Not "just necessity"? Two-x-eco-cultural dilemmas and the ethnobiological importance of the informal grannies' markets in Moldova

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60460709%3A41340%2F25%3A106380" target="_blank" >RIV/60460709:41340/25:106380 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-025-00770-8" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-025-00770-8</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-025-00770-8" target="_blank" >10.1186/s13002-025-00770-8</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Not "just necessity"? Two-x-eco-cultural dilemmas and the ethnobiological importance of the informal grannies' markets in Moldova

Original language description

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: Chisin & abreve;u, Orhei, B & abreve;lti, C & abreve;l & abreve;rasi, 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.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

40101 - Agriculture

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine

ISSN

1746-4269

e-ISSN

1746-4269

Volume of the periodical

21

Issue of the periodical within the volume

MAR 11 2025

Country of publishing house

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Number of pages

12

Pages from-to

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UT code for WoS article

001442128400001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105000128535