30 min
E4 DEPRESSION - Tomáš Uhnák: Farmers in Depression Bratislava BAK Summer School
-
- Education
Farmers are sovereign cultural actors who, through their activities, shape, and influence the specific form of the landscape. They take care of the commons such as healthy soil and clean water. They tend to cultural heritage - visually, haptically and sensorily - in the form of a great diversity of crops and animal breeds. In their fields, orchards and vineyards, they preserve a valuable gene pool - often hundreds of years old plants - whose uniquely shaped, tasteful and climate-resistant varieties, are preserved for generations to come. Living and healthy soil rich in microbial relationships, is also a cultural heritage that, like architectural monuments and works of art, deserves attention and protection. At the same time, it is also an intangible cultural heritage - oral and spiritual - which includes gentle farming methods passed down from generation to generation, a deep understanding of the characteristics of the place, soil, and sometimes weather in the areas where farmers work. What better describes the concept of a living culture than a lifelong devotion to replanting the best seeds of valuable varieties over and over every year to keep them in existence? Farmers provide us with a cultural experience of biodiversity. They give the landscape and food an unforgettable character. Something that in the words of philosopher Walter Benjamin we could call an aura.
However, farming belongs to a group of professions that are often exposed to great psychological stress. This tends to result in life with anxiety and depression. Market pressures, speculation and low feed-in tariffs, debt, sales insecurity, loneliness, gender inequalities, and climate change - all this and much more crushes those, on whose stability depends the survival of societies and ecosystems all around the world.
Tomáš Uhnák is food policy analyst, Ph.D. student at the Czech University of Agriculture, publicist and member of the Association of Local Food Initiatives. In his research he focuses on agrarian paradigms, especially food sovereignty and agroecology. He is involved in the development of community-supported agriculture.
Farmers are sovereign cultural actors who, through their activities, shape, and influence the specific form of the landscape. They take care of the commons such as healthy soil and clean water. They tend to cultural heritage - visually, haptically and sensorily - in the form of a great diversity of crops and animal breeds. In their fields, orchards and vineyards, they preserve a valuable gene pool - often hundreds of years old plants - whose uniquely shaped, tasteful and climate-resistant varieties, are preserved for generations to come. Living and healthy soil rich in microbial relationships, is also a cultural heritage that, like architectural monuments and works of art, deserves attention and protection. At the same time, it is also an intangible cultural heritage - oral and spiritual - which includes gentle farming methods passed down from generation to generation, a deep understanding of the characteristics of the place, soil, and sometimes weather in the areas where farmers work. What better describes the concept of a living culture than a lifelong devotion to replanting the best seeds of valuable varieties over and over every year to keep them in existence? Farmers provide us with a cultural experience of biodiversity. They give the landscape and food an unforgettable character. Something that in the words of philosopher Walter Benjamin we could call an aura.
However, farming belongs to a group of professions that are often exposed to great psychological stress. This tends to result in life with anxiety and depression. Market pressures, speculation and low feed-in tariffs, debt, sales insecurity, loneliness, gender inequalities, and climate change - all this and much more crushes those, on whose stability depends the survival of societies and ecosystems all around the world.
Tomáš Uhnák is food policy analyst, Ph.D. student at the Czech University of Agriculture, publicist and member of the Association of Local Food Initiatives. In his research he focuses on agrarian paradigms, especially food sovereignty and agroecology. He is involved in the development of community-supported agriculture.
30 min