Farmer Distress Through Ordinary Ethics: «Abolish the Social Support and Give Us Fairer Prices!»

Abstract

Agriculture in Slovenia has been dramatically changed since proclaiming independence from socialist Yugoslavia in 1991 and joining the European Union in 2004. Since then, the farmer-entrepreneur has become a role-model of various agricultural developmental orientations. Yet the newly defined «moral economy» expected farmers to follow contrasting imperatives of pursuing constant economic growth, environmental and social sustainability propagated through the normative person, who should be simultaneously a productive, innovative and competitive but also a just, healthy and satisfied farmer-entrepreneur. This article discusses some results of the ongoing anthropological project «Changes in Agriculture through the Farmers’ Eyes and Bodies». The author argues that farmers have been squeezed between contrasting sets of values and imperatives of constantly changing agricultural developmental orientations since 1991 on the one hand, and their moral worlds of farming practices on the other. These developments, however, have not brought only opportunities to advance farms that was not possible under socialism, but equally so farmers’ lived experience of uncertainties. The article focuses on ethnographically observed anxieties among the farmers through examining their ordinary moral reflections and sentiments about current circumstances for farming what Lambek (2010) refers to as «ordinary ethics». Farmers revolve around the issues of social welfare and normal prices through communicative acts to assert guilt and responsibility for their lived distress in the context of labour intensification and the changing rural communities. This communicative labour also highlights the ethical breach between farmers and the State, and between «real farmers» and «fake farmers», bringing the ethical dimension to the forefront when considering farmer distress.