering has altered from one of necessity in the past to a pleasurable activity today. Wild plant gathering has therefore also received renewed attention as a form of intangible cultural heritag...

Background Leading scholars in ethnobiology and ethnomedicine continuously stress the need for moving beyond the bare description of local knowledge and to additionally analyse and theorise about the characteristics and dynamics of human interactions with plants and related local knowledge. Analyses of the variation of local knowledge are thereby p...

Plant species and their frequency of use relating to use categories and variables selected.