From small-scale agriculture to urban agriculture: women, subsistence economy, and the question of the commons

ABSTRACT

The article presents an historical panorama of the importance of small-scale, subsistence farming, mainly by women, over two centuries: from the loss of the commons associated with the abolition of the ‘second serfdom’ in Prussia in the early nineteenth century to urban farming and gardening in twenty first century cities of Europe, America and Africa. On the way it addresses subsistence farming in towns, new communities and garden cities at the turn of the twentieth century and similar initiatives following both world wars, including the vexed question of the unacknowledged but vitally significant subsistence family production in both socialist eastern Europe in general and eastern Germany in particular. Waves of urban and community gardening in the 1970s and 1990s are also discussed, as are recent ‘food sovereignty’ movements such as La Campesina and Nyéléni. It concludes with a call not only to reclaim the commons but to reintroduce the commons as part of a new socio-ecological policy which will feed people and counter unemployment and urban slum development.

KEYWORDS:

• Women
• subsistence farming
• urban farming
• food sovereignty
• the commons

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Personal interviews by the author with the people of Eden 1991–1993 and later.

2. Archive of Perleberg between 4.6. and 9.6.2009 and later.

3. Own interviews and research in the Archive of Perleberg between 4.6. and 9.6.2009 and later.

4. Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen, Renate Müller, Hrsg., Forschungsbericht: Frauenbiographien in Kietz. (Über-)Leben am östlichen Rand der Republik, Institut für Soziologie: Freie Universität Berlin 2004.

5. Interview with the former vocational school teacher (Berufsschullehrer) by Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen in Gartz/Oder Juni 2002.

6. Told by of an old farmer in Röddelin in summer 1997. Similar stories told to the author in summer 2021 in the Neustrelitz region and elsewhere.

7. In Berlin, the average inhabitant earns €1000 less per month the average for the rest of the republic: €1500 (gross) or less instead of €2500 gross.

8. https://www.abl-ev.de/ueber-uns/landesverbaende/#c3727 und https://www.aktion-agrar.de/julia-bar-tal-ein-solidarischer-gruss-aus-der-brandenburger-landwirtschaft-in-zeiten-von-corona/