Mountain farming in the Alps is undergoing profound transformation driven by climate change, demographic shifts, evolving labour conditions, market volatility, and changing societal expectations regarding food, landscapes and cultural heritage. These pressures reshape not only food systems, but also the social fabric, livelihoods, identities, and futures of mountain communities. Within these developments, shifts in gender roles and the evolving responsibilities of female farmers represent an important yet often understated aspect of change. This session explores how Alpine farming is being challenged, adapted and reimagined in a rapidly changing world, drawing on social-science perspectives and interdisciplinary insights.
The session invites contributions that examine current transformations and future pathways of mountain farming through lenses such as rural sociology, anthropology, geography, political ecology, agricultural economics, governance studies and sustainability research. We welcome empirical case studies, comparative analyses across Alpine regions, conceptual or methodological innovations, and transdisciplinary work involving practitioners, policy actors, farmers, and local communities.
Key themes include socio-economic and demographic changes; evolving labour dynamics and the future of seasonal work; new forms of agricultural organisation and cooperation; cultural heritage and identity; multifunctional and agroecological approaches; land-use change and biodiversity implications; and the governance frameworks shaping the long-term sustainability. The session aims to illuminate how mountain farming systems can navigate tensions between tradition and innovation, ecological constraints and economic viability, and local needs and broader policy frameworks.
By fostering dialogue between researchers and stakeholders, the session seeks to stimulate reflection on resilient futures for Alpine agriculture and rural communities. It contributes to a forward-looking understanding of the role of mountain farming in shaping liveable, biodiverse, and socially cohesive Alpine landscapes.
Registered Abstracts
ID: 3.21
The changing community-based management of Alpine pastures in the Slovenian Alps
Elizabeta Vrsnik
Abstract/Description
Many Alpine pastures are shaped by a long history of traditional collective land management practices. Those pastures that are based on collective management or ownership can be understood as a sustainable example of a system rooted in the local environment, based on cooperation, shared responsibility and close interaction between humans, animals, and the environment. Today, however, such areas are undergoing transformation, adaptation, or decline, while remaining a key element of the Alpine cultural landscape. These extensive farming systems are increasingly shaped by modern policies, socio‑economic transformations, and both natural and cultural conservation regimes that directly influence them. In this way not only public perceptions of the pastures and the surrounding landscape change, but also the material landscape and the everyday practices of those who graze their livestock on the Alpine pastures.
Here we present ongoing research based primarily on two case studies in the Slovenian Alps. By using a mixed-methods approach that combines policy analysis, historical land-use records, and ethnographic fieldwork with local communities and decision-makers, we examine how these Alpine pastures are evolving while navigating multi-level governance. The research explores the conflicts, synergies, and power relations that emerge among local users, institutions and decision-makers in community-based management, showing how traditionally managed systems interact with contemporary policies and shifting societal expectations.
ID: 3.8
Visions of female farmers of mountainous regions
Barbara Felmer Momen, Marian; Altenbuchner, Christine
Abstract/Description
Women are highly engaged in agricultural production, climate change adaptation and the preservation of biodiversity in mountainous regions. Especially female farmers make a considerable contribution to ensuring sustainable livelihoods and and are at the forefront of driving adaptation and innovation on farms. Nevertheless, women in agriculture continue to face challenges due to gender-specific norms, and their needs are often overlooked. Enhancing female farmers’ adaptive capacity is essential to reduce vulnerability and build resilience to climate change. To explore this, workshops were conducted in Switzerland, Tanzania and the Dominican Republic. Data collection and qualitative content analysis were guided by the Community Capital Framework and the Proximity Framework to identify factors shaping the adaptive capacity and to capture women’s visions for the future.
Female farmers in Switzerland, Tanzania and the Dominican Republic exhibit a high self-efficacy. They experiment with new adaptation practices, such as soil improvement and crop diversification to strengthen their adaptive capacity. Female farmers identify themselves as pioneers who are driving innovation forward. Therefore, women describe how they exchange knowledge and support each other.
Nevertheless, they face persistent challenges due to gender specific norms and traditional caregiving roles. This results in a high workload and constrained time for educational trainings. Moreover female farmers report a lack of access to crop insurance and financial assistance. This is in addition to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding unpredictable extreme weather events. Ensuring the security of irrigation systems is therefore crucial for adapting to droughts. Female farmers’ visions for the future include supporting womens leadership in agriculture, as well as fostering access to financial and non financial resources and further educational trainings.
