Abstract
Farmers’ markets are a relatively recent phenomenon in Prague, Czechia. The first of them was opened in the autumn of 2009, but the real boom started in the spring/summer of 2010. The survey introduced in this paper is concerned with the study of alternative food networks and farmers’ markets. It offers the results of methodological triangulation based on: (1) the data obtained via the questionnaire survey, (2) market organizers’ reflections on the customer structure, motivation for shopping at farmers’ markets and the question of social exclusivity of farmers’ markets in Prague as revealed in interviews, and (3) the field notes from the participant observation at the markets under study. The results show that farmers’ markets are emerging all around Prague in localities of different social status, so the poorer citizens are not necessarily excluded from the access to markets. The differences between markets, in terms of size, range of goods, and term seem to follow the inner city/hinterlands divide rather than the socio-spatial differentiation of the city. New consumer patterns clearly result from the cultural environment, specific context, and also from the different development path of the post-socialist consumer society.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- AFN:
-
Alternative food network
- FM:
-
Farmers’ market
- LCA:
-
Life cycle analysis
References
Alkon, A. 2008. Paradise or pavement: The social constructions of the environment in two urban farmers’ markets and their implications for environmental justice and sustainability. Local Environment 13: 271–289.
Bell, D., and G. Valentine. 1997. Consuming geographies: We are where we eat. London: Routledge.
Bičík, I., and V. Jančák. 2005. Transformační procesy v českém zemědělství po roce 1990 [Transformation processes in Czech agriculture after 1990]. Prague: Charles University, Faculty of Science, Department of Social Geography and Regional Development.
Brown, A. 2001. Counting farmers markets. The Geographical Review 91: 655–674.
Brown, A. 2002. Farmers’ market research 1940–2000: An inventory and review. American Journal of Alternative Agriculture 17: 167–176.
Brown, S., and C. Getz. 2008. Towards domestic fair trade? Farm labor, food localism, and the family scale farm. GeoJournal 73: 11–22.
Carey, L., P. Bell, A. Duff, M. Sheridan, and M. Shields. 2011. Farmers’ market consumers: A Scottish perspective. International Journal of Consumer Studies 35: 300–306.
Coster, M., and N. Kennon. 2005. ‘New generation’ farmers’ markets in rural communities. Kingston: Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation.
Creswell, J.W. 2003. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
DuPuis, M.E., and D. Goodman. 2005. Should we go “home” to eat?: Toward a reflexive politics of localism. Journal of Rural Studies 21: 359–371.
Duram, L., and L. Oberholtzer. 2010. A geographic approach to place and natural resource use in local food systems. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 25: 99–108.
Feagan, R.B., and D. Morris. 2009. Consumer quest for embeddedness: A case study of the Brantford Farmers’ Market. International Journal of Consumer Studies 33: 235–243.
Flick, U., E. von Kardoff, and I. Steinke. 2004. A companion to qualitative research. London: Sage.
Freidberg, S. 2004. The ethical complex of corporate food power. Environment and Planning D 22: 513–532.
Fujishiro, K., X. Jun, and G. Fang. 2010. What does “occupation” represent as an indicator of socioeconomic status?: Exploring occupational prestige and health. Social Science and Medicine 71: 2100–2107.
Goodman, D. 2003. The quality ‘turn’ and alternative food practices: Reflections and agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 19: 1–7.
Goodman, D. 2009. Place and space in alternative food networks: Connecting production and consumption. Environment, politics and development working paper 21. Department of Geography, King’s College London. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/geography/research/epd/GoodmanWP21.pdf. Accessed 12 Feb 2011.
Goss, J. 1988. The built environment and social theory: Towards an architectural geography. Professional Geographer 40: 392–403.
Guthman, J. 2003. Fast food/organic food: Reflexive tastes and the making of “yuppie chow”. Social and Cultural Geography 4: 45–58.
Guthman, J. 2008. “If they only knew”: Color blindness and universalism in California alternative food institutions. The Professional Geographer 60: 387–397.
Hartwick, E.R. 2000. Towards a geographical politics of consumption. Environment and Planning A 32: 1177–1192.
Harvey, D. 2001. Spaces of hope. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hinrichs, C.C. 2003. The practice and politics of food system localization. Journal of Rural Studies 19: 33–45.
Holec, P. 2011. Zaslíbená popelnice Česko: Proč ne/chceme nakupovat v hypermarketech? [The “promised bin” Czechia: Why do/don’t we want to shop in the hypermarkets?] Reflex 4/11. http://www.reflex.cz/clanek/zivot-a-styl/40259/zaslibena-popelnice-cesko-proc-ne-chceme-nakupovat-v-hypermarketech.html. Accessed 10 May 2012.
Hughes, A. 2005. Geographies of exchange and circulation: Alternative trading spaces. Progress in Human Geography 29: 496–504.
Jánská, L. 2009. Popelnice evropy [The European dustbin]. Instinkt 36/09. http://instinkt.tyden.cz/rubriky/tema/popelnice-evropy_24549.html. Accessed 10 May 2012.
Jehlička, P., and J. Smith. 2011. An unsustainable state: Contrasting food practices and state policies in the Czech Republic. Geoforum 42: 362–372.
Kloppenburg, J., J. Hendrickson, and G.W. Stevenson. 1996. Coming into the foodshed. Agriculture and Human Values 13: 33–42.
