Post-Soviet Russian agriculture
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Post-Soviet Russian agriculture is generally carried on by "joint stock companies of the closed type" which is what kolhozy and sovkhozy have been reorganized into. The Russian acronym, transliterated into the Roman alphabet, is "TOO" for this type of organization. TOOs only permit membership and ownership of shares by collective farm members who continue as before to have little or no input into management which continues as before in the hands of the management. There are some changes, for one thing government subsidies have declined considerably. By 1997 82% of the TOOs had gone bankrupt and while they continue to operate are no longer able to pay wages in money. It was decreed in 1994 that they cease providing social services to members but many continue to do so. The percentage of production produced by these large enterprises has fallen from 67% in 1992 to 41% in 1998.
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[edit] Private farms
There are a few private farms, fermery, in 1997, about 6% of the arable land, or 274,000 farms. The average size of private farms was 440,000 square metres in 1997 (44 hectares or 108 acres). There have been difficulties in legislatively establishing a land-tenure law which would give a secure title. Another problem is that rural infrastructure which would provide processing and business services is not in place while tax rates are high. Families which strike out on their own also lose the services provided by the TOO.
[edit] Private plots
The role of household plots has grown with production increasing from 32% of production in 1992 to 57% in 1998. Both production and sales, measured in weighted kilograms a standardized measure for the purpose of statistical comparison across product type, have increased to an average 8,765 weighted kg production in 1999 with 4,463 weighted kg in sales. Rented land has increased to an average of 4,000 square metres in 1999. Average adjusted income for rural Russian households has tripled between 1997 and 1999 to 1,524.7 rubles per month; while, considering both money and nonmonetary income, the percentage of rural households living in poverty has decreased from 28.9% in 1997 to 17.1% in 1999. Households produced 56.6% of the meat and 48.2% of the dairy products in 1998.
See also:
[edit] Further reading
- Edited by David J. O'Brien and Stephen K. Wegren, Rural Reform in Post-Soviet Russia, John Hopkins University Press (2002), hardcover, 430 pages, ISBN 0-8018-6960-9
- Grigory Ioffe and Tatyana Nefedova, Continuity and Change in Rural Russia: A Geographical Perspective, Westview Press or Basic books or Lightning Source Inc (1997 or 1998), trade paperback, 328 pages, ISBN 0-8133-3634-1
- Stephen K. Wegren, Agriculture and the State in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, University of Pittsburgh Press (1998), hardcover, 293 pages, ISBN 0-8229-4062-0
