Alpe Adria Universität Klagenfurt Wien Graz
Institut für Soziale Ökologie
SE Analyzing Local Rural Systems
Dipl.-Ing. Willi Haas, Dr. Simron Jit Singh
Masarykova univerzita
Fakulta sociálních studií
Katedra environmentálních studií
HEN633 Studying Local Rural Systems
Mgr. Eva Fraňková, Ph.D.
Kleinhagauer Stefan
Rojas-Sepúlveda Arnulfo
Sattlegger Lukas
Sovová Lucie
Urmann Bettina
Weihs Julia
2013, 29th of July
Local Rural Systems Sustainability - Case study of a goat farm in
Klikov
Introduction
This paper is a result of one week long research excursion in the municipality Suchdol nad
Lužnicí in South Bohemia, Czech Republic. The aim of the course was to explore the
sustainability of the region on the basis of particular cases. Our research team was dealing
with the case of a goat farm in Klikov village.
The respondent of the case study was Ms. B., a single woman in her fifties, who moved to
Klikov from Prague one year ago to start a goat farm. The interview focused mainly on the
following issues: the respondent’s motivation, her relationship with local community, the
viability and sustainability of her business and its dynamics. To address the sustainability
issue we concentrated on the well known three pillars: the environmental, social and
economic aspects. From this point of view, we intended to determine whether the goat farm
is self-subsistent within the current conditions (natural resources, invested labor, demand of
products etc.). Another goal was to link this particular case to broader trends and patterns in
and beyond the region. Our intention was to see whether the respondent forms part of
certain transition happening in the village.
For the purposes of this study, the goat farm was considered as a subsystem inside the
system of Klikov village. This approach appeared as convenient, since the farm is
geographically, economically and conceptually detached from the rest of the village, while it
still forms an integral part of it. The case study was carried out within the framework of
social metabolism and material and energy flows analysis (MEFA). We were thus trying to
observe the material and energy exchanges taking place inside the farm system and
between the farm and its natural (the landscape) and socioeconomic (the village)
surroundings. We referred to all kinds of rather stable (yet also variable) assets as stocks this
comprises possessed artefacts, livestock, land, but also available human resources. The
mechanisms enabling alterations of those variables and effectuating the material and
energetic exchange processes were considered as flows – production and sales of goods or
house maintenance can be good examples.
Methods
The research team is a pluri disciplinary (environmental pedagogy, environmental
engineering, ecology, sociology, social and cultural anthropology, environmental studies)
group of six people. Due to the different degrees and academic and professional experience,
this study was enriched by different approaches, methods and levels of analysis.
The first step of the research was intended to give an idea of the sustainability issues of the
village and the goat farm. We defined the more important themes that could help us
construct the village of Klikov as a system and the goat farm as a sub-system within.
According to the latter we prepared an interview guideline with three main themes related
to sustainability which were supposed to give us data to establish then the frontiers of the
subsystem studied as well as the relevant socio cultural characteristics of our informant.
These themes were environmental, economic and social aspects.
After the elaboration of this fieldwork guide we embarked in two moments of data
collection as follows:
1. Observation of the physicality of the socio ecological subsystem: In this we performed an
identification and description to the subsystem's infrastructure, surroundings and stocks
during our visit on the goat farm.
2. Application of a semi-structured interview with open ended answers. The structure given
to the interview stands as follows: general background of the informant, motivations to start
the farm, production processes (including stocks and flows), her relation to space and the
infrastructure, opinions on tourism and the biosphere reserve, integration into and
construction of a local social network and finally expectations for the future.
The communication with the informant was only possible by the translation from Czech to
English. It was then of crucial importance the presence in our group of one colleague whose
mother tongue was also Czech. This introduced some challenges to the interview process,
especially because the meaning of the content and some information got lost during the
translation. Nevertheless body language and accentuation gave hints of the actual meaning
and importance of the answers.
The Informant
In the following chapter we will characterize our respondent, the goat farmer Ms. B). This
should give a better understanding of the local system and its transformation over time.
