Agricultural census showed that Russian villages are dying

The micro-census was carried out by Rosstat enumerators from August 1 to August 30, 2021. The situation that has occurred in the agricultural sector of the country’s economy over the past 5 years, that is, since 2016, was studied. And it is called a micro-census because the number of questions in the questionnaires was reduced by about half.

Thus, employees of the statistical department did not ask the farms about the staff of hired workers. Outside the brackets also remained the availability of agricultural machinery, sales volumes and a number of other indicators.

According to Rosstat, the counters reached every large agricultural enterprise and peasant farm, that is, they covered 100% of the main food producers. As for personal subsidiary farms, of which there are about 20 million in the country, the percentage of coverage turned out to be lower. Questions in the questionnaire were answered only in half of household plots.

In particular, it turned out that over the past five years, private traders began to plant less potatoes – before they were its main supplier, they occupied 74% of the area. Now for potatoes only 66%. From this, the agricultural department draws a disappointing conclusion that by 2025 private household plots (their number has decreased from 23 million to 16.2 million) will lose the status of the main producer of “second bread” and carrots in the domestic Russian market.

In general, the private agricultural sector is melting like March snow.

The situation with him is quite predictable. In the middle of the 2000s, a national project for the development of the agro-industrial complex was announced in Russia. Approximately 450,000 preferential loans totaling 70.5 billion rubles were allocated for household plots.

The rural population began to increase at the expense of the townspeople – for the first time in the history of post-Soviet Russia. In 2002, private traders supplied the market with about 52% of beef, 36% of milk and 65% of lamb.

The process, so to speak, has begun. However, this phenomenon turned out to be short-term and local, everything returned to normal.

Talk began that small forms of management are yesterday, that all over the world, on the contrary, the people are fed not by single farmers, but by large agricultural corporations.

This thesis is not entirely confirmed by the results of this year – if you do not look at the record grain harvest. For example, in the Belgorod region this year, tens of thousands of hectares of soybeans, the same number of sunflower and corn remained unharvested. They went into the snow. And these lands belong to large commodity farms.

Meanwhile, soybean is a good predecessor for winter crops that have remained unsown. This speaks of the “efficiency” of large manufacturers. Small farms do not leave such huge areas under the snow. At the same time, agricultural holdings continue to take away land in peasant farms.

And here is the expected result. The ranks of farmers and household plots are thinning, and as a result, villages are also dying out. Over the past 10-15 years, out of 150,000 rural settlements, 20,000 have been completely depopulated. About 5 million people left the village and their home. Where there is still some kind of life glimmering, the old people are not ready to wave choppers and shovels in the gardens – the forces are no longer the same.

You will say that the state knows this and adopted a program for the integrated development of rural areas back in 2018? With the construction of schools and hospitals in rural areas, roads and high-speed Internet, so that everything is like in the city and even better?

That’s right, the state knows. And the program was accepted. Only it is financed by more than 5 times less than it was supposed on paper.

The “second life” in the development of private agricultural production should be breathed in by a government decree adopted on December 24, 2021. There are also many measures to support private household plots and peasant farms. However, experts doubt that private farmsteads in Russia will be reborn like a Phoenix bird from the ashes.

There are many reasons. In order to receive a subsidy, the owner of private household plots must register with the tax office as self-employed and pay a tax of 4%. This does not warm the soul of all peasants.

Preferential loans, which were under the national project for rural development, this document does not provide. There are subsidies for producers of open field vegetables, potatoes, milk and sheep.

But they, as you know, only partially compensate for the costs of the manufacturer. Moreover, after the finished goods are already in the barn and all the documents on costs are collected. That is, after many months, when the ruble exchange rate is completely different and its purchasing power is also different. For some reason, advance subsidies are not provided for in agriculture.

How to evaluate the results of a rural micro-census? We asked Igor Abakumov, Candidate of Economic Sciences, host of the Rural Hour program, about this.

– I believe that such a radical drop in the number of farms and personal subsidiary plots, individual entrepreneurs in the countryside should not be the subject of research, but the subject of investigation, – he replied. – Officials who make decisions in the agro-industrial complex should be held responsible for this. This is not a mistake, but an action to cause economic damage. When asked where the farmers disappear, the Ministry of Agriculture refuses to answer.

– What does it say?

– About the unannounced changes in the agricultural sector, the state, represented by the Ministry of Agriculture, has ceased to pay attention to small forms of farming in the countryside, they do not understand the meaning of the rural development program.

– On the other hand, we have excellent harvesting results. No one, as they say, “did not notice the loss of a fighter” – farmers and household plots …

– I’m not talking about the gross harvest of grain or potatoes. We will provide them in any situation, even if stones start falling from the sky. I’m talking about the Russian countryside, which cannot develop without peasant farms. There should be work, taxes from jobs. This is an indirect loss for the economy, which we do not consider, we do not even have a calculation methodology. This is a failure of the rural development program.