ID: 3.11
The Role of Women in Alpine Farming
Constanze Rammer
Abstract/Description
The Role of Women in Alpine Farming
Constanze Rammer
Alpine pastures shape Austria’s landscapes and cultural heritage while providing critical ecological functions. Yet, in less favorable sites, abandonment continues despite conservation measures, accelerating scrub encroachment and reforestation. This presentation examines how women-led agritourism and diversification strategies are reimagining alpine farming to enhance resilience, economic viability, and social sustainability.
Drawing on narrative interviews with female alpine farmers who offer agrotourism services across Austria, including direct marketing, workshops, farm stays, and artisan production, the study uses thematic analysis to explore women’s roles in innovation, farm management, and community engagement. First findings highlight that women are pivotal in developing multifunctional farm models, integrating traditional pastoral practices with new revenue streams. These initiatives support ongoing grazing and landscape maintenance, stabilize household incomes, strengthen local value chains, and deepen visitor connections to alpine environments. They also reposition women as key decision-makers and entrepreneurs, reshaping gender norms within farm families and rural communities.
The analysis identifies enabling factors (e.g., transferable skills, social networks, digital marketing) and recurring constraints (e.g., seasonal workload peaks, childcare and care responsibilities, limited infrastructure and broadband, regulatory complexity and market access). By foregrounding women’s agency in diversification and place-based innovation, this work offers empirically grounded insights into the socio-ecological pathways that can counter pasture abandonment and align alpine farming with climate adaptation, landscape stewardship, and vibrant rural futures.
ID: 3.36
Collective action and the future of agrarian mountain livelihoods: The case of South Tyrol/Alpes
Stephanie Leder-Büttner
Abstract/Description
Collective action has historically sustained agrarian mountain livelihoods. Irrigation, livestock, hay work, sharing of knowledges and farm technologies such as tractors has been organized by communities themselves both through institutionalized forms such as farmer organisations and informal arrangements among neighbors and communities. In the last decades, however, a shift from peasant to capitalist modes of production, farm specialization, mechanization, subsidy regulations, and a devaluation of family farming has resulted in fundamental shifts in agrarian economies and rural out-migration. These demographic, economic and socio-spatial changes have challenged the sustainability of smallholders globally, and in particular, in the European Alps. Building on qualitative fieldwork on smallholders in mountain elevations above 1200 m in South Tyrol, this talk will present diverse smallholders’ perspectives on changes in collective action, and reflect on current forms of collective action in mountain agriculture. I argue that, rather than dissolving under these changes, collective action has been reworked and sometimes revitalized. If new and socially vibrant rural futures in the European Alps are to be realized, it is necessary to understand the forms, scales, and social relations of collective action and their contribution to sustainable mountain livelihoods.
ID: 3.31
Knowledge transfer for transformation of mountain futures
Marian Momen Zosso, Cyrill; Altenbuchner, Christine; Felmer, Barbara; Huber, Sibyl
Abstract/Description
Alpine agriculture faces mounting pressures from climate change, market volatility, and demographic shifts. This paper examines the challenges and factors that shape the transformative impact of transdisciplinary research on climate futures and how scientific evidence can be prepared and communicated so that stakeholders actively use it. We focus on actors across value chains and governance: mountain farmers and pastoralists, cooperatives, advisory services and chambers, tourism enterprises, NGOs, research institutions, and municipal/regional authorities.
Key challenges include science skepticism and politicized problem framings, institutional path dependencies and fragmented mandates, limited access to finance and advisory services, and unequal power relations. Stakeholders often weigh scientific findings strategically and accept or reject them selectively according to organizational agendas; the politicization of climate issues serves competitive positioning. A gender lens reveals persistent inequalities: women are underrepresented in decision-making bodies, less likely to hold land titles and mandates, and frequently perform invisible support work; at the same time, women-led initiatives demonstrably enhance innovation and adaptive capacity when resources, training, and voice are secured.
