Generational Crises in Smallholder Farming
Smallholders feed the world, but will they continue to do so in the future?
Farming populations are ageing, and most rural youth aspire to careers outside of farming. Are young people unwilling to start or are their parents unwilling to stop? Access to land, possibility to farm for a market, or to complement farm with non-farm income contribute to the aspirations of rural youth.
In future, generational renewal will depend on a reversal of current chronic governmental neglect of smallholder farming.
Ben White is professor emeritus of rural sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands. He has researched and taught about rural childhood and youth since the 1970s, mainly in Indonesia, and is a founder member of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative.
Tatjana Fischer is deputy head of BOKU Vienna's Institute of Spatial Planning, Environmental Planning and Land Rearrangement. She will enrich the evening with a perspective on agriculture from spatial planning and rural development, addressing emerging and future topics.
Karin Aschauer runs a farm in Lower Austria, which she has taken over from her parents and successfully converted from conventional dairy cattle farming to organic meat production. She teaches at the agrarian vocational school in Schlägl and is a BOKU alumna.
Date: June, 3rd 2019
Time: 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
Place: Hörsaal 1, Oskar-Simony-Haus (ground floor) 1180 Vienna, Peter-Jordan-Straße 65
Moderation: Friedbert Ottacher
Free admission, but please register with rosana.kral(at)boku.ac.at!
This event is organized by BOKU's Centre for Development Research and supported by the Austrian Development Agency.
Picture by Hanny Wijaya
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