Abstract
Some farmers in the Central Finger Lakes Region of New York balance their production between principles of peasant farming and capitalist farming. They struggle to extend their sphere of autonomy and subsistence production, while extended commodity production is often a response to external forces of the state and capital. This struggle, together with a quantitative increase of small farms, can be described as an instance of repeasantization. Based on inductive, empirical qualitative social research, this case study describes the economy and social organization of six farms in the area under investigation and explores the applicability of the rich theory of peasant farming to agriculture in this community. Besides selling commodities to pay for many farming inputs and consumer goods, the farms produce for their subsistence and that of their community. They exchange products and services with other farms, they build networks of mutual provisioning, support, and mentorship, and try to take good care of the land. This paper shows that subsistence production and peasant culture are not restricted to the past or the Global South, but also exist as pockets of peasantness on six New York farms. The perspective applied in this paper suggests that principles of peasant farming may shape farming on other US farms, too, if we accept that these principles intersect with constrains of the larger capitalist market society in which they are embedded.
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Notes
or consubstantiality, as Gray (1998) calls it.
Note that there are many more definitions of peasants or peasantries used in different contexts. See Edelman (2013) for a comprehensive review.
Likewise, I emphasize my positionality and personal learning story throughout this paper as a means for you, reader, to situate the interpretation of my findings.
At the other two farms, I was not able to participate due to my lack of training with specialized equipment.
Bernstein (2010) argues that this is precisely why the peasantry ceased to exist. There is just no escape from engaging in capitalistic behavior. Although this observation is well taken, it does not distinguish between farmers who use these tactics for accumulation as an end in itself, or as a way to obtain the means for their simple reproduction.
Considering that identity, well-being, and capacities to act collectively are actively produced (through cooperation either based on shared labor or exchange of material goods) through labor, it would be more appropriate to talk about these values as more-than-material instead of more-than-economic.
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Acknowledgements
This research has been made possible by a travel grant provided by University of Natural Resource and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). During the fieldwork, the Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University hosted me as a visiting scholar. I thank Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen and Rachel Bezner Kerr for their supervision and guidance. I would also like to thank Julie Dawson, Alicia Swords, and four anonymous reviewers for feedback. In particular, I would like to thank the farmers in this study for taking the time to participate and continuing their inspiring work.
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Strube, J. Pockets of peasantness: small-scale agricultural producers in the Central Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Agric Hum Values 36, 837–848 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09944-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09944-z