Russia has some of the best farmland in the world.
Russia HAD some of the best farmers in the world and they knew how to work
that prime farmland. Soviet Stalinism changed the face of traditional
Russian farming.
They converted all farming operations to collective farms generating food
to ship to the party elite well away from where that food was grown,
leaving farmers, their families and relatives,
communities and villlages living and working in a state of near poverty or
thereabouts, otherwise not fairly compensated for their labors. The Russian
farmers of old, called Kulaks (as far as I know) were the experts carrying
forward the best traditions of Russian agriculture. The Kulaks were not
happy with the changeover. Their displeasure did not go unnoticed in the
ceners of political control so they were either exiled to Siberia or
exterminated. Russia was left with no new generation who know how to work
those magnificent lands (Black Earth Region stretching from Ukraine to
Siberia). That's what you have now so no new national agricultural
infrastructure serving the Russian people at large. Just oligarchs and
their schemes one of which is to sell or lease some of that Black Earth
region. But you have the Dacha Gardeners and community and village gardens
as well most probably with larger farms distributing food throughout their
regions. You will like this: I met a Krishna follower in Whole Foods one
evening years ago and struck up a conversation asking him about organic
agriculture there. He replied that after the Soviets left their traditional
farming resumed without missing a beat. Most of their farms were small
family units with some medium large with all food sold locally or
distributed within the immediate region if they were one of the few larger
commercial operations. It was an assumed fact that the food sold at markets
was organically grown. If a grower tried to sell food
produced using methods involving pesticides, it became known rapidly and
that vendor was shut out of the marketplace.
LL
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