Quietness and Adaptability: Ukrainian Peasants’ Responses to Land Grabbing and Agribusiness Expansion

While peasants worldwide have united in social movements to fight land grabbing and protect their right to an adequate standard of living, including their right to food and right to land, the post-Soviet rural population, such as in Ukraine, has so far not expressed outright resistance to large-scale agricultural development, and the peasants’ rights discourse has been absent. This article examines Ukrainian peasants’ responses to land grabs and agribusiness expansion. It discusses the post-Soviet context, forms of incorporation of the rural population in land deals, the lack of rural protests and mobilization, and the prospects for small-scale agriculture in the country.