AgroKor is the major symbol of corruption in Croatia today. It is the largest conglomerate in the Balkans, valued at 7 billion euros, owning 26 agri-food and drink businesses and two supermarket chains in Croatia. Today, as the largest agri-food producer and largest buyer from small family farmers, AgroKor sets the wholesale prices of almost all agri-food products.
However, in 2017, AgroKor began defaulting on loans after decades of rumours about its financial practices and political connections (Ivanković 2018). Since then, some implicated politicians have resigned, AgroKor’s owner has fled to London to avoid arrest, and in late 2018 Russian state banks took 47% of the corporation. Thus, my research proposal on its informal and predatory financial practices is timely, as its financial practices are finally coming into the light of public scrutiny.
As an independent scholar with political, economic, and anthropological backgrounds, as well as almost a decade of experience in post-socialist Europe, I propose to investigate some of AgroKor’s financial practices from the vantage point of its smallest family farmer and producer clients. Using my pre-existing network of informants in Istria, Croatia, I will take the wine industry as a lens through which to research how this corporation shapes local markets, and how it leverages its political position and business network to perpetuate its practices. As it owns wineries in Istria that outproduce all family wineries in this primarily winemaking region, it is a formidable competitor.
I will use ethnographic field methods to advance my expertise as a business anthropologist, and as an independent scholar will be hosted at a leading interdisciplinary and post-socialist studies institute in the UK with an economic anthropologist of post-socialism as a mentor. This will facilitate my professional development as an early career scholar undertaking cutting edge research that impacts EU food markets.
