Into the Breach

Russia’s Black Earth Zone has long been renowned as one of the world’s most fertile agricultural regions. Its humus-rich, mineral-packed soil would therefore seem to make this area the perfect place for a private farmer to make a mark. But then, there is so much more to farming than dirt.

The village of Zenkino, in Lipetsk Oblast’s Chaplygin District, has just six streets and 492 residents (according to the 2010 Russian census).

“Not even that many anymore,” says villager Vladimir Zavalishin.

Zavalishin would know. Raised in Zenkino, he is now the owner of the local cooperative known as Breakthrough (Прорыв). It is a cooperative in name only. In fact, Zavalishin does just about everything himself, and the story of how he got into farming might strike urbanites as a bit strange.

After finishing his army service, Zavalishin moved to Moscow. There he got a job as a sales manager at a major American company and settled into an apartment on the city’s outskirts. For many, it would have been a dream come true, yet Zavalishin never really adjusted to the city’s rhythm. Since he faced a daily two-hour commute to the center, he had to get up and out by six am and returned home only around 11 at night. One night he was home by eight, and it took him a long time to figure out what to do – he was not used to so much free time.

In short, he didn’t enjoy his life in Moscow all that much. And so, when they started letting people go at work, he barely hesitated before deciding to return to Zenkino, where his mother still lived. He bought a tractor, and the village administrators suggested that he set up a farming cooperative. The idea appealed to Zavalishin, so he rented a few plots from the village and named his cooperative Breakthrough, as a sign that he would successfully break into this new sphere. And so he did.

That was five years ago. Today Zavalishin farms about 40 hectares (just under 100 acres), which he still rents. Mainly he raises phacelia (used as a cover crop, and to attract bees) and mustard. But, there are also fields full of barley and millet. And he has plans to plant lupine.

“Mustard is a good crop to rotate in,” Zavalishin explains. “Do the math: barley yields three tons of grain per hectare, in other words you have to cart off three loads. But with mustard it’s just one ton, meaning just a single trip. So it works out that the transport costs are less, and the price on mustard is higher. Phacelia is also good for the topsoil, but I basically grow it to attract honey bees. What’s more, this crop is pretty expensive: last year I paid 85 rubles per kilogram, and now it goes for 180 rubles.”

“Do you keep bees?” I ask.

“No, but I have a beekeeper acquaintance. I help him by growing phacelia, and I know that, if I need it, he will help me. For example, he’ll give me a jar of honey if I catch a cold.”

Mutual assistance is key to helping small farmers survive in an industry dominated by huge corporate entities (state owned or otherwise). As we head out to one of his fields, Zavalishin continues to tell his story. It turns out he has a partner of sorts.

“I thresh, he transports. I handle the watering, he delivers the water,” Zavalishin explains. “It’s so much faster that way. If I see that something needs doing in the field and my partner for some reason or other can’t get there, I don’t wait. I go myself. If he can, he helps, if he can’t, it’s no big deal.”

Previously, Zavalishin tried growing other crops: clover, alfalfa, garlic, and potatoes. He struggled for an especially long time with garlic – three years, actually. In the end he realized that growing it was something of a science, full of specific nuances: the tilling, the fertilizers, the special equipment, and so on. For instance, Zavalishin had been under the impression that garlic was not plagued by pests of any sort, yet once he started growing it, he encountered the stem nematode, which he battled relentlessly (not always winning). After five hectares of garlic were destroyed by frost, he decided it was time for a different crop. Still, he does not exclude the possibility that one day he may try garlic again.

“Do you have any problem selling your crops?” I ask, looking out over the endless fields.

“When I started out, I worried about that,” he replies. “As it turned out, there was no reason to worry. The only problem I had with sales was when I grew potatoes. Not only did they require extra care in harvesting and cleaning, it turned out to be not so easy to sell them. Basically because everyone in the village grows potatoes.”

Some of his crops are sold via advertising, some through the renowned “sarafan radio” (сарафанное радио, meaning by word of mouth, based on the word for traditional Russian pinafores). Over time, he has developed repeat customers, which is not to say he turns away new customers. There are buyers who come from Lipetsk, Tambov, Tula, and Moscow Oblasts, as well as from Krasnodar Krai and other Russian regions. There was even the case when his clover was first hauled to Tula, then redirected to Moscow, and from there to some kolkhoz. So there is also no shortage of middlemen.

Zavalishin does not complain about competitors, though there are four other private farmers in the neighborhood, some of whom are farming over 200 hectares. For the most part they grow barley, wheat, and sunflowers. Some have taken on lupine, peas and oats. And one farmer, following Zavalishin’s example, sowed 120 hectares of mustard this year, instead of his usual four.

“There are no problems with sales,” Zavalishin summarizes. “Every buyer finds goods at the price he is willing to pay. The problem is that there is not enough land. I should have set up the cooperative when I first got out of the army; there were still plots to rent then. But now everything is rented out, so there is really no way to expand. So, I dream of extending my scope by starting a sturgeon farm.”

On the day of our interview, Zavalishin did not have any work he needed to do in the fields, so we went over to his house to see his equipment. A tractor and combine stood in the yard. He led me over to a T-150, explaining that he brought it here from Kursk, and that it did not run well at all when he bought it. Nearly everyone in the village criticized his purchase, saying he had wasted his money. But he got to work, rebuilt the transmission, and as a result improved the tractor’s performance, upgrading it from four speeds to ten. Soon after that, a friend from the neighboring village of Zhabino asked him to help overhaul his tractor, and Zavalishin pitched in. Eventually he replaced all of his T-150’s hoses and belts, added a muffler, painted it, and he now hopes to change out the cab, to make the tractor like new again. Even now, it is unrecognizable as the heap he purchased.

Zavalishin repairs all his equipment himself. By education he is actually a mechanical engineer for agro-machinery, having graduated from the Chaplygin Agrarian College. His friends often come around, asking for help. Zavalishin turns no one away, but of course he complains that people usually only come to him when something breaks. He is a strong believer in preventive maintenance, so that no day of good weather that could be better spent working in the fields is wasted on an emergency repair.

Zavalishin’s technological expertise even enabled him to invent an oil press. Farmers who specialize in growing sunflowers borrow his press, and in exchange he receives a bit of oil. Yet another example of mutual assistance.

Behind Zavalishin’s house is his phacelia field.

“Time to do some weeding,” the farmer observes. “As we know, there are monocot annuals and perennials and dicot annuals and perennials. Normally, herbicides kill just one type of weed, but not the other. I once asked my mother, who worked her whole life as a chemistry and biology teacher, what would happen if a herbicide killed off both monocot and dicot plants. She answered that then there would be no weeds left. I started looking for an herbicide that could do this, and I found it. Now I use it regularly on my fields.”

Aside from a sturgeon farm, Zavalishin plans to eventually purchase a seeder, and a warehouse to store his crops. For now, however, he is helped out on both fronts by the friends whose equipment he fixes.

The main part of Zavalishin’s work year stretches from the beginning of April until the beginning of October. The rest of the time he mainly repairs tractors and plays hockey. After the fall harvest, during which he works seven days a week, he rests. And, despite the heavy physical labor, Zavalishin is happy with his life choice.

“First of all, I get to breathe fresh air,” he says. “Second, I don’t have to spend four hours a day going to and from the office. I get up, and I am at work. Of course, there are times when I have to get up at six am, but I understand that my income is directly related to my labor. I am working for myself. If something doesn’t work out, I turn to my friends for help. A small farmer’s survival is based on mutual assistance. When you have friends who are always ready to help one another, there’s no need to fear any corporation.”