We argue that research acceptance depends less on “hard evidence” alone than on credibility, salience, and legitimacy: co-produced scenarios, transparent uncertainty communication, demonstration farms, boundary organizations, and fair benefit-sharing increase the likelihood of uptake. From a political science perspective, bottom-up participation led by public bodies can falter without adequate power rebalancing when well-organized, conservative interests block adaptation decisions. We conclude by outlining governance designs that integrate climate, agricultural, and gender policy: binding participation formats with quotas for underrepresented groups, adaptation-effective funding instruments, and accountability mechanisms that prioritize long-term resilience and gender equality in the Alpine region. Consequently, new alliances are required to actively address climate change and related challenges (e.g., water scarcity, biodiversity loss) in agriculture—crossing sectoral boundaries, sharing responsibility, and coordinating investment.
ID: 3.80
Needs-based and automated irrigation as part of a sustainable ecological landscape management strategy in mountainous areas
Switzerland’s mountain landscapes have been shaped and maintained by agriculture for centuries and are an important part of our identity and economy. However, climate change is altering these landscapes visibly and poses increasing challenges for mountain farming. Adaptations are therefore needed to ensure the sustainable management of mountain areas as part of a landscape conservation strategy. Needs-based and automated irrigation of mountain meadows is part of a portfolio of such adaptation strategies. It is considered a proactive measure to avoid resource conflicts and ensure the long-term sustainable use of valuable mountain landscapes, despite changes in the accessibility, the predictability, as well as the amount of irrigation water. Using two examples from Valais and Val Poschiavo in Switzerland, this presentation illustrates the application of resource-saving and sustainable model-based irrigation of mountain meadows in public-private partnerships with researchers, park authorities, individual farmers, local cooperatives, and small-to-medium enterprises.
ID: 3.76
Balancing water, forests and pastures in a Swiss mountain village
Matthias Schmidt
Abstract/Description
The management of common-pool resources such as water, forests and pastureland in the small mountain village of Törbel in the Swiss canton of Valais gained worldwide attention through studies by the anthropologist Robert Netting and economist Elinor Ostrom. Törbel was considered a prime example of the thesis that natural resources such as water, pastureland and forests can be managed successfully and sustainably by the local community over centuries. However, the profound socio-economic, socio-cultural and technological developments and transformations of recent decades have not left the Valais untouched. As a result, the environment and infrastructure, as well as the lives and lifestyles of the inhabitants of Törbel, have changed significantly. The presentation explores the question of whether the theory on successful common property regimes still hold true today and will continue to do so in the future in Alpine mountain villages. The hypothesis is that the common property regime, which ensured the survival of the inhabitants of Törbel for many centuries, has now been greatly eroded and its significance has changed. It could continue to play an important role in terms of landscape conservation and strengthening the village structure. The study is based on empirical field research conducted in the study region in 2025.
ID: 3.74
The role of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in the resilience of rural livelihoods: sustainable development as an indicator of biodiversity
Ignacio J. Diaz-Maroto
Abstract/Description
Our goal is to foster debate through evaluation and analysis on the role that Nature-based Solutions (NbS) play in enhancing the resilience of rural livelihoods. Sustainable development acts as a critical and multidimensional indicator of biodiversity, reflecting the health of ecosystems that underpin human survival as well as social and economic systems. This issue is complex, as it encompasses socioeconomic, political, and environmental dimensions, requiring effective coordination among all stakeholders. Mountain regions, which host approximately 50% of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, provide a vast array of ecosystem services that support the livelihoods of millions of people. These ecosystems present a high number of endemic plant and animal species and deliver essential services, including water regulation, carbon sequestration, cultural values, and the maintenance of biologically diverse landscapes. However, mountain ecosystems are also on the front line of climate change. Rising temperatures, glacier retreat, and altered precipitation regimes are disrupting hydrological processes and ecosystem functioning, exacerbating natural hazards and constituting significant threats to biodiversity, livelihoods, and local communities. At the same time, many mountainous areas are experiencing increasing pressure from anthropogenic activities, particularly unsustainable agricultural and forestry practices. Traditional land-use systems that were historically in balance with natural ecosystems are being replaced by intensive monocultures, often driven by land abandonment linked to rural depopulation and population aging, followed by the introduction of non-native species. These dynamics are leading to significant changes in species composition, soil quality, and landscape heterogeneity, directly affecting biodiversity at both local and regional scales and highlighting the urgent need for measures that enhance the resilience of these socio-ecological systems. In this framework, the effects of environmental, agronomic, forestry, and socioeconomic pressures increasingly challenge not only long-term sustainability but also the cultural heritage embedded within mountain landscapes. Nature-based Solutions emerge as a promising approach to integrate ecological restoration with sustainable land management, strengthening adaptive capacity, enhancing ecosystem multifunctionality, and supporting governance frameworks that reconcile conservation goals with socioeconomic development.
