Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses farming stress in post-1991 Slovenia. Drawing on theorisations of moral economy and social suffering, contrasting narratives of farmers convey common imperatives of what should be done. They demand abolishing the welfare state and setting fairer prices to improve their wellbeing.

Paper long abstract:

Agriculture and farming in Slovenia has been dramatically changed and restructured since proclaiming independence from socialist Yugoslavia in 1991 and joining the EU and the Common Agricultural Policy 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, efficient, innovative and competitive but also a just, healthy and satisfied farmer-entrepreneur.

This paper 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 moral imperatives of constantly changing agricultural developmental orientations since 1991 on the one hand, and their moral worlds of farming practices on the other. Drawing on theorisations of moral economy and social (emotional) suffering, the paper discusses ethnographically observed worries and anxieties (distress) among the farmers through examining their moral and immoral reflections and sentiments about the question of what should be done to improve their wellbeing and good farming. In this line, the observed sentiments and reflection of good/bad farming will not be treated just as forms of affect but as evaluative judgements, that is, things they consider to affect their wellbeing. In their contrasting narratives, farmers demand the abolishment of the welfare state and the setting of fairer prices rather than the introduction of psychological support.