Kató and Jani use a flashlight in want of lighting, and their TV is plugged into a battery as their farm near Bicere lacks electricity.
Farm in the middle of the woods near Csemő.
At the beginning of the 20th century, agriculture was thriving in the Hungarian farmlands. The owners of self-supporting farms with huge strips of land were fairly poor, but managed to get by. At the end of the 1940s over one million people lived in the rural farmlands of Hungary. During the years of communism, the farms were sucked into the industry and the collective farms, so by the early 1990s, only 200,000 people stayed. The young move away, only the elderly remain, and those who couldn't live without their freedom and tranquility, but they face hardships every day.
Having no electricity and refrigerator, the Péter family cook as much as they eat each day on their farm near Nyársapáti.
Lambs in a barn near Nyársapát
Tamara Kiss washes the dishes at her family’s farm, which lacks electricity, in Nyársapát. Having left school, she moved back home and works as a day labourer on a nearby farm.
Seeds, near Gátér
Csordás picks corn near Bicere
Sunday mass on a farm near Rókabokor
Istvan Kulik has brought brochures about supermarket discounts. He is the last farm postman in Hungary, covering the area of Gátér with a horse-drawn carriage. He can get through the high snow or water with his horse only – even a jeep would get stuck. If it weren’t for István, no one would visit Kati's farm – he is her only regular contact with the world.
Drought is fought every year on Sándor's Farm near Nyársapát
Bio-farming families meet for a birthday party at a farm near Rontószél. The population of farms is diversified by those who retreat to the countryside, entrepreneurs and foreigners in addition to the natives and primary producers.
Drunken biker near Kalocsa
Ice cream is one of the few things that is bought from the outside world in the Óré farm
Abandoned farm near Kalocsa
Farmer near Rókabokor
Mihalyne hangs portraits of her children in the clean room of her farm in Rokabokor. All the three children left the Farmlands and found their future in one of the nearby towns
Hens in a barn on the Kiss family’s farm near Nyársapát
Farmer near Békés
The Sunday mass is received via an indoor antenna through a battery-powered TV at a farm which lacks electricity near Törtel
Péter Gallai has left his village, when he was eighteen to search for his father, who has left their family long ago, and lived on a farm. Now Péter lives in his father's old farm, which lacks electricity, and earns money as a day labourer at the farms nearby
Abandoned Farm near Balkány
Kati Kiss chops wood outside her family’s farm near Nyarsapat, in southern Hungary. “When I go to Koros town to visit my son, I feel like I’m in a prison. Only the caretaker’s hearse can take me from my farm.”
Ambrus Pesti holds a broken legged newborn lamb in his arms in his farm near Nyársapát.
Abandoned Farm near Csongrád
László Néző is one of the last residents of Csiffytanya. The once flourishing Farmland township was full of life in his childhood, now only a few houses are inhabited in its only street
Gabor in front of his house, near Balkány
Bus stop, Törtel
“Do you know where I will be spending the winter? Beneath my duvet!” Mrs. Sándor Takács doesn’t have enough money to buy firewood, she gets a bit of wood from the local government and his neighbors, and heats with that as long as it lasts
Sándor Kiss drying the wood reserved for the winter near Nyársapáti.
With no bathroom to speak of, Sanyi Székely takes a bath each night in a basin. As their farm near Nyársapáti lacks electricity, he does his homework by candlelight.