Rural Livelihood Diversification: A Solution for Poverty in the Post‐Soviet Rural Baltic States?

Abstract

This article analyses rural livelihood diversification through a longitudinal follow‐up survey, that targets former collective farm workers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It argues, that between 1995 and 2010 the former collective farm workers employed three distinct livelihood diversification strategies in order to create their living. A wage‐based livelihood diversification strategy, which does not include any agricultural practices, was more common among the better‐off households. A farm‐based livelihood diversification strategy, which does not rely on salaries, was more often employed by the poor. A mixed strategy, that combines both wage income and farm activities, was used by both better‐off (above the poverty line) and poor households (below the poverty line). The paper also finds that livelihood diversification and poverty among the researched households have country specific patterns, which coincide with the general rural development in Baltic states.

Rural spatial transformation and governance from the perspective of land development rights: A case study of Fenghe village in Guangzhou

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Trends in Agricultural Land in EU Countries of the Baltic Sea Region from the Perspective of Resilience and Food Security

“…Compared to Poland, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had a reprivatisation of state-owned farms, where mainly family farmers took over the land, fragmenting former large collective farms from the Soviet era [51,68]. These smaller farms have been gradually merging with larger farms, a process that was likely sped up by the countries joining the EU in 2004 [51,68]. According to our results, this process has been the fastest in Estonia, which, out of the three Baltic countries, had the highest percentage of its UAA belonging to large farms.…”

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