Tractor on an organic farm near Kaliningrad
This week the Russia Profile magazine published two articles on the state of Russian agriculture. While most economists do not tend to think of agriculture as occupying the commanding heights of the economy, for most of the former Communist Bloc countries, this is where the path of liberalization usually started. The reforms Deng Xiaoping promoted in the early 1980s finally allowed millions of Chinese peasants to fetch market prices for their produce, with entrepreneurial ripples spreading throughout China that continues to this day. Gorbachev’s contemporary reforms of collectivized agriculture had barely started when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
During the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin was not able to overcome fierce Communist opposition in the Duma to land reform, and there was a lot of confusion about who actually owned plots, as with so many other sectors of the economy. Yeltsin left the task of forming a parliamentary coalition in support of land privatization to his appointed successor, Vladimir Putin. As University of Washington Professor Herbert Ellison observed at the recent Real Russia Project roundtable, the results since the year 2000 have been quite impressive.
Stalin used starvation as a weapon - "We will keep out the kulaks" - propaganda poster from 1930
Russia Profile focuses on the government’s successful agricultural census as a milestone, since this is the first accurate count undertaken in Russia since the Bolshevik Revolution. The report also notes the increasing development of farmland around expanding cities, and the surging productivity of smaller family owned farms compared to less efficient formerly state-owned agribusiness tracts. Given the Soviet legacy of waste, stealing, and mistrust sown in the countryside dating back seventy five years, it makes sense that enterprises bound together by family ties would be more productive. In America, where there was no forced collectivization, larger agribusinesses generally outperform smaller family owned farms.
It’s true that Russian agriculture isn’t a very sexy topic for the Western media to cover. Farm prices near Yekaterinburg or Khabarovsk have far less impact on Western consumers than the world prices influenced by Moscow’s “national champions” in the oil and natural gas industry. It’s also true that if you go looking for alcoholism and despair among Russians in rural areas and small cities whose parents and grandparents worked the vanishing collective farms, you can easily find it. But Russia is quietly experiencing real entrepreneurial growth by modernizing some of the world’s most productive farmland, and that bodes well for a world that will soon have many more mouths to feed.
Read the Russia Profile articles here:
Taking a Head Count by Andrei Kolesnikov
A Plot of One's Own by Vasily Uzun
UPDATE: You can read Russia Profile editors' Lara McCoy Roslof and Ivor Crotty's comments below. For more historic background on Soviet and Russian agriculture, you can read Jenny Smith's piece The Survivors.
Comments
Enjoyed your overview very much. Researching the issue was a real learning experience for the staff too. Its worth adding that agri-businesses have real potential in Russia, given the availability of good land, labour, technology and a genuine willingness on the part of regional administrations to attract FDI, but the international investment community seems largely un-interested in developing sustainable businesses & (uniquely in the case of farming) communities, that do not return front-end super-profits. Moscow's disastrously over-heated property market being a case in point.
Perhaps Russia's notorious slash & burn capitalism is a phenomenon encouraged more by Western institutions shaping Russian markets, than it is by local entrepreneurs? Another stereotype? A question I feel is worth discussing. However, 'from land to brand' will be a catch-phrase in the years to come as logistics and infra-structure for agri-business expand in Russia.
Posted by: Ivor | November 2, 2006 9:50 PM
Dear Mr. Ganske -
Thank you for spotlighting our agriculture stories on your site. As you point out, agriculture does not have the cache of other many other topics involving Russia but remains an important aspect of Russia's post-Soviet economy. The November issue of our magazine, which should be out next week, has agriculture as its central theme, and more articles on the topic will be posted on our site in the coming weeks.
Best wishes,
Lara McCoy Roslof
Deputy Editor, Russia Profile
Posted by: Lara McCoy Roslof | November 2, 2006 11:44 PM
Right on brother Putin! Only a real leader could work out a problem that has plagued Russian history from time immemorial. He is doing a great job folks! So, why do we get propaganda articles like the one yesterday in the Seattle Times putting him down for possibly exercising continuing influence over the country's political system after the next elections? (Besides, our own propaganda posters are looking more and more Stalinesque all the time, eg. "terrorist suspects" profiling program "targeting" innocent American travellers-it's just disgraceful.) And anyway, don't we have the CIA (Bushevik) family dynasty running things for how many decades now????? For Russia so what? At last a beneficent Czar! Its what Russians have been wanting for centuries. A dream come true! So, the real question is why don't we get a constant barrage in Seattle Times about the despotic Saudi junta? Its just not rational!
Posted by: Lois DuPey | November 4, 2006 5:47 AM
Given Russia's population, it's interesting to note that only the other day, it was either Lavrov or Ivanov, who said that Russia has the capability to feed a billion souls/mouths. Now that becomes an additional potent weapon if developed properly!
Posted by: ravikumar | November 11, 2006 9:50 PM
I'm Ngoc Ly, a high school student from Vietnam. I am prepairing for a present about Russia's economic. I can not find out information about Russia's agiculture and Russia's services. I hope you can send me some information that I need.
Thank you very much !
Posted by: Ngoc Ly | March 10, 2007 5:46 PM