Russian agri-food system in a context of social-ecological change

Post-Soviet institutional change, climate change, and the self-sufficiency orientation of the present Russian policies confront the rural areas of Russia with the immense challenges of finding a development path that can endure in the long run. This book explores some aspects of the current social-ecological change by focussing on the institutions in the contemporary agri-food system. In particular, two distinct action situations are contrasted: agricultural land management, which continues to be influenced by the state, and grain marketing, characterised by the early state withdrawal. In-depth institutional analysis was conducted based on qualitative research in Western Siberia. It reveals that the current institutions in both land management and agricultural marketing pose challenges for the long-term development of agricultural production. To explicate the diversity of future implications stemming from a particular development path, four stakeholder -supported scenarios of future land use are proposed. The scenarios show that adaptation in both the social and the environmental dimension of the agri-food system will be required to successfully tackle the current and the upcoming challenges.