A land rush in rural Russia  

The availability of agricultural land is one issue that population doomers tend to be very concerned about - however the situation isn't quite as bleak as some imagine. The IHT hasa report on the reopening of a lot of fallow agricultural areas in Russia - A land rush in rural Russia.

The fields around this little farming enclave are among the most fertile on earth. But like tens of million of acres of land in this country, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they literally went to seed.

Now that may be changing. A decade after capitalism transformed Russian industry, an agricultural revolution is stirring in the countryside, shaking up village life and sweeping aside the collective farms that resisted earlier reform efforts and remain the dominant form of agriculture.

The transformation is being driven by soaring global food prices (the price of wheat alone rose 77 percent last year) and a new change allowing foreigners to own agricultural land. Together, they have created a land rush in rural Russia. "Where else do you have such an abundance of land?" Samir Suleymanov, the World Bank's director for Russia, asked during an interview.

As a result, the business of buying and overhauling collective farms is suddenly and improbably very profitable, attracting hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs, Swedish portfolio investors and even a descendant of White Russian émigré nobility. ...

These investments are also a gamble in a country accustomed to government control of business. Some officials have hinted at the prospect of a government takeover of the farming industry reminiscent of the Soviet era.

And the Russian minister of agriculture, Aleksey Gordeyev, speaks often of food in terms of national security. "Russia is very often perceived throughout the world as a major military power," he said at a food summit meeting in Rome early in his tenure. "At the same time, and perhaps above and beyond anything else, Russia is a major agrarian power."

Russia occupies an unusual niche in the global food chain. Before the Russian Revolution and the subsequent forced collectivization of farming under Stalin, it was the largest grain exporter in the world.

Today, roughly 7 percent of the planet's arable land is either owned by the Russian state or by collective farms, but about a sixth of all that agricultural land - roughly 35 million hectares, or about 86.5 million acres - lies fallow. By comparison, all of Britain has six million hectares of cultivable land.

Even excluding the slivers of land contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster or by industrial pollution, Russia also has millions of hectares of untouched, pristine land that could be used for agriculture.

Crop yields in Russia, however, are tiny. The average Russian grain yield is 1.85 tons a hectare - compared with 6.36 tons a hectare in the United States and 3.04 in Canada.

If Russia could regain its old title of leading grain exporter, it would significantly relieve strained world markets and reduce prices, Suleymanov of the World Bank said. It could also reduce malnutrition and starvation.

What is more, a significant expansion of farming capacity could add to Russia's heft as a world power, much as its prowess in oil and natural gas aided its resurgence in recent years.

There are a few aspects to consider here. If these lands are cultivated in future (and they surely will be, as the world population rises to 9.5 billion or so) and the usual "green revolution" techniques are put into practice, then we'll see a lot more Russian oil and gas being used internally instead of exported.