Sharashkin, Leonid. The socioeconomic and cultural significance of

liberal reforms, forced millions of families to obtain garden-plots and grow food so as to
guarantee a supply of foodstuffs. Undoubtedly, striving for food security in times of uncertainty
should encourage self-provisioning. At the same time, it cannot purport to explain
the whole of the food gardening phenomenon, which is a highly diverse practice serving a
large variety of economic, social, and cultural purposes, of which production of foodstuffs
remains but one. Indeed, if food gardening was completely motivated by food security
needs in an unstable economy, it would be expected that the practice would not persist in
times of economic stability. However, the statistics show that food gardening was an extremely
widespread (and growing) phenomenon involving millions of households during
the 1980s, which were characterized by economic growth, stability, and full employment.
Obviously, “survival” could not be the primary motive for tending a garden in the 1980s.
Table 11. Number of gardening associations existing on July 1, 2006, by year in which
they were formed.
Year formed Number Percent of
total
Cumulative
number
Cumulative
percent
prior to 1961 4,636 5.8% 4,636 5.8%
from 1961 to 1970 6,426 8.0% 11,062 13.8%
from 1971 to 1980 7,958 9.9% 19,020 23.7%
from 1981 to 1990 23,856 29.7% 42,876 53.4%
from 1991 to 2003 36,470 45.4% 79,346 98.8%
2004 233 0.3% 79,579 99.1%
2005 348 0.4% 79,927 99.5%
2006 415 0.5% 80,342 100.0%
TOTAL 80,342 100.0%
Note: the average number of land plots per association was 172, with the total number of
plots in all associations equal to 13.83 million. Source: Rosstat 2007a. Preliminary results
of the 2006 Census of Agriculture, Issue 3.
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