Seeing subsidies like a farmer: emerging subsidy cultures in Hungary

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the role that agricultural subsidies have assumed in the lives and decisions of farmers in Hungary. It provides insights into farmer subjectivities within a rapidly transforming rural political economy where individuals are highly dependent on government transfers. Through ethnography, subsidies are shown to rework traditional notions of farm work and value, with consequences for labour and land use strategies. Subsidies are more than economic tools as the Hungarian state manipulates, rewards and disciplines rural actors. In consequence, new farmer subjectivities and habits comprise traits and labours that are synonymous with ‘new’ farmers who are frequently non-local and mobile.

KEYWORDS:

• Agriculture
• subsidies
• Eastern Europe
• Hungary
• subjectivities

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the kindness and time of colleagues and friends who read earlier drafts of this paper, Bill Adams, Jessica Hope, James Palmer. The fieldwork and writing were supported by a British Academy Small Grant 2017-9 and an Early Career award through the Leverhulme and Isaac Newton Trusts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data availability statement

The interview data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. They are not currently in the public domain due to ethical issues arising from privacy concerns, as a result of their longitudinal nature and the identifiability of some subjects.

Notes

1 European Economic Community.

2 Quotes are directly from farmers from different areas of Hungary.

3 These are also to minimise crop raiding damage – in many cases the fences are built with co-financing from local Hunting Associations.

4 County in north-east Hungary.

5 It is worth noting here the quiet death of small, traditional, non-mechanised farming from these landscapes: most villages still have one household with a cow and sow, but they are within households of elderly couples, aged over seventy. These couples do not engage with subsidy systems, and probably never tried to.

Additional information

Funding

The fieldwork for this paper was supported by a British Academy Small Grant 2017-9 grant no CRFG\100895 and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship [Leverhulme Trust].

Notes on contributors

Eszter Krasznai Kovacs

Eszter Kovacs is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow based out of the University of Cambridge and at Corvinus University of Budapest. Her research interests are in the political ecology of living from the land in Eastern Europe, and the regulation of access to resources to enable or restrict these activities.