Ms. B. has always been deeply connected to nature and having her own farm was her
dream. She even planned to study agriculture as an adolescent, but finally did not because
of lack of support from her parents. For more than forty years she lived in Prague, where she
worked in an administration office. Her affinity for nature was then limited to walks with her
dog and weekend trips to the countryside. It was during that time when she developed the
first connection to the house that she currently lives in. Therefore a brief digression to the
building’s history is in place. The house is situated approximately 2 km outside Klikov, in the
vicinity of forest and meadows. It was built in 1784, and before the Second World War it was
used as an inn. In 1974 the brother of her grandfather, who was living in the region, bought
the plot to use it for agriculture. After that moment she had been visiting the house from
time to time. Five years ago, after the death of her father she inherited the property.
Nevertheless, she only came there during weekends and holidays in the past, using it as a
summer residence. She was planning to move to Klikov permanently when she would retire.
The fact that this turning point in her life occurred sooner than planned can be explained by
an unexpected and significant personal crisis which changed her priorities and life values.
Namely she was suffering from a serious illness and the death of her life partner. This
difficult situation brought her to drop the job in Prague and in a very short time move to
Klikov permanently.
The reason why Ms. B. became a goat farmer is rather anecdotic. It started when her son
gave her a goat as a birthday present five years ago. What was meant as a joke turned into
the starting point of her connection to this animal. She experimented with making of dairy
products as yoghurt and cheese, first just for her own needs. When she moved to Klikov
permanently, she naturally started to expand this activity. Nowadays she owns fifteen goats
and is producing and selling her home-made products as a full time job.
In conclusion, despite the first impression our respondent does not fit into the pattern of
urban residents moving to the countryside in search of healthier lifestyle and attractive
environment. We had to look deeper to understand the real reasons for her turnaround.
Personal crisis combined with an opportunity for a positive change appeared as the main
driving forces which gave her the courage to leave things behind and fulfill her dream.
Findings
1. Environmental aspects
Following the social-ecological model of "Society-Nature-Interaction" Ms. B.'s business has
some impact to the environment inside and outside the system. The feed for the animals
includes grass from the farm area and the hay, grain and apples produced to a large extend
within the community. The manufacture of products is restricted to the summer months
since it is dependent on the availability of fresh grass which influences the taste of milk. At
the same time it is also restricted by the number of baby goats that have to be sustained.
Feed for the animals in general is not artificially processed and therefore all products are
organic. Ms.B. is proud of this fact, as she considers the production method is important for
her as well as her customers - she finds organic food tastier.
The manufacture of products takes place at the goat farm, therefore no delivery of the goat
milk to a creamery is needed, which reduces energy consumption during production. To
market her products she uses direct sales from the yard to locals and individual orders of
friends and acquaintances from Prague. This form of delivery relies on private transport
system, which is in general not the most energy efficient way to transport products. But in
this case it appears useful, since small scale deliveries to Prague are informally conducted by
family members or the farmer herself, when she visits Prague once a month.
One of the questions of our research was the attitude of local inhabitants towards the
protected nature area nearby the village. As mentioned, our respondent has a positive
relationship to nature, which was also one of the main reasons why she moved into the
region. Ms. B. recognizes some restrictions related to the biosphere reserve, e.g. in house
renovation or use of pesticides. Nevertheless, she does not find them limiting for her living
or business - for instance, she would not use pesticides for her crops anyway.
When applying the MEFA framework on the environmental aspects, we observe the
following stocks in the land-use category: forests, grasslands and cropland in the
surroundings of the farm. Particularly important is the livestock represented by 15 goats,
chicken and other animals for personal use. All the animals come from breeding animal
farms. The building and possessed artefacts are also seen as stocks. The encountered flows
consist mainly in the use of biomass which constitutes the feed for the animals and food for
Ms. B. as inputs and the goat products as outputs of the system (for further details see
Economic Aspects). We can consider goat manure as biomass flow that circulates inside the
farm system, closing thus one of the nutrient cycles. As energy flow we encountered
external inputs of electricity and wood used for heating and cooking. Unfortunately we are
ignorant of the origins of these sources and the quantities employed, which makes it hard to
estimate the sustainability of their use. It is very likely that the farm is not self-subsistent in
terms of energy use. On the other hand, other factors have positive impact on
environmental sustainability, as the local and natural origin of animal feed or minimal
transportation costs. In terms of land-use, we discovered an extensive form of agriculture.
The influence on the ecological stocks and flows in the system is limited to a degree which
can be considered as sustainable.
