Persistent farmland imaginaries: celebration of fertile soil and the recurrent ignorance of climate
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Persistent farmland imaginaries: celebration of fertile soil and the recurrent ignorance of climate Oane Visser1 Accepted: 12 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This article looks at how imaginaries of land and climate play a role in farmland investment discourses and practices. Foreign farmland investors in the fertile black earth region of Russia and Ukraine have ‘celebrated’ soil fertility while largely ignoring climatic factors. The article shows a centuries-long history of outsiders coming to the region lured by the fertile soils, while grossly underestimating climate which has had disastrous implications for farm viability and the environment. Comparisons with historical and contemporary literature on other regions (e.g. the US prairies and North Africa) suggest that the underestimation of climatic risks by newcomers is remarkably prevalent in resource frontiers. Keywords Land imaginaries · Ignorance · Soil · Farmland investment · Climate The Russian black earth soil is more valuable than gold (statement by renowned soil scientist Vasily V. Dokuchaev in the late nineteenth century).1 The Company holds ownership of an extensive land bank of first-class soil (…). The soil type, Chernozem or “black earth”, has a black color and contains a high percentage of humus…. It usually has great depth, over 1 meter, and exhibits a clay like structure which facilitates agricultural field works and is also favorable for retaining water. (website of Swedish-owned farmland company ‘Black Earth Farming’ operating in Russian and Ukraine from 2005–2017).2
Introduction This article examines the remarkable historical persistence of farmland imaginaries in the face of opposing evidence. In particular, it investigates how favourable imaginaries of the soil by farmland investors can sideline important climatic factors, with potentially far-reaching implications for farm operations and the environment. It will do so based on the * Oane Visser [email protected] 1
International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, of Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
case of the black earth, which is widely considered the most fertile soil in the world. Some of the world’s largest stretches of black earth (chernozem)3 can be found in southern Russia and most of Ukraine. Since the mid-2000s, this black earth area, the agricultural heartland of the former Soviet Union, has experienced a rapid rise of farmland investment in the context of the global farmland rush (or global ‘land grab’). The accounts of farmland investors flocking to this region in search of ‘untapped’ farmland have been littered with praise of ‘the black earth, millions of hectares of ultra-fertile agricultural land’ (The Local 2009), with soil that is ‘legendary’4 and constitutes the ‘best soil of the world’ (Kuns et al. 2016; Visser 2017), a ‘dream soil’ (The Local 2009), that farmers in the in the West ‘would kill for’. There is much scientific basis for praising the black earth, as there is little doubt that it is
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