There's no place like home
CEE countries, despite the rapid shift away from Soviet-era policies, are uniquely positioned to teach some valuable lessons to the 'free-market West' that were learned through decades spent in 'economies of shortage.'
Another Smith and Jehlicka study, Stories around Food, Politics and Change in Poland and the Czech Republic, explores some of the "diverse responses to 'transition' that are resistant or alternative to dominant narratives of linear progression towards Western 'normality.'"
The authors claim that "in the years preceding the political changes of 1989, there were widely shared practices of thrift and self-reliance at the individual household level in many spheres of everyday life in CEE countries." Some of these practices included self-provisioning and barter, and originated from government policies that resulted either in "high costs or unavailability of fresh fruit and vegetables."
Another factor was that state-related work, if undemanding or unfulfilling, allowed many people the leisure time necessary to grow their own food, and to share or trade edibles with friends and neighbours.
It would seem that expanded consumer choice in a market-based economy is inimical to self-provisioning and barter, but other market and cultural forces to consider are that urban populations are pursuing higher incomes and have less free time, and that there are more households with two working parents. Also, rapid expansion of car ownership, along with improved infrastructure provision (water, electricity), has converted many former smallholdings into private dwellings.
But contrary to expectations, "suburbanization and the growth of supermarket shopping [in the Czech Republic] has not eradicated widespread systems and self-provisioning" (Food Stories). A Smith and
Jehlicka survey from 2005 revealed that 41.5 percent of Czechs sampled used a garden or allotment to produce fruit or vegetables for personal consumption. Another surprise is that economics do not appear to be the primary motivating factor. In fact, those Czechs with the highest living standards are more likely to grow their own food (43.6 percent) than those with the lowest (35 percent).
A provocative case study like this shows, in Smith and Jehlicka's own words, "how official discourses of sustainability [have] ignored culturally and historically embedded, socially widespread and largely non-market practices. This is despite the fact that they are closely compatible with ideas of sustainable consumption as reduced or lower consumption."
Circumstances demand that we must seek ways to tackle the world's pressing food shortages and environmental threats. For many people in Central and Eastern Europe, some of the best answers might lie just outside the front door.
