Agroekologia, powrót do ziemi. Nowe rozumienie relacji rolnika z naturą w ramach alternatyw dla współczesnego systemu żywnościowego
Agroecology, the Return to the Fields. A New Understanding of the Farmer’s Relationship with Nature as an Alternative to the Modern Food System

Author(s): Tymon Jurczak
Subject(s): Agriculture, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: agriculture; agroecology; nature; relation with nature; food system; ethnography; neo-peasants; van der Ploeg
Summary/Abstract: In the last decades a new type of a farmer has emerged in Poland. This new group is composed mostly of people coming from cities and engaged in activism. What differentiates them from the majority of farmers, that is those who usually inherit their family farms, is their characteristic relationship with nature and the soil they farm on. The pro-ecological models of farming and distribution that they choose, that is ecological or biodynamic agriculture, community-supported agriculture, or food cooperatives, often stem from a contestation of the reality of the current food system. In its place, they postulate a reorganization of food production based on a subjectification of the soil and the environment as actors taking non-passive part in the production process. Such reshaping of the relation between humans and nature is possible because of the social and cultural capital of the farmers. It is reflected in their work on the fields which I discuss in the article using self-gathered ethnographic material as a basis.

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