Russian backyard agriculture

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Around 35 million backyard gardens are in private family possession in Russia and the government supports this with a legal right to a free, tax-free piece of land from 1-3 ha (in some regions even up to 6 ha).

In 1999 those backyard farms produced 50% of all the milk, 60% of all meat, 77% of all vegetables, 87% of all fruit, and 92% of all potatoes and all that organically and sustainably. The entire country can in this way be feed without any real problems.

According to information from Russia the situation has gotten better still even since that time as more and more of such small backyard farms are coming “on stream”. The surplus of what is grown and now used by the householders and their family and laid up for winter and for seed, is sold on the local markets. That is, actually, one of the obligations that comes with being given free land.

Apparently, however, neither in the EU, nor Britain, nor the USA, this system could be implemented, so the powers-that-be (but probably shouldn't be) claim. Honest now, let's face it, we can't possibly allow people to be able to grow their own food on free land with a small house that the government also pays for – more or less – as is the case in Russia, and then sell surplus on the local markets. That would way too much cut the profits of the corporations.

Just imagine what would happen if people could do that and be able to grow all the food they and their families could possibly eat and then sell surplus as well. The whole idea of neo-liberal people control by controlling their food – and what goes into it – would go out of the window and that just would not do.

© 2018

Want to double world food production? Return the land to small farmers!

All over the world, small farmers are being forced off their land to make way for corporate agriculture, writes GRAIN - and it's justified by the need to 'feed the world'. But it's the small farmers that are the most productive, and the more their land is grabbed, the more global hunger increases. We must give them their land back!

The United Nations declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming. As part of the celebrations, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) released its annual 'State of Food and Agriculture', which this year is dedicated to family farming.

Family farmers, FAO say, manage 70-80% of the world's farmland and produce 80% of the world's food.

But on the ground - whether in Kenya, Brazil, China or Spain - rural people are being marginalised and threatened, displaced, beaten and even killed by a variety of powerful actors who want their land.

Read more here.

Why land, on which to build a home and grow food, is our ultimate security

There’s a general feeling – and a growing one I think – that we’re headed for disaster, and that no-one is in control or able to steer us away from the precipice. Here are four categories of reasons that people give for pessimism about the near future:

1. ecology: scientists are telling us that we’re seriously damaging nature, and that we’re already in a mass extinction event
2. war: more and more countries are acquiring nuclear weapons, weapons technology is becoming deadlier, there are flashpoints all around the world, empires and blocs are waxing and waning and there is a distinct possibility that terrorist groups could acquire a nuclear capability at some point
3. technology: several other technologies are being developed that could escalate beyond our means to control them, especially genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology
4. population: from the first humans to 1960, the human population grew to 3 billion; but we’re now headed towards 10 billion by the middle of this century – all requiring food, shelter, energy and aspiring to cars, TVs and flights, from a planet whose nature is already degrading with 7 billion of us

We absolutely don’t have the models or tools to make accurate risk assessments, so I suggest that we ignore commentators who claim to have a handle on the likelihood of any of these scenarios and lean towards the precautionary principle. Civilisations have fallen before, but without affecting other areas of the world; this time it’s global, and we don’t have anywhere else to go.

Read more here.

Russians want a return of the family estates

The wish here is not for a return of the feudal estates of the pre-revolution era but a return of the land to the people

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

A law currently for consideration in the State Duma would grant every Russians at least one hectare of land for free use under the estates. The document guarantees the right of Russian citizens on the ground as the main national wealth.

“We propose to give every citizen the right to create a Russian family estate. Every Russian can choose a plot of land that will be provided by the state for free use, to create a patrimonial estate.”

“This plot of land citizen can possess, dispose of and bequeath”, said the deputy head of the LDPR faction, Yaroslav Nilov, which is one of the sponsors of the bill.

The minimum size of land, which will be given free of any charges to citizen for such a family estate, can not be less than one hectare.

Any such area of land in the hands of individual families for their estate will create a “balanced ecological system of the fruit, berries, nuts and other perennial plants, with the presence of bodies of water and green areas – habitats of animals, birds, insects and other living organisms”.

The maximum size of the plot is proposed to be established by the various regions in their individual laws.

The right to such an ancestral estate will be non-pecuniary in nature and, as already stated, free of any charges. Citizens on such estates will be exempt from taxation on the sale of manufactured products and/or produce and on the land itself. And the same shall apply to him and his family and any and all residential building that are located on such a site.

In addition, such an estate can not be bought, sold, leased, shared or passed on, except, so it is understood, as inheritance. It also will not be able to confiscated and seized for public use.

The law, if adopted, will come into force on 1 July 2014.

According to the authors of the document, it will revive the village to settle depopulated land away from major shopping centers, and to get rid of poverty and misery. It will strengthen the institution of the family, restore the fertility of agricultural land and improve the food security of the country's citizens through organic food, and will generally provide a “solid foundation of spiritual revival of society”.

This call for a return to the family estate villages is a reminder of the call of the Tsarina Katherine the Great which made many Germans, who replied to her call, to Russian-Germans in just such kind of villages, until the Stalinists came and confiscated the land and deported the people to Siberia.

While the Russian LDPR party is but a small party and may not have all that great an influence and some may with to, therefore, discount them let's wish them and others who are backing this proposal luck and let's hope that such a law can become reality.

It would appear that the proposed law is very much inspired by the Anastasia books, aka Ringing Cedars, which set forth the development of such villages of multi-generational family estates.

Russia and many of its politicians seem to understand what those in the West don't. Namely that food security does not come from big agricultural operations but from smallholding in the village setting.

Russia has already proven that this works with the privately owned plots of land with dachas in the countryside where more food, per hectare is being grown (and brought to market) by private individuals and families than by the agricultural industry in either Russia or the West. Prove that we do not need genetically manipulated and engineered organisms to feed the world but proper agriculture, on the small scale.

Maybe the West can learn from those proposals and the people could actually demand such actions in order for us the regenerate the land and its people.

We need a new system and not a new government. In fact, government is but a hindrance the the system as it stands destroys the Earth and everything on it.

© 2013