Towards (dis)continuity of agricultural wetlands: Latvia’s polder landscapes after Soviet productivism

Abstract

The concepts of agricultural regimes in advanced economies, such as productivism or non/neo/post-productivism, have been critically debated over the last decades to understand the transition and diversity of modern agriculture. We explore these concepts to understand the environmentally vulnerable landscape of agricultural wetlands in Latvia that, during the era of Soviet high modernism (productivist agricultural regime), have been converted into polders as part of a mass drainage movement. Today, these post-Soviet agro-polders can be characterised as antipodes in relation to integrity of heritage, ecology and the socio-economics of agricultural concerns. Building on case studies, wider political contexts and current debates on agricultural transitions, the paper traces the transition of wetlands through agricultural regimes and unfolds the various pathways for current polder landscapes. This paper concludes with critical notes on the contemporary co-existence of different agro-polder use of which the most incoherent are the non-productivist actions producing landscapes of mere agricultural appearance.