Category Archives: RSO-student

Romashki or a Life Less Ordinary, part 1

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Thomas Macintyre is a MSc student enrolled in the Master International Development Studies. For his MSc thesis research he spent 3 months in an ecovillage in the Ukraine, to study everyday village life. Thomas’ post is the first of a series in which he shares his experiences of the “life less ordinary” he has lived for 3 months.

Imagine if you can a little village surrounded by forests beside a little lake. Squirrels play in trees amongst the woodpeckers, frogs play hide and seek with the cranes in the lake, and when the sun has set, the wild pigs come out to sniff and dig around the fields and gardens in the village, curious as ever as to see what is new.  Continue reading →

Looking at organic+ activities and their perception by consumers in the rural web

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Before I start writing about organic+ activities and consumers I would like to introduce myself.

My name is Corinna Feldmann and I study Organic Agriculture in my second year. I just finished my master thesis: ‘What does the consumer take up? – A case study on communication in the rural web around the dairy in Andeer’.

Everything started in late spring of 2009, when I decided that I would like to do my research on consumers and their opinion on producer’s activities which go beyond the minimum standards of organic regulations. So, I found my way to the Rural Sociology Group and met Bettina Bock. Doing some investigations on the internet I came across the first report of the EU Core Organic Project on Consumer Farmer Partnerships which deals with the identification of communication arguments used by small-scale farmers and producers who engage in organic+ activities. Thereupon I got into contact with the research institute for biological farming (FiBL) in Switzerland who is one of the partners in this EU project. In May I wrote my research proposal with the help of Heidrun Moschitz and Flurina Schneider from FiBL and Bettina Bock. The core of my research was to find out what aspects of the communication arguments consumers perceive as important. Continue reading →