WHERE DO LIPOVAN VEGETABLES COME FROM? The Traditional Agroecological System of Knowledge and Vegetable-Growing Practices in the Târgu Frumos Area The authors start from the premise that traditional, community-based agriculture constitutes a complex domain in which cultural identity, collective memory, and long-standing relationships between communities and the natural environment represent highly meaningful and valuable expressions of intangible cultural heritage. Drawing on an innovative four-month project centered on the participatory inventorying of this heritage, the book examines the traditional vegetable-growing ecosystem of the Lipovan community in Târgu Frumos as a form of living agricultural heritage, currently under increasing pressure from modernization, agricultural industrialization, market forces, demographic change, and climate variability. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, the implemented research brought together perspectives from the fields of cultural heritage, agricultural sciences, and rural economy, fostering dialogue between technical knowledge of agricultural production and its intangible dimensions: orally transmitted practices, seasonal rituals, community values, ethnic identity, and social relations. The local community of Lipovan (Russian Old Believers) was placed at the center of the research process, as the active bearer of the knowledge, practices, and representations under analysis. Vegetable growing in the Romanian space developed gradually, beginning with small household gardens adjacent to dwellings, which played a fundamental role in the local peasant diet which was organically low in protein. Often these small gardens were managed by women. These early forms of cultivation relied on accumulated empirical knowledge, and reflected, based on the earliest available accounts, practices such as crop rotation, fallowing, seed selection, and adaptation to local soil and climatic conditions. Over time, gardens expanded beyond household needs and acquired an economic function, supplying nearby towns and markets, especially in peri-urban areas where demand for fresh produce increased alongside urbanization. Migrant gardening specialists of Bulgarian, Serbian and Lipovan ethnicity introduced advanced cultivation techniques, early seedling production, irrigation systems, and protected cultivation methods, contributing to higher yields and earlier harvests. The emergence of greenhouses and glass covered structures marked a significant turning point, enabling vegetable producers to mitigate climatic risks and supply high-value early crops to urban markets. Within this historical context, the Lipovan vegetable farmers of Târgu Frumos are examined as part of a wider network of specialized horticultural communities whose practices were deeply embedded in local social structures, economic strategies, and cultural values. Their agricultural knowledge combined technical expertise with long-term environmental adaptation, contributing to the formation of a distinct agricultural and cultural landscape. The volume achieves three main objectives: First, it introduces and consolidates an emergent and still insufficiently developed field of research: agricultural intangible cultural heritage. By focusing on knowledge and practices related to nature, cultivation, and sustainable food systems, the book contributes to expanding intangible cultural heritage studies, highlighting small-scale agriculture as a key domain of intangible heritage. Second, the book situates the Lipovan community of Târgu Frumos within a broader historical and cultural framework, explaining their identity and social role through the lens of Romanian traditional agriculture. The continuity of human settlement in Târgu Frumos (Iași county, Northeastern Romania), attested since the fifteenth century, provided a stable framework for the establishment of Lipovan communities beginning in the eighteenth century, during a period marked by profound social, political, and religious transformations in the Russian Empire. Fleeing religious persecution following ecclesiastical reforms, Lipovan groups sought refuge in more tolerant regions, including Moldavia (today’s Eastern Romania), where they gradually integrated while preserving distinctive cultural and religious traditions rooted in early Russian Orthodoxy. In Romania, Lipovan communities developed diverse livelihood strategies shaped by local environmental conditions. While fishing became the defining occupation of Lipovans in Dobrogea and the Danube Delta, those who settled in Moldavia—particularly in the Târgu Frumos area— specialized in agriculture. Favorable soil, climate, available water sources, combined with long standing horticultural knowledge, supported the emergence of vegetable growing as the community’s primary economic activities. Small garden plots near family dwellings and larger parcels on the outskirts of settlements formed the basis of an intensive, skill-based but sustainable agricultural system. The book explores migration, specialization, technological innovation, and environmental adaptation, demonstrating how Lipovan vegetable farmers became recognized agricultural experts whose practices contributed to shaping local and regional agrarian landscapes. Additionally, through this approach, the book highlights the contribution of a minority community to the continuity and diversification of Romanian agricultural traditions. Third, the volume offers a robust example of a concrete participatory inventory of the contemporary agroecological system of vegetable farming within the Lipovan community of Târgu Frumos. The resulting book documents current cultivation practices, seed conservation methods, soil and water management techniques, greenhouse technology, climate-change adaptation strategies, and associated culinary traditions. The research process also included the collection of oral histories, photographic documentation, and direct field observation, alongside the identification of material elements such as greenhouses, tools, gardens, and landscape features. The participatory mapping was also used as a method to showcase representative households in Târgu Frumos, illustrating the structure of greenhouses and the spatial organization of crops. Framed within the principles of the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the book offered an integrated model that connects historical analysis, ethnographic documentation, agroecological assessment, and community engagement. By identifying both strengths and vulnerabilities of the Lipovan agricultural system, the volume documented a local intangible cultural heritage, with the aim to support its safeguarding, revitalization, and transmission to future generations. In doing so, it contributes to contemporary debates on sustainable, culturally grounded food systems and the role of local communities in ensuring the future of agricultural heritage in a changing world.

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Agriculture,Intangible cultural heritage,Romania,Seeds,Peasants

• Agricultura, Silvicultura e Pescas - Ciências Agrárias
• Antropologia - Ciências Sociais