Russia's Farmers Unite

This report, dated November 15th, comes from Ireland's Roscommon Herald.

An unnamed Irish farmer took at trip to Russia thanks in part to the Irish Farmers Association (IFA). His report tells of the Russian farmer's woes that are similar to those in America and the European Union nations.

Those woes are quite common. They also are dealing with comparatively cheap food exports flooding the market, not enough young Russians to till the land, little effective representation in the Duma (Russia's parliament) and so on. Regarding the last point, as the unnamed farmer noted, only one member of the Duma has any farming experience at all.

Many of Russia's farmers are thinking of starting their own agricultural party, similar to ones in Poland and Hungary. With the continuing rise of neo-Stalinism under the Putin administration, the quelling of legitimate dissent by the government, the independent media there all but dead, and the oligarchs still a major force in society, such a party would face an uphill battle.

Good news is the farmers are organizing along IFA lines and are building cooperatives to help sell their produce at better prices for them.

Russia - still unconsecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary - needs all the help it can get. Along with the Fatima Consecration, a government and society based on Distributist lines can only do this giant among nations a world of good. A good outline for it comes from the Lion of Russia himself, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in his 1991 work Rebuilding Russia.