Agricultural museum

Types of agricultural museums

Agricultural museums often specialize in one or more of three aspects of the farm-food process. Those specializing on the crop cultivation and farming aspect of agriculture are known as farm museums. These would include farm museums like Barleylands Farm Museum, Fenimore Farm & Country Village, and Aulestad. Others, like Balmoral Grist Mill Museum in Balmoral Mills, Nova Scotia, focus on the production aspect of the process; many mill museums, including Frohnauer Hammer, Mazonovo, and the oldest commercial flour mill in North America, Moulin du Petit-Pré, fall into this group. Still others, like the Tao Heung Foods of Mankind Museum in Fo Tan, Shatin, Hong Kong, the Potato Museum, and the Spam Museum, are focused on the post-production and food-consumption aspect of agriculture.

Other agricultural museums, like the Kregel Windmill Museum, the Irish Agricultural Museum, and Danmarks Traktormuseum, display agricultural machinery. Agricultural museums may further specialize in educating the public about one single crop or they may be multi-themed, covering several or many crop types. For example, sugar production is the only subject matter of focus at the sugar museums of Berlin Sugar Museum (the world's oldest), Taiwan Sugar Museum, and Museo de la Caña y el Ron. Most mill museums are non-operational, but the Watson's Mill is a rarity as a working museum in Manotick, Ontario, Canada, still in operation.

Scope of the galleries

Some agricultural museums, like Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, present agriculture in general as it relates to an entire country, while others, like the Tao Heung Foods of Mankind Museum in Hong Kong, aim to cover the entire scope of agriculture of the human civilization throughout history. Still others, like Sugar Cane and Rum Museum present the agriculture of a particular farming species and focused on a particular food and end product.

Open air vs. indoor museums

In terms of the venues for these museums, some agricultural museums are located in former mills, abandoned buildings, or warehouses, such as Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum. Other museums, on the other hand, are housed in structures specifically designed to accommodate an agricultural museum, such as Thailand's Golden Jubilee Museum of Agriculture. The museum architecture in such agricultural museums has been specifically designed and tailored to the purpose for that space.

Agriculture museums can also be located in the open air, such as Poland's National Museum of Agriculture. Overall, open-air agricultural museums abound: other examples of open-air based agricultural museums are International Wind- and Watermill Museum, Church Farm Museum, and Julita Abbey.

Some open-air agricultural museums may present the history of how entire villages subsisted from their agriculture and may include many buildings spread over many acres; this is the case with the Kommern Open Air Museum. Other agricultural museums are strictly indoors-based and occupy just one building, such as the Agricultural Museum of Malaysia.

Animal vs. crop agriculture

Some farm museums deal with the farming of animals as opposed to crops. This is the case of Lithuanian Museum of Ancient Beekeeping.

Ownership, size and exhibitions

As for ownership and operation, some agricultural museums, such as Tao Heung Foods of Mankind Museum, in Hong Kong, and the Adatepe Olive Oil Museum in Turkey, are privately owned. Others, like the Agricultural Museum of Egypt, in Cairo, are a publicly owned national patrimony.

References

References

1. (2020). "Sarka".
2. [http://www.agriculturalmuseum.org/ ''Welcome to Delaware Agricultural Museum Association.''] Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village. 2019. Accessed 31 January 2019.
3. [https://www.eater.com/2015/10/23/9598674/food-museums ''How Food Earned Its Place in American Museums.''] Tove Danovich. ''Eater.'' 23 October 2015. Accessed 31 January 2019.
4. Kilgerman, Eric. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=r5TEsqmRfA8C&pg=PA255 Sites of the Uncanny: Paul Celan, Specularity and the Visual Arts]'', p. 255 (2007).
5. "Le moulin - Son histoire". Moulin du Petit-Pré.
6. (2002). "Architecture and Town Planning in Colonial North America, Volume 1". JHU Press.