Industrial Rural Development Paradigm-Grounded Social Movements

The countries experiencing very rapid processes of entering the market economy are the best laboratory for academic research on social movements. The radical agrarian transformation brought about by the industrialization of farming and capitalism’s penetration of the countryside help more clearly define the areas of interest and strategies of farmers’ movements involved in the industrial agribusinesses system. Lithuania, like other post-socialist countries, has entered the global agri-food market in the 1990s only. Social and economic failures of the industrial agri-food system have spurred the active formation of local and national social movements of farmers. This book chapter contains six case studies from Lithuania that demonstrate how the national social movements of farmers are involved in improvements of agro-industrial rural development. The selection of case studies was based on the evolutionary approach and covers the same areas of societal demands to the agro-industrial system that are observed around the world. The key insight of this study is that current literature on farmers’ social movements is too much focused on the struggles of poor farmers and hides the role of rich farmers in the formation of rural development policy.