Beyond confrontation: silent growers, symbiosis and subtle peasantness in post-socialist Eurasia

A striking discrepancy exists between post-socialist Eurasia’s rising importance within the global food system and its virtual invisibility in global academic debates on key agrarian issues. Therefore, the chapter highlights three major insights from research in the region that are of wider international relevance. First, Eurasia constitutes fertile ground for interrogating ideas of predictable trajectories of the peasantry’s disappearance and re-emergence. Second, research into interactions between Eurasian corporate and smallholding farms points to the possibility of a mutually advantageous rather than zero-sum relationship. Third, post-socialist smallholders’ food practices reveal large volumes of food produced and shared in unintentionally sustainable ways.