The article is devoted to one of the least studied issues in the field of socio-economic practices of the zemstvo: attempts to resolve the food issue from the creation of the Saratov zemstvo to the adoption of the Temporary Rules on the Food Issue in 1900. The study analyzes the powers of the zemstvo in organizing the grain supply system; activities carried out by the bodies of zemstvo self-government in “peacetime” and during the period of crop failures (famines of 1879 and 1891).
