Transformation of agricultural land use in Russian regions in the course of modern socioeconomic reforms

Abstract

The paper considers the results and territorial features of the transformation of agricultural land use in Russia’s federal subjects for the period of land reforms from 1991 through 2012. The most important stages of reform were the privatization of a significant portion of agricultural land and the creation on this basis of a multiform agriculture. In addition to large enterprises and organizations, significant land areas began to belong to farms, personal subsidiary plots, collective orchards, and individual horticulture plots, which helped to establish and develop the agricultural land market. The result of the transformations was a widespread reduction in the area of agricultural land, arable land, and sowing areas with an increase in fallow areas, natural hayfields, and pastures. Such a large-scale decrease in cultivated land occurred for the first time in Russia’s multicentury agrarian history. Territorial analysis of the transformation showed that what occurred was a reduction in the area of irrigated and drained land, as well as cropland with the richest Chernozem, Kastanozem (chestnut), and Phaeozem and Luvisol (gray forest) soils within the entire agriculturally developed territory of the country. The largest areas fell out of agricultural use as a result of their development as residential areas and infrastructure objects, as well as due to a decrease in land quality. An important reason for the reduction in agricultural land is its continuing degradation. The most actively transformative processes took place in the agriculturally developed regions of Central Russia within the southern-taiga–forest, forest–steppe, and steppe landscapes of European Russia, in southern Siberia, and the southern Far East.