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Allotments are a subject of wide ranging historical interest and significance, now boosted by a renewed enthusiasm for their use in current times of economic difficulty and environmental awareness. Research by Jeremy Burchardt, University of Reading, into the history of allotments, in itself offering a ground-breaking academic perspective on a marginalised `popular' history subject, led a number of individuals and organisations from outside academic life to take up work on the history of allotments. Most notably, it prompted the Family and Community Historical Research Society (FACHRS) to launch a major nationwide project, resulting in a book (Breaking New Ground) jointly edited by Burchardt, and an accompanying database. Together these resources have provided an extensive reference source for further investigations by individuals and groups of local historians and allotment associations. With the interest in the general and specific histories of allotments continuing, Burchardt's work and that emanating from it has provided a rich resource and starting point for numerous further enquiries.
In the late 1990s the new Welsh Assembly Government publicly acknowledged a significant evidence gap in relation to rural policy. A Cardiff University team of rural researchers led by Terry Marsden and Paul Milbourne has since played a significant role in filling this gap. A major programme of longitudinal and place-based research has revealed the need for a more integrated approach to rural policy development. Key findings from this research have been used by the Welsh Government to develop more sustainable and integrated forms of rural policy, particularly in relation to anti-poverty and agri-food strategy. The research evidence has also influenced policy debates in the UK on agri-food, as well as negotiations between the Welsh Government and European Commission in relation to European objectives for rural development.
Professor Karen Sayer's research on the rural, `Nature' and the countryside, farming and the farmed animal in the Modern period, has informed three TV series (Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm, Wartime Farm) viewed by millions in the UK and worldwide. These extremely popular series have had a major impact within public understandings of not only the history of agriculture and its strategic importance, but also rural social history within British society. Sayer's input ensured a historically accurate representation of the past and, in the case of Wartime Farm, brought the rural experience into the discourse of World War II, which so often focuses on the urban. This impact has been further developed through a partnership with the Yorkshire Museum of Farming where Sayer undertook consultation with museum staff on exhibitions and displays.
The case study developed a set of acceptable benchmarks of economic performance using readily available data which are indicative of key policy-relevant facets of local economic performance, and it proposed a method for modelling rural economic performance, which is transferable to other UK environments and beyond. In doing so, this study has informed Defra's `Rural Evidence Base', and has contributed to the development of subsequent rural policy. This impact case study is based on a Defra award (2003-2004 plus a nine month extension) led by the Director of SERC Professor Sheela Agarwal.
This case study presents the impact of research undertaken by Dr Nicola Verdon on the social and economic history of the British countryside in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her findings, which focus on rural work patterns, family life and gender relations, are published in leading academic journals and have been used to inform and contribute to several public impacts: a museum exhibition on women's work on the land, a leading theatre production which centres on the fortunes of a Devon farming family, and several programmes on the broadcast media (radio and TV) on rural life and labour.
56% of the European Union (EU) population and 35% of the population of Northern Ireland (NI) live in rural areas. While rural living is sometimes portrayed as an idyllic lifestyle, the reality often differs. Lower population density means that services are more limited than in urban areas, with different impacts for particular socio-economic groups, especially women. For example, lack of childcare provision can affect rural women's ability to work outside the home. The gendered nature of farm ownership means that farming policies have not always addressed farming women's needs. The research in this case study had the following impacts: