The New Politics of Plenty; Russia's Agrifood Transformation and the Environment

• In Event: The Political Economy of Environment in China and Russia

Abstract

Russia’s agrifood system has undergone profound changes over the last fifteen years. Large capital investments in rural economies and in processing industries have led to significant increases in production and productivity, and to dramatic changes in how food is produced and processed. The technological change of the Russian agrifood system aligns with several political priorities of the Putin regime and in many ways was made possible through a cornucopia of public support measures.

Although public support has the stated aim of import substitution and has led to the strengthening of domestic producers, the technologies and modes of production are largely modelled on what are considered cutting edge industrial food production processes in Western advanced industrialized countries. The environmental implications of changes of the Russian food system are largely unexplored, however, even as they are an increasingly scrutinized aspect of agriculture in the West.

This paper is an attempt to map some of the ways in which recent changes in the Russian food system have transformed the relationship between farming and food production on the one hand, and nature on the other. The focus is on two aspects of the environmental impact of food systems that have drawn attention by Russian social actors: first, the changing nature of waste – from waste generated by the inflexibility of the planned economy to the waste generated by the commercialization of processed food; and second, a new type of loss of biodiversity as farming becomes more profit oriented.

Author

• Susanne A. Wengle, University of Notre Dame