Unused agricultural land in Russia - the significance and impact on the economy of agricultural production

Ural state agrarian University, 620075 Yekaterinburg, Russia

^* Corresponding author: gri-iovlev@yandex.ru

Abstract

The problems of unused lands began to be dealt with almost immediately after the introduction of economic reforms. As a result of economic reforms, privatization in agriculture, the main agricultural enterprises - state farms, collective farms changed the form of ownership, and enterprises were also subdivided. As a result, a significant number of private enterprises, joint-stock companies of various types, agricultural cooperatives, peasant farms and private subsidiary farms appeared. Often, as a result of division and fragmentation, newly created enterprises found themselves without the appropriate material and technical base, and more often without financial resources. The next result of economic reforms was a spontaneous increase in the disparity of prices for agricultural and industrial products. As a result, it became impossible to carry out work on cultivation of agricultural crops on all available areas or to carry out work with violation of the technology of agricultural crops cultivation. As a result, the volume of acreage decreased, technologies and crop rotations were disrupted, and all this affected the financial condition of newly formed agricultural organizations. Another important reason that affects the withdrawal of agricultural land from turnover is the outflow of population from small settlements, they simply disappear. Land around these localities becomes “problematic” and is taken out of turnover. It should be noted that the next reason for the withdrawal of land from turnover is its low fertility and the presence of natural anomalies that require large material costs for the cultivation of agricultural crops. Therefore, the introduction of unused agricultural land into turnover provides for an increase in agricultural production, reducing unemployment in rural areas, and most importantly – ensuring state food security.