2. Economic aspects
The following section focuses on the economic sustainability of the goat farm project. In
order to estimate the economic sustainability of the farm it is crucial to define stocks and
flows in more detail and consider their dynamics and perspectives. The stocks (human
population, livestock, infrastructure, artefacts) roughly consist of our respondent, the farm
building and surrounding meadows and grassland, a small garden, which offers the
opportunity for basic subsistence farming, as well as the current 15 goats plus other animals,
which are of less importance from an economic perspective. The most important flows,
which account for dynamics in the system, are money and human labor time. It will be
shown that neither the origin nor the destination of these flows stays within the system
boundaries, but rather link the subsystem to other systems such as the village community or
even more distant places.
Once again, to fully understand the development of the goat farm it is interesting to keep in
mind that it was not planned whatsoever, but started with a single goat. After successfully
making cheese for herself, then also for friends and relatives, Ms. B. gradually expanded and
by the time the interview had been conducted she was doing subsistence farming with up to
15 goats for more than one year. She obtained a permit for a small scale business and with
her plans of further expansion she is quite on the shift from sustainable subsistence farming
toward professional farming. Financially the business is not yet sustainable or selfsupporting,
since Ms. B. has to invest an extra budget from her private savings.
Nevertheless, according to our respondent, in this season the goats will be able to sustain
themselves financially for the first time. This means that the income from the sale is mainly
reinvested into food and vaccinations for the animals. For the following year Ms. B. plans to
generate enough income to sustain basic living for her. Within the next two to four years she
plans to acquire a certificate allowing her to launch her own brand and start selling her
products in cooperation with local supermarkets and on her own stand at farmers´ markets.
In a long-term perspective she wants to expand her business from 15 up to 50 goats in order
to gain profit out of it.
In this context it is also important to mention that the goods are not exclusively sold for
money - there are many transactions that can rather be seen as exchange of goods for labor.
Ms. B. has no employees, therefore she is not only dependent on the help of relatives and
friends with the distribution, but also draws on occasional help from local people, mostly
men, for construction works etc. For minor works, the helpers simply get some milk or
cheese. This also indicates the importance of social bindings and social networks (see Social
Aspects) within the community of the village but also reaching beyond the system
boundaries and connecting the village to more distant places such as Prague (see
Environmental Aspects for further details about distribution channels). The production
process itself however is done by Ms. B. alone. The manufacture of milk, yoghurt, kefir and
various kinds of cheese is thus very demanding in terms of labor and time input. With the
current number of goats, ten to twelve liters of milk per day can be processed, a task that
usually takes a full day. Even though the production is not ongoing constantly, Ms. B. admits
that sometimes she feels like she has put too much work on herself.
It is obvious that Ms. B. has not moved from Prague to an underdeveloped region such as
Klikov for economic purposes or to become very wealthy. Instead of that Ms. B. exchanged
her urban lifestyle with a good income and cultural diversity for the modest lifestyle as a
goat farmer. So we could not observe an improvement in affluence, but in quality of life. Her
progress can get an example of economic sustainability in terms of decoupling of economic
wealth and quality of life. Considering the future outlook of the goat farm however, it seems
to have economic potential and is sustainable in the sense that it offers new perspectives
and job opportunities within the local community.
3. Social aspects
The small town of Klikov has officially 200 inhabitants. However not all of them have centred
their life in the village, a considerable part is using its houses only as a weekend home. As
already mentioned also our goat farmer used to belong to this group. In the course of going
to Klikov one year ago our goat farmer has moved both the place of residence as well as the
social circle of relations. Regarding the issue of social surroundings or social networks the
drastic change in the life of our respondent raises a pivotal question. How was it for her as a
newcomer to be accepted by the people of a local rural community who had already formed
a strong and tied cohesion? In this respect Ms. B. made an unexpected experience.
Particularly because of the fact that she was a single woman the integration into the
community of Klikov was easier for her. She experienced a great willingness to help
especially by the men of the village. According to our respondent this can be explained by
the prevailing prejudice and traditional common attitude that women are still dependent on
men. But ironically the stereotype of being the alleged weak gender is useful to her and her
voluntary helpers just as well. On one hand our female goat farmer is being helped by her
male neighbours if there is anything to fix at her farm (bricolage, handyman, do-it-yourself
jobs) and on the other hand it also increases both the self-respect of those men as well as
the satisfying feeling of being needed. In any case, the villagers show their sympathy and
compassion with our goat farmer which can be considered as a kind of social
acknowledgement by the local community.
