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Russia: A “Dacha” for Everyone? Community Gardens and Food Security in Russia

Datcha and luxurious garden in Valdai, in the Oblast of Novgorod. Photo by Jonas Bendiksen

Russia’s large-scale peri-urban community agriculture has proven to be a very resilient food system.

By Arthur Grimonpont
No Tech Magazine

Excerpt:

The Russian Gardener’s Association estimates that of the one hundred million people in Russia, sixty million engage in gardening activites in order to produce food. Even in the largest cities, such as Moscow or St Petersburg, over half of the population has an arable plot. These people are called gardener-inhabitants, or datchniki. In provincial towns, such as Kazan, their number can reach as high as 80% of the population. Throughout the country, there are an estimated 80,000 garden communities, which range from around ten to a few thousand plots.

Garden communities (similar to allotments in the UK) appeared in 1917, following the increasing and worsening food shortages after the Russian state established a monopoly on food production. The gardens, informal by origin, were originally disapproved by Soviet powers. However, they quickly became managed by the state due to their undeniable efficiency in counteracting the shortages. The communities were controlled by state businesses that divided the property into equal plots and distributed them to employees.

Read the complete article here.