‘Quiet Food Sovereignty’ as Food Sovereignty without a Movement? Insights from Post-socialist Russia

Abstract

What does food sovereignty look like in settings where rural social movements are weak or non-existent, such as in countries with post-socialist, semi-authoritarian regimes? Focusing on Russia, we present a divergent form of food sovereignty. Building on the concept of ‘quiet sustainability’, we present a dispersed, muted, but clearly bottom-up variant we term ‘quiet food sovereignty’. In the latter, the role of the very productive smallholdings is downplayed by the state and partly by the smallholders themselves. Those smallholdings are not seen as an alternative to industrial agriculture, but subsidiary to it (although superior in terms of sociality and healthy, environmentally friendly produce). As such, ‘quiet food sovereignty’ deviates from the overt struggle frequently associated with food sovereignty. We discuss the prospects of ‘quiet food sovereignty’ to develop into a full food sovereignty movement, and stress the importance of studying implicit everyday forms of food sovereignty.

Extracto – A qué se parece la soberanía alimentaria en entornos donde los movimientos rurales son muy débiles o inexistentes, tales como aquellos de los países con regímenes post-socialistas semi-autoritarios? Enfocándonos en Rusia, presentamos una forma divergente de soberanía alimentaria. Construyendo sobre la base del concepto de “sostenibilidad callada” presentamos una variante dispersa, muda pero claramente concluyente que hemos denominado la “callada soberanía alimentaria”. En esta última, el papel de las muy productivas pequeñas propiedades agrícolas (minifundios) se ve reducido por el estado y, parcialmente, por los mismos minifundios. Estas pequeñas unidades productivas no son consideradas como una alternativa a la agricultura industrial sino como subsidiarios a ella (si bien son superiores en términos de sus productos sociales y saludables y amigables con el entorno). Por ello, la “callada soberanía alimentaria” se desvía de la contienda frecuentemente asociada con la soberanía alimentaria. Discutimos as perspectivas que tiene la “callada soberanía alimentaria” para desarrollarse hasta convertirse en un movimiento de total soberanía alimentaria y recalcamos la importancia de estudiar, en forma implícita, las formas de soberanía alimentaria del día a día.

Keywords:

• food sovereignty
• social movements
• Russia
• smallholders
• post-socialist

Acknowledgements

This article benefited from Daniela Patru and Martha Jane Robbins’ editing assistance.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The article received financial support from European Research Council (ERC) [grant number 313781].

Notes

1 This applies also to urban food movements.

2 For varying definitions, see e.g. Desmarais (2007), Edelman (2014), Nyéléni (2007), Peoples' Food Sovereignty Network (2002).

3 An exception is DeMaster (2013).

4 Alternatively, some argue more recently that food sovereignty is becoming too locally focused (Iles & Montenegro, 2013).

5 Furthermore, though they mostly continued offering some support to household plots, LFEs gradually reduced the range of goods and/or beneficiaries (Nikulin, 2003, 2009; Visser, 2009).

6 See: Subsidiary farming—a relic of the past or the reality of the Russian countryside? http://altapress.ru/story/80477.

7 Some of the state support to LFEs may ‘leak’ to the plots through the symbiosis between the two; but this would be a small percentage, especially as the monitoring of large farm property became more strict from the late 1990s onwards (Visser, 2009).

8 Interview 21 October 2010, Moscow.

9 Interview 5 November 2013.

10 There are also differences between regions and households, with the small group of somewhat larger, commercial household plots likely to be more positive. For a slightly more positive view on smallholdings, see Alekhin (2012); for negative views, see Kitching (1998), Pallot and Nefedova (2007, p. 205).

Additional information

Oane Visser is Assistant Professor and Senior Researcher, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University. He gained a prestigious ERC (European Research Council) Starting Grant for his research on land grabbing, financialization, poverty, and social movements in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (2013–2018).

Natalia Mamonova is a Ph.D. candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University, The Netherlands. Her Ph.D. research is on land grabbing in the post-Soviet countryside, land conflicts, responses by the local population, and rural social movements in Russia and Ukraine.

Max Spoor is Professor of Development Studies, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University, Visiting Professor in Barcelona (IBEI) and Guest Professor in Nanjing (NJAU). His research is on transition economies in Asia, such as Vietnam and China, and in Eastern Europe, regarding rural and environmental issues, poverty, and inequality.

Alexander Nikulin is Professor and Director of the Center for Agricultural Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia. He specializes in economic and agrarian sociology, history of the peasantry, and the current state of farming in Russia.