printFarming is an (Un)Rooted Social Group:
Problem Statement
Velikiy P.P.
Leading Researcher, Institute of Agrarian Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saratov, Russia iagpran@mail.ru
This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, grant No. 24-28-00219.
Velikiy P.P. Farming is an (Un)Rooted Social Group: Problem Statement. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2024. No 5. P. 79-88
The article examines the objective and subjective life prerequisites of modern Russian farming, a new group in the social village structure. Based on the parameters established in practice for the size of farming into small, medium and large groups, the author substantiated the main prerequisites for their rooting in the agro-industrial complex and the life of rural communities. Large farmers are the most securely rooted; medium-sized farmers are weaker. Particularly dramatic is the situation for heads of small farms, whose number has decreased by half over ten years (from 2006 to 2016). It has been suggested that the resources of this group, primarily arable land, will eventually pass over to large farmers. Medium-sized farmers are also close to this situation, mainly due to the lacking heirs capable of farming in rural conditions. This could lead to further reductions in the farming lifestyle. The author’s ideas are formulated on ways to rationalize the sociodynamics of the farms’ composition in order to maintain not only their economic and sociocultural role, but also the employment of the mass of rural residents. Actors of the farming way of life are the subject of transitional social states of society and its individual systems, where the lines of many economic, social and ideological players intersect. When realizing their life plans, they act in a space of uncertain future beyond their control.
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