Editor’s Notes: Cozette Griffin-Kremer shares her thoughts on the importance of the International Association of Agricultural Museums (AIMA) and the role her friend and French historian of agriculture, François Sigaut (1940-2012), played as he sought to rejuvenate it before his untimely death.

Longer-time AIMA members will recall how the AIMA was relaunched from 2009 to 2012. The very first plans to found an international association of agricultural museums go back to the inter-war period and were propelled most especially by Central European museums, then cut off for decades by WWII and its aftermath of confrontation. Finally founded in 1966 with its first meeting in then Czechoslovakia, the AIMA was highly successful in keeping Cold-War Europe in contact through congresses alternating between the older East and West, regularly attended by members from North and Latin American, as well as Japan. The fall of the Berlin Wall and its repercussions across Europe and around the world drastically altered museums’ needs and perspectives. The AIMA attempted to keep up with events, but by the early 2000s, its membership was falling and it became difficult to find museums in the “old” East that could afford to be meeting venues.

First AIMA congress (the “CIMA”) in 1966, delegates outside the Chateau Liblice, Photo Courtesy of the National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industries, Szreniawa, Poland.

This is where the Polish National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industries stepped in, in tandem with the French historian of agriculture, François Sigaut (1940-2012), to relaunch the AIMA, first through ensuring the congress in Romania, then followed by a regular programme of meetings at and between the triennial congresses. In fact, François Sigaut passed away just months after the final relaunch meeting at the Museum of Scottish Country Life in Kittochside, Scotland.

François Sigaut was deeply engaged in the foundation and development of agricultural museums in France and also beyond and on 16-17 October, 2025, a colloquium was held at the University of Nanterre, just outside Paris, France, to investigate his heritage and the impact of his research and teaching. It is clear that he and his work on what he, as a historian, more especially a “technologist” (NB a word in French that did not have the negative connotations it did in English), most deeply influenced archaeologists, so keenly interested in the many questions François raised about objects in their environment. This was often in the framework of the renowned triad of “form, function and functioning” (usually stated in English with “what does it look like, what is it for and how does it work?”). One of the highlights of the recent colloquium was emphasis on the broader context of this research and the importance it holds today for environmental studies and sustainability, also major concerns for agricultural museums like those in the AIMA.

A major AIMA role: speaking today to urban populations with few connections to agriculture. From the article “Korean ox ploughing at the NAMUK (National Agricultural Museum)” by Minjae Lee in AIMA Newsletter N°20

The upcoming AIMA congress to be held 5-9 March, 2026, at the Lauresham Open-Air Laboratory in Lorsch, Germany, addressing “Intangible Cultural Heritage in a Museum Context: The Role of Agricultural Museums, Living History Sites and Archaeological Open-Air Museums” should bring together actors from several disciplines and also heralds the AIMA’s 60th anniversary. Looking from many perspectives and firmly aiming at the future, this will also be an opportunity to reflect on the AIMA’s history, and contributions can be expected from old and new members.

Meanwhile, if you would like to bring yourself up-to-date on AIMA history, check out the following articles in the AIMA Newsletter:

Newsletter N°1: François Sigaut, “A rich European Past, a Future opened on the World”

Newsletter N° 4: “Honouring AIMA’s History” with extensive contributions by members from Italy, England and Japan, along with briefer notes in “Discussion of “Agriculture Collections – a New Dynamic” from Slovenian, English, American, Romanian, Polish and Japanese members (also available in French).

There are also full-length articles on AIMA history in the website here:

“The History of AIMA” https://www.agriculturalmuseums.org/the-history-of-aima/

“Thirty Years of AIMA History” by Zdenek Tempír https://usercontent.one/wp/www.agriculturalmuseums.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/acta-1989.pdf

“The history of AIMA: a personal perspective” by Ted (E.J.T.) Collins https://usercontent.one/wp/www.agriculturalmuseums.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ted-collinsaima-final2.pdf