ID: 3.105
To be, or not to be (with change): Mountain farming autonomy in the face of European agri-environment goals
Jamila Haider
Abstract/Description
Agriculture is a leading cause of climate change and biodiversity loss, yet also necessary to meet nutritional needs of a growing global population. Small-scale farmers produce the majority of the world’s food and are often important stewards of highly-valued cultural landscapes. European Union strategies to achieve a sustainable transformation in European agriculture (e.g. Green New Deal) have been met with opposition by farmers across Europe (e.g. 2024 protests). At the heart of this conflict is the perceived need to regulate farming practices in order to achieve environmental goals versus the perceived need for farmers to maintain autonomy over their practices to adapt to ever changing socio-econ-environmental situations. This tension is quick to become politicized resulting in polarizing stances. This paper presents three prominent discourses in German-language media (analysing 74 print newspaper sources during 2024) around farmer’s capacity to change: 1) a conservative discourse reflects farmers’ reluctance to change; 2) a structural constraints discourse stressing systemic structural burdens inhibiting farming capacities to change; and 3) a progressive discourse presenting farmers as active change agents. Mountain farming in the European Alps provides an interesting case to explore these tensions: dairy farming is responsible for high greenhouse gas emissions and at the same maintains Europe’s most iconic landscapes (high altitude meadows and pastures).
Autonomy of farmers is a prominent feature entangled through the divergent discourses. In certain narratives, autonomy was invoked in combination with maintenance of rural identities purporting a solution of de-regulation of agri-environmental policies. While in other narratives, autonomy was used to emphasise the importance of local contexts which often clash with top-down policy implementation. In this paper I draw on data from an in-depth collaborative ethnography with an Austrian mountain farming family in Salzburgerland, in which autonomy over time and resources is a key capacity for enabling farming resilience. The results surface tensions between local mountain farming contexts and broad policy framework, such as shifting requirements for organic dairy certification. The paper concludes with reflections on a how agri-environmental policies can become more relational, by foregrounding place-based knowing, being-with participants, reciprocal feedback cycles and shifting from responsibility to response-ability.
ID: 3.133
Acceptance and design of private business models for valorising biodiversity services in mountain farming
Stefan Kirchweger Klinglmayr, Kathi; Politor, Hannah; Kantelhardt, Jochen
Abstract/Description
Practices that promote biodiversity in agriculture are often insufficiently rewarded due to the nature of biodiversity services as a public good and the lack of targeted support measures. Private business models based on the valorisation of biodiversity services could open up new income opportunities here. This is particularly true given that the EU Green Deal and its strategies, directives and regulations require companies to realign their sustainability efforts and that there is very high social demand for biodiversity services. The aim of this study is to identify the acceptance in mountain agriculture of the provision of biodiversity services and new business models, as well as the design elements of the latter.
To do so, a participatory, multi-stage approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods was applied in the LTSER Eisenwurzen platform as a study region. First, a quantitative farm survey (with 140 farmers) was conducted to assess the acceptance of and motives for biodiversity-promoting practices in mountain farming and new marketing concepts. In addition, the risks of different of such new concets were analysed in a workshop with 20 farmers. Furthermore, the measures were evaluated from a farm management perspective by calculating the opportunity and provision costs.
This article demonstrates that there is (still) acceptance for the implementation of measures to promote biodiversity. The results also show that the costs can only be partially offset by current government agri-environmental programmes and compensation payments, which jeopardises implementation in the long term. It is therefore necessary to establish ways of monetising these land use measures relatively quickly (e.g. regionally adapted and targeted public support measures) in order to preserve them. To counteract this in the long term, a large proportion of (young) farmers would be willing to join forces with companies to sell the biodiversity services they provide. The costs calculated here can be considered minimum prices. When designing these models, care must also be taken to ensure that the contracting parties are on an equal footing (no dependencies arise) and that the administrative burden for farmers is not increased. However, institutional, legal and formal frameworks must be created at both national and European level to enable payments by external partners from the business sector and to make these fair for all parties involved.
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