From a general perspective mutual taking and giving is very common within a closed system
and a tied network of a local community. In order to receive a favor, people are also likewise
supposed to give something back in return. So in return Ms. B. is often inviting her neighbors
on some shots of spirituous beverages to her home. Accordingly we draw the conclusion
that this kind of social rituals and get-togethers can certainly contribute to strengthening
social cohesion in the local community in a formidable way.
Above all we also recognized certain implicit rules (or an alleged implicitness) within the
social system of the local community of Klikov. Socially desirable behaviour such as being
polite or friendly to the others is a basic precondition for being accepted by the community.
Hence the people in the rural region are cultivating the art of face to face conversation. In
consequence of all this active chit-chat a lot of gossip and rumours exist in Klikov. Finally the
village dwellers are not only talking with one another very much, they are also talking a lot
about each other as well. Through this social network of gossip the locals are in constant
touch. If someone in the village is in troubles (e.g. a personal or financial crisis) the neighbors
are willing to care for this person by offering food or supplies. But also our goat farmer
profits from the fast spreading gossip in the local community. In fact Ms. B. does not need to
advertise her products, because due to gossip or word-of-mouth advertising the locals are
already well informed about her business. Nevertheless she has an arrangement with the
shop keeper of the local grocery store of Klikov to place a commercial sign in the shop
window. That way the customers of the grocery store also know where to go if they want to
buy organic goat products.
Reflection
Assessing the general sustainability of the goat farm is a challenging task, especially with the
limited time we had for our research. However we can still draw some partial conclusions.
From the environmental point of view, fossil fuels and electric energy (most likely also from
fossil sources) are the main problem to sustainability, which corresponds to the pattern in
the vast majority of Czech households or companies. On the other hand, the production
draws almost entirely from local and renewable resources. The feed for goats is obtained
from natural sources in the area and does not require any added energy for processing or
transport. The organic farming practices are beneficial for the land in question as well as for
the surrounding natural environment. The manufacture itself takes place in the farm and
relies highly on human labor. The informal delivery system also poses no additional burden
on the environment, which will however have to change when the amount of transported
products increases.
In terms of economic results, the goat farm is currently not sustainable, since it is subsidized
from the respondent’s previous savings. According to the farmer’s plan this situation should
already improve the next season. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that the
change of business scale can have unforeseeable influence not only on the revenues but also
in costs and other, non-economical aspects. Eventually, the shift to professional farming can
alter to a high level the goat farm’s sustainability.
The social aspect turned out to be the most significant part of our research. Social
integration is a significant influence on the farmer’s living and prosperity. The best examples
are barter trade and informal economics (e.g. repair work on the farm) or advertisement
that is realized with investment of social capital only (face to face recommendation by the
locals). In a way, these social ties can be seen as replacement for economic investment but
they have an added value of reinforcing the social cohesion of the community. From this
point of view the mentioned gossip of Klikov is a part of the social system that “reproduces
itself culturally, by communication” (c.f. Fischer-Kowalski et al. 2011: 148p).
Maintaining the biophysical stocks, as well as financial and working power inside the village
system is crucial for its sustainability. Taking into account the broader context, the Klikov
region is isolated in terms of location, economic development and demographic
reproduction. The options of employment or self-subsistent living are indeed limited, which
in many cases can result in erosion of traditional lines of business and decoupling of
production and consumption. On the other hand, the unfavorable conditions can at the
same time lead to strong social cohesion, which is ultimately a significant driver for both
community life and rural economy. Regarding the significance of the local systems, social
relationships are essential for the well-being of the village dwellers as well as for the regional
development.
Bibliography
Fischer-Kowalski, M. et al. (2011). Sociometabolic transitions in subsistence communities:
Boserup revisited in four comparative case studies. Human Ecology Review, Vol. 18, No. 2.
Society for Human Ecology
Sing, S. J. et al. (2010). Local studies manual : Researcher’s guide for investigating the social
metabolism of local rural systems. Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt.