An over reliance on long and often complex 'just in time' supply chains is not good for food security, as these chains can be easily disrupted. What this post focuses on are examples of localised food production that ensure security of the food supply. However, localised food production is about a lot more than food security. As each of these examples shows, it's also about building a sense of community and solidarity around the activity of growing and producing food. That's something that's key to what we're trying to do with At the Grassroots. Namely, promoting a way of producing and living that's the total opposite of the corporate model being forced upon us. Hopefully, there are lessons to be learned and inspiration to be gained from the examples listed below...
Russian Dacha Gardening
Here are two articles looking at how this practice has given Russians a level of food security that helped them through the chaos which came after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and now, is reducing the impact of the sanctions being imposed on their country because of the conflict with Ukraine. We realise that the first piece by Raw Egg Nationalist may not appeal to some of our readers because of it's conservative bias. We ask you to try to set that to one side because the piece makes some important points about the many benefits of localised food production as opposed to the corporate model that's being forced upon us. The second piece by Stephen Scott looks at the sense of community and solidarity among the dacha gardeners which to us, is an example of anarchism in action.
Digging for Victory - Raw Egg Nationalist | The American Mind | 20.10.22
Ordinary Russians produce a significant proportion of the food they eat, and in doing so, they ensure their nation a degree of food security that we, in the West, can only dream of at present, as well as providing a whole host of other benefits for themselves, their families, and their communities. This is a system known as “Russian household gardening” or “Russian dacha gardening.” I’ve made it one of the main subjects of my new book, The Eggs Benedict Option, because I believe it offers us a local vision of agriculture and food production that is an alternative to the globalized corporate model that has caused so many of modern man’s ills and is a central part, in an even more intensified form, of the looming Great Reset.
Russian Dacha Gardening – Homescale Agriculture Feeding Everyone - Stephen Scott | Terrior Seeds
The Russian mindset relating to the sharing of surplus food is important to examine, as it is one of the keys that ensure the success of the dacha gardening model. In dacha gardening, people will share their excess food out of a sense of abundance or plenty. It is a very positive and powerful motivator that creates an upward, positive spiral of sharing among the community.
For example, a neighbor helps you to build a fence on your property. Instead of paying them money for their help, you give them 50 pounds of apples from your tree. These apples have little monetary value for you, as you have all of the apples you can use for the year stored up, canned, made into apple butter and jams. You are sharing your abundance. The neighbor is overwhelmed, as this is a considerable gift for a few hours of work, so he feels compelled to share some of his gardens abundance with you, for the same reason. He shares from his abundance. This process continues around the neighborhood until there is a solid network of people actively sharing food with one another. This system creates a resilient food network that is not only local and sustainable but has many other positive benefits as well.
Gardening to survive in Cuba
This example comes from Cuba where it really was a case of 'needs must' when after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the loss of subsidised Soviet oil imports led to a crisis in transportation and food production. Rather than the previous example of Russians having a long tradition of localised growing, the Cuban people planting food in vacant lots was an immediate response to a major crisis. Out of that response to an emergency, a positive culture celebrating localised food production has emerged.
Urban Agriculture in Cuba - Mickey Ellinger | Reimagine
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Cuban economy collapsed with it. Gross domestic product fell by half and oil imports by 80 percent. Without subsidized Soviet oil and petroleum products, the cities faced a food and transportation crisis. Even though Cuba maintained basic food rationing so that no one would go without, calorie and protein intake fell below minimum levels as defined by the United Nations."
Scrambling to feed themselves and their families, some began planting food in vacant lots. Many early gardens failed for lack of knowledge, but the grow-your-own idea took hold. Through trial and error, ecologists and agronomists began establishing organoponicos, the distinctive raised bed organic gardens of Cuban urban agriculture today. Harvard ecologist Richard Levins, who worked with the Cubans in the 1980s, says “The rest of us [the ecologists] saw it as a process of converting ecologists-by-necessity into ecologists-by-conviction.”
Inner city farming in the USA
A number of cities in the USA have experienced decades long decline and abandonment of inner city neighbourhoods. Block after block have been emptied of people to the point where city authorities have decided the only option was to raze the abandoned buildings. A movement has emerged to claim some of that land and turn it over to localised food production, serving the needs of the residents who have stayed behind. Not only does this provide a degree of food security and a source of fresh food, it also plays a part in rebuilding a sense of community and solidarity.
Demystifying Urban Agriculture in Detroit - Flaminia Paddeu | MetroPolitics | 14.12.17
Furthermore, it could be a way to combat the decline of solidarity (Figure 3) caused by the breakdown of professional and neighborhood social networks. Some authors have also argued that the greening of vacant lands could have an impact on inhabitants’ sense of security. In Philadelphia, where brownfields have been sown, gun attacks and vandalism appear to have declined, while residents reported taking more outdoor exercise (Branas et al. 2011). Small-scale agroforestry and organic polyculture have also been promoted as a means of providing ecosystem services and beautifying dilapidated neighborhoods (Mogk, Kwiatkowski and Weindorf 2008). Urban agriculture could thus act as a remedy to heal the urban wounds opened by degrowth.
That's three examples from different parts of the world. The circumstances that led to the localising of food production are very different from each other. However, there are common factors. The obvious ones are a guarantee of food security and a supply of fresh food. There's also the fact that the food production is under the control of the community as opposed to the corporations. As mentioned previously, the really interesting common factor is the sense of community and solidarity that comes from the practice of communal food growing. That for us is key, because it's an indication of how we could be living in a more sustainable, satisfying and enriching way.
Two points:
Under the Albanian dictatorship (which I have just been writing about) the regime brought all food production and agriculture under its control. Even the keeping of 'private' chickens was banned. By the time the regime collapsed, the population was on food rations and required international aid.
The British government has just announced that households need to register to keep chickens.
I suggest that people don't comply.
Nice one, inspiring, like you say, especially as these examples developed within the context of societal breakdown. Like AK points out though, there are moves afoot to limit and/or hinder the potential of these systems. Getting around those will be where the community aspect of this will come in handy. A good idea to get projects like these up and running sooner rather than later, proactive rather than reactive, so then when the smelly stuff really hits the spinning thing that's felt as more of a bump in the road than a full-on crash.