40% Of Russia’s Food Is Grown From Dacha Gardens

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40% Of Russia’s Food Is Grown From Dacha Gardens
Topic Started: Aug 11 2015, 01:15 AM (295 Views)
Durgan	Aug 11 2015, 01:15 AM Post #1
Veteran Member Posts: 13,273 Group: Gardening Guru Member #720 Joined: March 31, 2010	http://www.trueactivist.com/40-of-russias-food-is-grown-from-dacha-gardens/ 40% Of Russia’s Food Is Grown From Dacha Gardens While the majority of citizens in developed nations rely on large-scale agriculture, the Russian people feed themselves. When one digs deeper into the numbers reported by Russian Statistics Service, however, some very impressive details are discovered. In 2011, dacha gardens produced over 80% of the country’s fruit and berries, over 66% of the vegetables consumed, almost 80% of the potatoes purchased, and nearly 50% of the nation’s milk supply – much of it consumed raw. Read More: http://www.trueactivist.com/40-of-russias-food-is-grown-from-dacha-gardens/



Durgan	Aug 11 2015, 01:17 AM Post #2
Veteran Member Posts: 13,273 Group: Gardening Guru Member #720 Joined: March 31, 2010	Russia is not the only nation to produce such a large amount of its own food. Havana, Cuba reported producing 90% of its city’s produce from local urban farms and gardens.



Trotsky	Aug 11 2015, 06:14 AM Post #3
Big City Boy Posts: 38,319 Group: Member Member #79 Joined: September 8, 2005	The U.S. produces about 83% of the agricultural product it consumes. A large portion of the imports are tropical products like bananas, spices, coffee, and tea, for obvious reasons. We are a net exporter of food. The Industrial Revolution took us from an agrarian nation to an industrial one. Seems we are going back to agrarian. (Now if we can only convince China they need to eat a LOT more high fructose corn syrup, from our overabundance of corn we might fix our moribund trade imbalances) Edited by Trotsky, Aug 11 2015, 06:18 AM.



Durgan	Aug 11 2015, 06:21 AM Post #4
Veteran Member Posts: 13,273 Group: Gardening Guru Member #720 Joined: March 31, 2010	Trotsky Aug 11 2015, 06:14 AM The U.S. produces about 83% of the agricultural product it consumes. A large portion of the imports are tropical products like bananas, spices, coffee, and tea. We are a net exporter of food. Ya missed the point. A dacha garden is a small family effort. We almost produce nothing at the family level. In fact there are not even statistics on the matter. We,the people, have given food production over to the big interests.



Trotsky	Aug 11 2015, 07:25 AM Post #5
Big City Boy Posts: 38,319 Group: Member Member #79 Joined: September 8, 2005	Oh sure, we have, acre by acre. We, the people, have given food production over to the big interests. What small farms there were have sold for house construction and lawns from sea to shining sea. The mighty dollar allowed the BIG corporate agriculture conglomerates to buy up all the farmland in the United States. So now it's Archer Daniels Midland, and Beatrice Foods that own the means of food production. Granny with her rose garden long ago gave up producing rutabagas. As far as Russia is concerned, They INVENTED the concept of state owned cooperative farms on a mammoth scale. We are merely aping them with one difference, our owners are plutocratic billionaires instead of the public, aka the state. Russia: Quote: The new legal environment created expectations among Western scholars and Russian reform advocates that family farms would emerge in large numbers and the large-scale collective farms would be restructured. But as it turned out, few peasants were interested in establishing individual farms, and management and operating practices inside large agricultural enterprises remained largely unchanged despite formal reorganization.[1] The lack of enthusiasm for the creation of private farms was attributed to inadequate rural infrastructure, which did not provide processing and marketing services for small producers and also to the fear that families striking out on their own might lose eligibility for social services that were traditionally provided by the local corporate farm instead of the municipality.[2] Starting in 1993, privatized kolkhoz and sovkhoz became a "corporate farm". These farms were legally reorganized as common stock companies, limited liability partnerships, or agricultural production cooperatives and turned over, usually in their entirety, to the joint ownership of agricultural workers and pensioners. These farms continued to operate largely as they had done under the Soviet system. Today, the term "corporate farm" is an all-inclusive phrase describing the various organizational forms that arose in the process of privatisation without involving distribution of physical parcels of land to individuals.



