Vegetable Exhibition

Bringing people together around biodiversity through exhibitions fosters dialogue, curiosity, and collective responsibility for conservation, making abstract environmental issues tangible and locally relevant. Exhibitions that promote biodiversity awareness can take many forms – from seed swaps and pollinator fairs to culinary showcases and school displays – but here we focus on Vegetable Exhibitions as a particularly engaging and accessible format.

A Vegetable Exhibition was organised, as part of the PLANET4B agrobiodiversity case study (Hungary), with the aim of creating an engaging local event that celebrates the diversity of vegetable varieties while highlighting the vital role of biodiversity in agriculture and food systems.

Vegetable Exhibitions provide a platform for producers to share sustainable, biodiversity-supportive growing practices and enhance visitors’ understanding of the ecological, cultural, and nutritional value of heritage varieties. These events provide an opportunity to highlight genetic diversity in plants alongside the cultural traditions and stories connected to them, a combination often described as agrobiodiversity. Having such a variety of plants also highlight the importance of curiosity about new species and varieties – an essential quality for adapting to a changing climate. Growing and sharing agrobiodiverse seeds stimulates the continuation of culinary practices, rituals, and agricultural knowledge, fostering collective support for growers and sustainable practices (The National Heirloom Exposition).

Within the PLANET4B Agrobiodiversity case study, in addition to showcasing different heirloom and exotic vegetable varieties, the exhibiting growers also offered opportunities for tasting.

In this video Borbála Lipka explains what a Vegetable Exhibition entails:

Key Features

Timeframe:

• The timeframe depends on if the event is being organised as a standalone event or part of a large existing event. Either way, ideally the potential exhibitors will have in their mind at the start of the growing seasons, that they will be participating. If the event is organised in co-ordination with another project the actual display will likely only last a day, but this could also last longer.

Budget and Materials:

‍This is not a low budget event to put on, you will need to account for the following:

• Venue hire, including costs for tables, chairs, and any equipment hire such as display boards or lighting
• Exhibitor support, such as travel reimbursements or help transporting their fruit and vegetables
• Publicity and promotion, including printed posters, flyers, and online advertising
• Refreshments for attendees and exhibitors, including tasting materials and utensils
• Interpretation and translation services, if needed for accessibility
• Insurance and permits required for public events
• Materials for interactive or educational activities, such as tasting stations or games
• Waste management and cleaning services for the event

Roles and Responsibilities:

Exhibitors

• Grow the fruits or vegetables they want to display
• Harvest and transport produce to the exhibition
• Talk to visitors, showcase produce, offer tasting if relevant
• If comfortable doing so, give a short presentation about their varieties
• Co-create the design and planning of the exhibition – this is optional, but if they have capacity this makes it more inclusive
• If willing to do so, participate in any associated research activity (e.g. debriefing, or other method)

Organisers

• Liaise with growers to find a suitable time of year/season to showcase their vegetables.
• Select a panel of organisers, this might include a chairperson, secretary, treasurer etc., ensuring also that the event includes representatives from different communities on the organising boards. Ideally offer some form of compensation for this time, to ensure due recognition of all contributions.
• Identify suitable location or event to host the Vegetable Exhibition and organise materials.
• Advertise the event and encourage participation.
• Logistically manage the running on the day.
• On the day, help facilitate discussion between the public and growers as needed.

Attendees

• Enjoy fruit and vegetables
• Learn about context, participate and engage with exhibitors
• Contribute to feedback (debriefing or other)

A Vegetable Exhibition can serve as a research setting, providing opportunities to observe, document, and analyse how people engage with agrobiodiversity in practice. That said, the success of such an event often relies on collaboration, since its richness emerges through collective input, shared responsibility, and diverse expertise. As a researcher you might work with community groups, growers, or cultural organisations to co-design and deliver the exhibition. It is important to be aware of your role in shaping the event and to think carefully about what you want to include on the day. Consider the following:

Define research objectives‍

Start by clarifying what the exhibition is intended to investigate. For example:

• How do visitors perceive and value agrobiodiversity?
• What narratives do growers use to frame heritage varieties?
• How do social interactions at exhibitions shape collective understandings of food and sustainability?

Design the exhibition with research built in

• Layout as method: Organise displays not only for aesthetics but to test research questions. For example, place heritage and commercial varieties side by side and study how visitors respond.
• Interactive stations: Build in spaces that double as data collection tools — tasting corners with feedback cards, storytelling walls where visitors leave reflections, or QR codes linking to short surveys.
• Discussion areas: Facilitate structured conversations (mini focus groups) at the exhibition, which can be recorded and later transcribed.

Data generation

• Observational: Use ethnographic fieldnotes to capture visitor and grower interactions, paying attention to gestures, tone, and patterns of engagement.
• Discourse: Record exhibitor presentations and informal conversations, with consent, to capture how biodiversity is framed.
• Material: Collect artefacts such as annotated catalogues, recipes, or photos of displays as cultural texts.

Ethics and consent

• Prepare clear information sheets displayed at entry points, explaining that the exhibition is part of a research study.
• Offer opt-in consent for recorded conversations or photographs.
• Consider anonymisation strategies for public contributions, e.g. using codes for feedback wall notes.

Analytical strategies

• Thematic analysis of conversations and written contributions to explore values, metaphors, or tensions around agrobiodiversity.
• Discourse or narrative analysis to examine how growers link seeds, food, and identity.
• Visual/multimodal analysis of exhibition design and visitor engagement.
• Triangulate findings across data types to strengthen rigour.

Researcher role‍

Decide how visible you are. You may act as:

• Facilitator-researcher, co-designing with community partners but also gathering data.
• Observer-researcher, stepping back during the event and focusing on systematic documentation.
• Participant-researcher, joining in conversations, tastings, or even contributing your own display to reduce distance.