fig congress 2018 - New trends in development of agricultural land consolidation in the Russian federation
Alexander Sagaydak, Anna Sagaydak
Agricultural Land Consolidation is a merging, enlargement, eliminating of mosaic land ownership and improvement of configuration as well as optimization of size of land plots in order to increase the efficiency of agricultural production via rational use of scare resources: land, labor and capital based on reduction of transaction costs. The specific objectives of Agricultural Land Consolidation are the following: increasing the efficiency of agricultural production; providing sustainable development of agrarian sector; rational use of land, labor and capital in agriculture; optimization of agricultural production structures both in territorial and production aspects; increasing the competitiveness of agricultural producers in domestic as well as foreign markets; environmental protection; development of production as well as social infrastructure in agriculture. Agricultural Land Consolidation should be carried out based on the following principles: voluntariness; openness and transparency; financial and economic feasibility; taking into account the interests of the population groups involved including women and youth as well as indigenous people; step by step implementation; consideration of local conditions; state and NGO support. In theory, Agricultural Land Consolidation can be carried out as Voluntary Land Consolidation and Compulsory Land Consolidation as so-called compulsory “collectivization” as well as compulsory consolidation of the collective farms (kolkhozes) and compulsory transformation some of them into the state farms (sovkhoses) took place respectively in the former Soviet Union in the thirties and the fifties of the last century. The present stage of Agricultural Land Consolidation in the Russian Federation is featured by development of agricultural holdings and increasing size of private farms. Currently there is a trend of development of Agricultural Land Consolidation at the regional level. There are different models of Agricultural Land Consolidation in Russian agriculture. The first of them - Nizhny Novgorod Model was intended to consolidate the land shares with the aim of creating production cooperatives. However, due to the absence of post-privatization support this task remained unfulfilled. In this regard, noteworthy Belgorod and Orel Models, which are used respectively in Belgorod and Orel regions based on buying and renting of land shares by private farms, agricultural holdings as well as local authorities. Development of Agricultural Land Consolidation in the Russian Federation is mostly depended on Regional Land Policies. One of the successful examples of them is Orel Region (Oblast) Land Policy.
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