Rural socio-economic development policy in Russia

The aim of the agarian reform in Russia is to achieve balance on the internal food market with the use of the resources of the agroindustrial complex and the protectionist policy of the state in relation to rural commodity producers. In order to secure this objective the relations of ownership are being reformed, and attempts are being made to create markets for food, land and industrial means of production. In the beginning of 1994 70 per cent of the Russian farmlands had the status of a share or a joint property, other 15 per cent belonged to private persons. 95 per cent of collective and state farms have been reorganized. 11.5 thousand companies of various kinds and 270 thousands of peasant farms have been started. One third of the reorganized collective and state farms retained their status. But all these changes have failed to call forth any economic reaction. The agrarian sector of Russia is in crisis. In 1993 the fall of production was still observed. The insufficiency in fertilizers along with the inobservance of the agrotechnical rules led to exhaustion of the soil. Collective and individual enterprises are too short of finance to purchase agricultural machinery and equipment, oil products and other industrial goods. The ways to improve the economic conditions of functioning of the agroindustrial complex are outlined in a special government enactment. Among the incentives are privilege credits for spring sowing, advances to rural commodity producers, the prospects of creation of a federal food fund which would be supplied at market prices on the basis of contracts, financial support from the federal budget, etc. Having analyzed the economic situation with the agroindustrial complex, the authors make a forecast of further developments in the relations of ownership, the institutional changes that the Russian regional agrosystems may have to go through in the future, and also of the forthcoming reforms in the systems of financing, crediting, price control and food market formation.