Large-scale agrarian transformations in post-socialist Eurasia

In the chapter entitled 'Silent growers, symbiosis and subtle peasantness in post-socialist Eurasia', Oane Visser, Brian Kuns and Petr Jehlička draw attention to the discrepancy between the fact that this region was a scene of the most dramatic and large-scale agrarian transformations of the 21st century and yet insights generated by research on this region rarely make it into international agrarian studies.

This omission seems unusual given the rising importance of the region within the global food system. From a net food importer during the socialist era, the region’s agrarian heartland (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan) rapidly turned into a net exporter of staple crops. In 2018, Russia even overtook the United States as the world’s largest exporter of wheat. At the same time, a lot of food for domestic consumption - potatoes, fruit and vegetables - is accounted for by the production of the region’s almost invisible multitude of smallholders – or 'ambivalent peasants'.

The authors argue, first, that the region constitutes fertile ground for nuancing and interrogating the concept of the peasant. Second, they show how research from the region unsettles the idea of smallholders versus corporate farms as separate worlds, instead stressing co-existence, symbiosis and overlap. And third, they highlight the unacknowledged resilience of weakly organized, yet culturally rich smallholder food provisioning with food practices that cross class boundaries and are largely environmentally friendly.