This article investigates the regionally varied changes in social support and responsibilities of large-scale farms vis-à-vis household plot holders and their rural communities in post-Soviet Russia. Ongoing marketisation puts pressure on the Sovietinherited symbiosis between large farms and household plots. We observe that large farms' shift to Anglophone-style, explicit Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) hides declining support for villagers and sometimes even dispossession. In the second of our two case studies, a less well-endowed region, the inherited symbiosis continues with modifications ("implicit CSR") and helps sustain comparatively higher household plot production.
RÉSUMÉCet article examine les variations régionales associées au soutien social et à la responsabilité des grandes exploitations agricoles envers les détenteurs de parcelles domestiques et leurs communautés rurales en Russie post-soviétique. L'expansion actuelle du marché induit une pression sur la symbiose entre grandes exploitations et parcelles familiales héritée de l'URSS. Nous observons que les grandes exploitations optent pour une Responsabilité sociale des entreprises (RSE) de type anglophone qui occulte une diminution du soutien aux villageois, et parfois même leur dépossession. Dans la seconde de nos deux études de cas, menée dans une région moins productive, la symbiose héritée de l'ère soviétique se perpétue avec quelques modifications (ce que nous qualifions de « RSE implicite ») et contribue à maintenir un niveau comparativement plus élevé de production dans les parcelles familiales.
ARTICLE HISTORY
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 the 'quiet food sovereignty' to develop into a full food sovereignty movement, and stress the importance of studying implicit everyday forms of food sovereignty.
Russia's political leaders have a different understanding of food security than traditional usage. The traditional usage of the term food security refers to access, availability, and nutritional aspects of food. According to the conventional application of food security, the vast majority of the Russian population is not food insecure by traditional measures. The Russian variant of food security connects food trade to national security. The Russian political leadership argues that Russia is food insecure based on food imports. Survey data are used to assess support for the government's food security policy, and to analyze the impact of the selfimposed food embargo on Russian consumers.
This article analyzes gender inequality in Russia’s rural informal economy. Continuation of unequal gendered roles in Russia’s rural informal economy suggests that tradition and custom remain strong. Gender differentials in time spent tending the household garden remain significant, as is the distribution of household tasks into gendered roles in ways that effect professional advancement for women. Land ownership is the domain of men, and women are not owners in Russia’s new economy. Moreover, men earn more from entrepreneurial activity, a function of how male and female services are valued and priced in society. Responsibility that is shared includes the marketing of household food. The conclusion is that institutional change is less impactful on gender inequality than persistence of culture and tradition.
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