Dana	Aug 11 2015, 08:20 AM Post #6
WWS Hummingbird Guru & Wildlife photographer extrordinaire Posts: 13,054 Group: Member Member #830 Joined: March 23, 2011	Most of us produce nothing at the family level but some of us have always grown some of our own produce. I feel sorry for those who do not know how. I had one family next door whose child told me that their apples came from the store as he refused one of the great tasting apples from my tree. That child's parents were, between them, afraid of every insect that flew or crawled. It is sad to see so much wasted fruit lying on the ground in the fall. People will pay almost a dollar for an apple at the store yet not do anything with the ones on the tree. How did the majority of us get so far removed from nature? ( 3 part time jobs?) Mom had a sister living in the old country, a part of Russia for many years. When her sis wrote she spoke of her wealth which included a cow as well as a pig or two. Due to the extreme poverty of the ordinary citizen in Russia after WW2 I think that many there never lost touch with the earth in the way that we in NA have and so, still grow as much as they can for themselves. I do what I can without overexerting myself. It is a good thing that the spring stuff finishes before the heavy summer heat arrives. I have to think about how to change things to adapt to the longer dry spells we are having. You are right Durgan. There are other gardeners on my block, at least three more but I don't know that they grow many veggies. Edited by Dana, Aug 11 2015, 04:56 PM.



Kahu	Aug 11 2015, 11:59 AM Post #7
Posts: 31,109 Group: Administration Member #150 Joined: December 14, 2005	Home-garden Production According to the 1956 Census, 60 per cent of the 563,052 inhabited private dwellings had a garden. Some gardens provided the following proportionate vegetable needs (other than potatoes). Proportion of Needs Percentage of Total Specified All 8.73 Three-quarters 4.41 One-half 8.40 One-quarter 10.33 Under one-quarter 18.40 Nil 49.73 (New Zealand Official Year Book, 1964) We are most certainly losing the ability to produce our home grown food. I know I don't grow as much food as I used to when the family was at home - but I still have a seasonal variety (tomatoes, lettuces, cabbage, celery, strawberries, garlic, herbs etc). We used to have a quarter acre culture here where every homeowner grew their own vegetables, and bartered and swapped with neighbours. However, with the pressure of finding suitable land for housing, sections have got smaller, and the vegetable garden is one area which is being rapidly lost. A complication is that now NZ-Australia have coordinating Food Standard Laws. Our culture of home gardening, food sharing and small artisan producers is at risk of being suppressed by future ministerial decree, as is consideration of genetic engineering as a food safety issue. The Food Bill, supposedly intended to reduce compliance costs for the food industry and the incidence of food-borne illness, has such sweeping powers that even the best intent could be lost under bureaucratic pressure or a minister with a Monsanto agenda. Source Link Australia has GM food ... NZ doesn't ... A reference to GM foods has been reinstated in the Act to make it clear that the Government has the ability to make New Zealand-only standards relating to GM food in the exceptional circumstances set out in the Food Treaty with Australia. Food Act - Source Link



wildie	Aug 11 2015, 01:57 PM Post #8
Veteran Member Posts: 12,173 Group: Member Member #442 Joined: October 11, 2006	Once I had 3600 sq.ft. cultivated at my dacha (cottage). After working every Saturday and Sunday on hoeing and watering, for the whole growing season. I found that I could buy the same produce from roadside stands at 1/3 the price that it cost me in time and labour. Gardening is fine as a labour of love, but home gardening is just, out and out, inefficient.



Durgan	Aug 11 2015, 04:22 PM Post #9
Veteran Member Posts: 13,273 Group: Gardening Guru Member #720 Joined: March 31, 2010	wildie Aug 11 2015, 01:57 PM Once I had 3600 sq.ft. cultivated at my dacha (cottage). After working every Saturday and Sunday on hoeing and watering, for the whole growing season. I found that I could buy the same produce from roadside stands at 1/3 the price that it cost me in time and labour. Gardening is fine as a labour of love, but home gardening is just, out and out, inefficient. You have valid points. And your description is essentially valid. I have enough experience to know what to grow, but even then much of it is certainty not economic. Right now I have kale that would feed half the neighborhood with only eight plants. My main vegetable garden is only about 1500 square feet and I can grow almost all necessary vegetables for the year. Preservation is the real issue, which I solved mostly by juicing or slurrying. I purchase local produce when suitable. I dislike most Farmers Markets, since much of the produce is lousy. One must actually get to the place where the material is grown, if such can be found. For the casual meal, they are suitable but not for purchasing in quantity and preserving. Efficiency has improved with some of the modern tools, particularly the small rototiller. But agriculture is still a lot of bull work and needs cheap labour if practiced on any scale. Slaves if you like. Little has changed over the centuries, except those dammed slave keep getting uppity. The dream of the modern workforce is to sit in front of a computer monitor and make enough money to buy all their necessities.



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