{"title":"Not \"just necessity\"? Two-x-eco-cultural dilemmas and the ethnobiological importance of the informal grannies' markets in Moldova.","authors":"Andrea Pieroni, Dauro Mattia Zocchi, Mousaab Alrhmoun, Naji Sulaiman, Miroslava Bavorova, Renata Sõukand","doi":"10.1186/s13002-025-00770-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Informal food markets, particularly those managed by (elderly) women in post-communist Eastern Europe, represent a biocultural phenomenon of profound significance since globalisation and increasingly strict legal frameworks often threaten these reservoirs of biocultural food heritage. In the fall of 2022 and 2023, a preliminary field study was conducted by visiting the informal markets of six Moldovan centres: Chișinău, Orhei, Bălți, Călărași, Comrat, and Taraclia, and conversing with approximately 40 mid-aged and elderly sellers. We argue that these markets are crucial in sustaining small-scale farming, preserving biodiversity, and maintaining a connection between urban communities and rural communities and, ultimately, between these rural citizens and their nature, keeping small-scale family farming and domestic traditional gastronomic activities alive. By trading fresh, homegrown, and homemade food and goods (including handicrafts), these mid-aged and elderly vendors support local economies, promote environmental sustainability, and safeguard traditional ecological knowledge and cultural heritage. This paper explores how grannies' markets contribute to biocultural diversity and sustainable food practices, especially amid the country's recent turbulent political, socioeconomic, and demographic challenges. The analysis advocates for the survival rights of these ecological, economic, and cultural (2-x-eco-cultural) refugia and invites ethnobiologists, food studies and cultural heritage scholars, rural sociologists, and agricultural economists to defend the biocultural diversity of informal food markets, moving them from an \"out of necessity\" status to a solid pillar of a possible future, new, family farming and small-scale ecological and gastronomic (conscientious) tourism. Policymakers should protect and enhance these informal spaces, especially the socioecological farming systems behind them, as essential socioeconomic and environmental assets. They should emphasise their importance as hubs for biological diversity, cultural preservation, community cohesion, and ecological sustainability.</p>","PeriodicalId":49162,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine","volume":"21 1","pages":"17"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11900221/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-025-00770-8","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Informal food markets, particularly those managed by (elderly) women in post-communist Eastern Europe, represent a biocultural phenomenon of profound significance since globalisation and increasingly strict legal frameworks often threaten these reservoirs of biocultural food heritage. In the fall of 2022 and 2023, a preliminary field study was conducted by visiting the informal markets of six Moldovan centres: Chișinău, Orhei, Bălți, Călărași, Comrat, and Taraclia, and conversing with approximately 40 mid-aged and elderly sellers. We argue that these markets are crucial in sustaining small-scale farming, preserving biodiversity, and maintaining a connection between urban communities and rural communities and, ultimately, between these rural citizens and their nature, keeping small-scale family farming and domestic traditional gastronomic activities alive. By trading fresh, homegrown, and homemade food and goods (including handicrafts), these mid-aged and elderly vendors support local economies, promote environmental sustainability, and safeguard traditional ecological knowledge and cultural heritage. This paper explores how grannies' markets contribute to biocultural diversity and sustainable food practices, especially amid the country's recent turbulent political, socioeconomic, and demographic challenges. The analysis advocates for the survival rights of these ecological, economic, and cultural (2-x-eco-cultural) refugia and invites ethnobiologists, food studies and cultural heritage scholars, rural sociologists, and agricultural economists to defend the biocultural diversity of informal food markets, moving them from an "out of necessity" status to a solid pillar of a possible future, new, family farming and small-scale ecological and gastronomic (conscientious) tourism. Policymakers should protect and enhance these informal spaces, especially the socioecological farming systems behind them, as essential socioeconomic and environmental assets. They should emphasise their importance as hubs for biological diversity, cultural preservation, community cohesion, and ecological sustainability.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine publishes original research focusing on cultural perceptions of nature and of human and animal health. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine invites research articles, reviews and commentaries concerning the investigations of the inextricable links between human societies and nature, food, and health. Specifically, the journal covers the following topics: ethnobotany, ethnomycology, ethnozoology, ethnoecology (including ethnopedology), ethnogastronomy, ethnomedicine, ethnoveterinary, as well as all related areas in environmental, nutritional, and medical anthropology.
Research focusing on the implications that the inclusion of humanistic, cultural, and social dimensions have in understanding the biological word is also welcome, as well as its potential projections in public health-centred, nutritional, and environmental policies.