Paper Short Abstract:

In the paper, I examine the expansion of modern agricultural models in the largest apple-growing region of Poland. I analyse smaller farmers’ strategies of resistance, trying to find some alternative ways of thinking about the future of agriculture.

Paper Abstract:

The Plantationocene is yet another analytical category that attempts to capture the scale and pace of changes following capitalist globalisation. The focus of this concept is on the global network of inter-species relations that make up contemporary food production systems. In the proposed paper, I examine the impact of the expansion of the intensifying model of agriculture on Polish fruit growing. I interpret Plantationocene as an ongoing capitalist world-making project, which, although aiming at standardising agricultural practices, at the same time, actually, constantly reproduces the underlying differences. That is because the emerging plantation worlds depend on the previous systems, and it is in this relation that I see the potential for resistance and possible alternative ways of development. In the conditions of the “Grójec apple basin”, the plantation-inspired agriculture is paving its way in a post-peasant agrarian structure based on hundreds of relatively small farms. I analyse resistance strategies to this expansion, such as limiting spraying or selecting varieties based on their resilience rather than productivity. I argue that not only are they not directed against specialised agriculture as such, but their goal is to keep a certain form of it alive. My approach is that while using the concept of Plantationocene to analyse modern food production systems, it is important not to equalise all of the contemporary agricultural practices with plantation. The former – although sometimes equally destructive – leaves space for alternative production ways, and thus for the emergence of better, more inclusive, multi-species futures.