Land grabbing and rural governance in the former Soviet Union

Abstract

textabstractThis chapter is dealing with land grabbing and rural governance, focusing on the vast agricultural areas of the former Soviet Union, in particular on Russia. Most studies in this field have been looking at developing countries, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa, but actually Russia shows to be an important and fascinating case, also because rural governance has been strong under socialist planning, while weakening severely during the first decade of transition. The crumbling of many of the collective and state farms, made it possible that large-scale land acquisitions took place, concentrating the land of these large farms in even larger agricultural holdings. Conflicts arose, as much land was transferred to capital groups in “shady deals” and illegal evictions took place, but civil society organizations are weakly developed, while the role of the State (very often supporting large-scale agriculture and animal husbandry) has been strengthened since Putin came to power.