Creation as Resistance: How small-scale farmers and food artisans collaboratively respond to the global food system by recultivating a traditional rye variety in Northeast Germany

Abstract: This thesis examines how small-scale farmers and food artisans in Germany are impacted by and respond to the pressures of the global food system. It is based on the in-depth analysis of a case study of a recultivation effort of the traditional rye variety ‘Mecklenburger Marienroggen’ in Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Northeast Germany. I employ a thematic analysis of semi- structured interview data and secondary literature informed by critical theories on political ecologies of food, biocultural diversity, and peasant resistances. With this case I highlight that the involved small-scale farmers and food artisans experience the pressures of the global food system through the mechanization of agriculture, profit prioritization, the spread of cheap food, and the process of homogenization. However, the recultivation effort provides the involved actors an opportunity to collaboratively create something unique within their local food system that preserves its local biocultural heritage and offers a financial benefit, effectively resisting the global food system by working it to their least detriment. A challenge not only in this project but for the general survival of the actor’s livelihoods is the perceived distance to the consumers. This distance, particularly between the rural and urban, must be overcome to establish meaningful solidarity and to solidify local food systems against their vanishing trend.