Kušková, P., A. Marková, and K. Najmanová. 2009. Czechs in a consumer paradise (!?). Prague: Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic.
Little, R., D. Maye, and B. Ilbery. 2010. Collective purchase: Moving local and organic foods beyond the niche market. Environment and Planning A 42: 1797–1813.
Lyson, T.A. 2004. Civic agriculture: Reconnecting farm, food, and community. Medford: Tufts University Press.
Martino, D. 2009. Sustainable cities: No oxymoron. Ethics, Place and Environment 12: 235–253.
Moore, O. 2006. Understanding postorganic fresh fruit and vegetable consumers at participatory farmers’ markets in Ireland: Reflexivity, trust and social movements. International Journal of Consumer Studies 30: 416–426.
Morgan, K. 2010. Local and green, global and fair: The ethical foodscape and the politics of care. Environment and Planning A 42: 1852–1867.
Murdoch, J. 2000. Networks—A new paradigm of rural development? Journal of Rural Studies 16: 407–419.
Norberg-Hodge, H., T. Merrifield, and S. Gorelick. 2002. Bringing the food economy home: Local alternatives to global agribusiness. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press.
Nosi, C., and L. Zani. 2004. Moving from “typical products” to “food-related services”: The slow food case as new business paradigm. British Food Journal 106: 779–792.
Oglethorpe, D., and G. Heron. 2010. Sensible operational choices for the climate change agenda. The International Journal of Logistics Management 21: 538–557.
Ouředníček, M., and J. Temelová. 2009. Twenty years after socialism: The transformation of Prague’s inner structure. Studia Universitatis Babex-Bolyai, Sociologia 54: 9–30.
Raynolds, L.T. 2000. Re-embedding global agriculture: The international organic and fair trade movements. Agriculture and Human Values 17: 297–309.
Renting, H., T.K. Marsden, and J. Banks. 2003. Understanding alternative food networks: Exploring the role of short food supply chains in rural development. Environment and Planning A 35: 393–411.
Renting, H., and H. Wiskerke. 2010. New emerging roles for public institutions and civil society in the promotion of sustainable local agro-food systems. Paper presented at 9th European IFSA symposium, 4–7 July 2010, Vienna, Austria.
Robin, M., A. Matheau-Police, and C. Couty. 2007. Development of a scale of perceived environmental annoyances in urban settings. Journal of Environmental Psychology 27: 55–68.
Sage, C. 2003. Social embeddedness and relations of regard: Alternative ‘good food’ networks in south-west Ireland. Journal of Rural Studies 19: 47–60.
Schupp, J.L., and J.S. Sharp. 2012. Exploring the social bases of home gardening. Agriculture and Human Values 29: 93–105.
Seyfang, G. 2009. Local organic food: The social implications of sustainable consumption. CSERGE working paper EDM 04-09. http://www.cserge.ac.uk/publications/cserge-working-paper/edm-2004-09-local-organic-food-social-implications-sustainable-con Accessed 28 April 2011.
Shields, R. 1989. Social spatialization and the built environment: The West Edmonton Mall. Environment and Planning D 7: 147–164.
Smith, J., and P. Jehlička. 2007. Stories around food, politics and change in Poland and the Czech Republic. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32: 395–410.
Spilková, J. 2008a. Changing face of the Czech retailing in post-communist transformation: Risks of extreme polarisation under globalisation pressures. In Evolution of geographical systems and risk processes in the global context, ed. P. Dostál, 157–171. Prague: P3 K.
Spilková, J. 2008b. Foreign investors and their perceptions of socio-institutional and entrepreneurial environment in the Czech Republic: A pilot study. Journal of Geography and Regional Planning 1: 4–11.
Spilková, J., and M. Hochel. 2009. Towards the economy of pedestrian movement in Czech and Slovak shopping malls. Environment and Behavior 41: 443–455.
Szmigin, I., S. Maddock, and M. Carrigan. 2003. Conceptualising community consumption: Farmers’ markets and the older consumer. British Food Journal 105: 542–550.
Tregear, A. 2005. Origins of taste: Marketing and consumption of regional foods in the UK. Paper presented at the ESRC seminar on global consumption in a global context, University of Cardiff, 29 November 2005.
Večerník, J. 2008. Household consumption in the Czech Republic: From shopping queues to consumer society. Polish Sociological Review 162: 153–173.
Watts, D.C.H., B. Ilbery, and D. Maye. 2005. Making reconnections in agro-food geography: Alternative systems of food provision. Progress in Human Geography 29: 22–40.
Whatmore, S., P. Stassart, and H. Renting. 2003. What’s alternative about alternative food networks? Environment and Planning A 35: 389–391.
Winter, M. 2003. Geographies of food: Agro-food geographies—Making reconnections. Progress in Human Geography 27: 505–513.
Zepeda, L. 2009. Which little piggy goes to market? Characteristics of US farmers’ market shoppers. International Journal of Consumer Studies 33: 250–257.
Zukin, S. 2004. Point of purchase: How shopping changed American culture. New York: Routledge.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (project no. 404/12/0470: Geography of alternative food networks and sustainable consumption) and the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (project no. MSM 002162083: Geographical systems and risk processes in the context of global changes and European integration).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Spilková, J., Fendrychová, L. & Syrovátková, M. Farmers’ markets in Prague: a new challenge within the urban shoppingscape. Agric Hum Values 30, 179–191 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-012-9395-5
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-012-9395-5