GRANTED TO PRIVATISE,

FAILED TO CAPITALISE THE ROLE OF PRODUCTION POLITICS IN

EMERGING FARM TYPOLOGIES IN POST-

SOVIET TAJIKISTAN

IAMO Forum 2017

1

Irna Hofman

23 June 2017

Presentation outline

Theoretical underpinning

Research locale & methodology

Empirical findings

Conclusion

2

Theoretical underpinning 3

The agrarian question in the post-socialist

context

Post-Soviet social differentiation

Capital entering the rural area:

From ‘above’

From ‘below’

Production politics (Burawoy 1985)

The socio-technical regime

the socio-technical regime is

‘the rule-set or grammar embedded in a complex of

engineering practices, production process technologies,

(...) skills and procedures, ways of handling relevant

artifacts and persons, ways of defining problems – all of

them embedded in institutions and infrastructures’ (Rip

and Kemp 1998, 338).

Production politics4

Monopsonies of cotton buyers

State coercion to grow cotton (50-70 % of land

area)

Reduced land tax cotton (50 %)

Disincentives cultivation non-cotton crops:

Politicized credits

Little private market development (input markets)

Difficult access to (urban) outlets

Poor post-harvest facilities (for consumable crops)

Lack of farm know-how/entrepreneurial attitude

Infrastructure adapted to large-scale production system

Research locale5

The Yovon district:

Near urban centres

Access to markets

Off-farm employment

Relatively industrialised under Soviet rule

Relatively well-functioning infrastructure

Methodology6

Long term longitudinal case study

Farm typology as a heuristic device, based on

qualitative characteristics

World Bank’s will to improve7

1999: Farm Privatisation Support Program

One-time start-up grant

Advisory and extension services

Rehabilitation of water ways

Credit/financial assistance/institutional set-up

Emerging typology8

Dominant

economic

base

Crops Market

integration

Outlets Labour

Organisatio

n

Large

Farm

Enterprise

Non-

rural/agrarian

Cotton,

grains,

animal feed

Fully

integrated

Large

conglomerate

s

Contracted

wage labour

Farmer by

default

Farm/off-

farm

Cotton,

wheat,

vegetables

Partial

integration

Contracted/Pr

e-specified

Family

labour

Urban

tenant

Off-

farm/urban

Cash crops

(horticulture

)

Relative

autonomy

Small urban

outlets/self-

selected

Family

labour

Diversifyin

g

smallhold

er

Farm Horticulture Relative

Autonomy

Self-selected Family

labour

Emerging types (1)9

The Post-Soviet Large Farm Enterprise

‘Politically-assisted’ – domestic elites

Prime way of capital entering farming

Contracted/casual wage labour

Soviet farming patterns (division of labour)

Large scale extensive farming (little diversity)

Emerging types (2)10

The farmer ‘by default’

Former Soviet farm worker

Family labour

Outside credit/capital essential

Off farm labour

Migrant remittances

Partial market integration, primarily cotton

Emerging types (3)11

The urban(based) farmer

Urban dweller

Short-term tenancy (1-2 growing seasons)

Eased access/insights urban markets

Relative choice obtaining inputs

Emerging types (4)12

The diversifying smallholder

The ‘new peasantry’?

In the interstices of elite control:

Carving out autonomous space

Selective in input markets and outlets

Conclusion13

Processes of agrarian change

Locally-specific

Unleashed by dynamics beyond the countryside

Farm types can (co)exist as long as they do not

interfere with elite interests;

Coping with or playing the market