Suchergebnisse

International audience ; In France, and more largely in Europe, the main constituent of growing media used in soilless culture are peats, due to their physical qualities (water retention, aeration, physical stability). But, this fossil carbon resource is non-renewable (in our lifetime due to slow growth habit of peats) and societal demand and ecological policies are demanding a more wise use of peat and peatlands (Stategy for Responsible Peatland Management, IPS, 2010; EPAGMA Code of Practice for Responsible Peat Management, 2011). There is also increased interest in promoting renewable organic materials (bark, coir, wood, compost). Commission II (Horticultural Use of Peat) of the International Peat Society conducted a survey in order to evaluate the amounts of growing media constituents used in major growing media producer countries in the European Union (EU). This survey was continued in more detail in France for several years by the C.A.S. This survey asked for amounts of organic, composted, mineral and synthetic constituents in horticultural substrates, and a split between professional and retail markets for all constituents used. Data show that there is an increase in the use of composted organic material in some countries, in particular for the hobby sector. Synthetic materials are of no importance in EU growing media. Due to the specific properties of mineral materials, these are often applied in professional media. The availability and price of organic materials other than peat, i.e. bark or coir, often determine if a material is used as a constituent or not. Bog peat is still the overall predominant growing medium constituent in the EU. Peat-free growing media are highly esteemed by some stakeholder and user groups but still play an overall minor role in industrial production of growing media.

This edited collection is a contribution to the emerging field of oral history research in the post-socialist societies of Central Europe and former Soviet Union, and demonstrates what oral history can contribute to the changing nature of post-socialist social sciences

A sweeping cultural and economic history of porcelain, from the eighteenth century to the presentPorcelain was invented in medieval China—but its secret recipe was first reproduced in Europe by an alchemist in the employ of the Saxon king Augustus the Strong. Saxony's revered Meissen factory could not keep porcelain's ingredients secret for long, however, and scores of Holy Roman princes quickly founded their own mercantile manufactories, soon to be rivaled by private entrepreneurs, eager to make not art but profits. As porcelain's uses multiplied and its price plummeted, it lost much of its identity as aristocratic ornament, instead taking on a vast number of banal, yet even more culturally significant, roles. By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it became essential to bourgeois dining, and also acquired new functions in insulator tubes, shell casings, and teeth.Weaving together the experiences of entrepreneurs and artisans, state bureaucrats and female consumers, chemists and peddlers, Porcelain traces the remarkable story of "white gold" from its origins as a princely luxury item to its fate in Germany's cataclysmic twentieth century. For three hundred years, porcelain firms have come and gone, but the industry itself, at least until very recently, has endured. After Augustus, porcelain became a quintessentially German commodity, integral to provincial pride, artisanal industrial production, and a familial sense of home.Telling the story of porcelain's transformation from coveted luxury to household necessity and flea market staple, Porcelain offers a fascinating alternative history of art, business, taste, and consumption in Central Europe

This article provides a historical overview of the cultural institutionalization of photography in France, with a particular focus on the pioneering initiatives of individual photography enthusiasts throughout the 1970s to promote photographic culture. These efforts were roughly simultaneous with changes in acquisition and exhibition practices on the part of fine art museums and collections with respect to photography, in response to an increasing world-wide recognition of its status as an art form. The article explains how, despite the promotion of photography as a French invention and a contribution to culture (as early as its inception in 1839), an active cultural politics of photography did not emerge until the early to mid-1980s and was an opportune reaction to, and institutionalized framing of, ground-level cultural developments already underway.

This book demolishes the widely held view that the phrase 'medieval business' is an oxymoron. The authors review the entire range of business in medieval western Europe, probing its Roman and Christian heritage to discover the economic and political forces that shaped the organization of agriculture, manufacturing, construction, mining, transportation and marketing. Businessmen's responses to the devastating plagues, famines, and warfare that beset Europe in the late Middle Ages are equally well covered. Medieval businessmen's remarkable success in coping with this hostile new environment was 'a harvest of adversity' that prepared the way for the economic expansion of the sixteenth century. Two main themes run through this book. First, the force and direction of business development in this period stemmed primarily from the demands of the elite. Second, the lasting legacy of medieval businessmen was less their skillful adaptations of imported inventions than their brilliant innovations in business organization

Les prairies permanentes représentent 57 millions d'hectares dont 16,9 millions de landes et parcours ; la prairie temporaire occupe 10 millions ha. Les surfaces en prairie ont fortement régressé depuis 1960, la perte étant estimée à environ 30 % soit plus de 7 millions ha au niveau de l'Europe et 4 millions en France, mais il semble que les surfaces se stabilisent depuis 2003. Les prairies européennes se caractérisent par une grande diversité : couverts semés ou végétation indigène, leur niveau de production est très variable de même que leur répartition entre les différents pays. Elles assurent de nombreux services écosystémiques dont la séquestration de carbone, le maintien de la biodiversité et la qualité des sols et de l'eau. Ces services, de mieux en mieux reconnus par la société, sont progressivement pris en compte par les politiques publiques. ; This text specifies the current status and recent evolution of permanent grassland in Europe and in France, and reviews the main services provided by grassland. Grassland covers over 40 % of European agricultural land. Permanent grassland covers 57 million ha and temporary grassland, 10 million ha. Total grassland acreage dropped significantly between 1960 and 2003. Total loss is estimated at 30 %, which is to say over 7 million ha lost in Europe and 4 million ha lost in France. Grassland in Europe is characterized by a rich biodiversity, sown grassland and indigenous vegetation, its level of production is highly variable, as is its distribution in different countries. This agricultural cover is all the more important because it is multifunctional and has a considerable environmental and social impact. Grassland provides a wide range of ecosystem services (carbon sequestration, protecting biodiversity, preserving soil quality and purifying drinking water.) which are increasingly being recognized and taken into account by public bodies in charge of policy making.