UDC

330.3

Authors

Ovchinnikov Oleg Vladimirovich
Distance Institute of Finance and Economics, Northern (Arctic) Federal University
named after M.V. Lomonosov (Arkhangelsk, Russia)
Ban Tatyana Mikhailovna
Institute of Mathematics, Information and Space Technologies,
Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov (Arkhangelsk, Russia)

Abstract

The problem of forming the owner in agriculture is deeply rooted in the processes dating back to the early bourgeois revolution in England in the 17th century, the peasantry being its main driving force. At that time, philosopher John Locke gave the theoretical substantiation for the ownership of land as a triune concept: Life, Liberty and Property. In was this status that initiated the establishment of the farmer’s social position in the Anglo-Saxon world. Nowadays, large agriculture companies in association with farmers have formed the modern socioeconomic structure. Trying to catch-up, Russia took a long way to farming through the reforms of Alexander II and P. Stolypin as well as the ideals of the Russian Revolution of 1917, with peasantry being the main driving force. The peasantry was divided: some adhered to the private while others – to the common ownership of land. Collectivization of the 1930s put an end to the farming option and promoted industrialization. At the same time, “nobody’s land” discouraged people from working hard. Even in the 1970s, workforce productivity in agriculture in the USSR was 4–5 times lower than that in the USA. The urgent (during one year) decollectivization in 1992 destroyed the whole basis of the Soviet agriculture. Thus, nowadays the Arkhangelsk Region produces 20 times less grain, 2 times less meat and 3 times less milk than in1990. Peasants own 283,000 ha of land but nearly 90 % of it is not used. The farms, which Yeltsin elite counted on, nowadays produce only 4 % of potatoes, 0.3 % of vegetables, 10 % of milk and 4 % of meat. Both in the Arkhangelsk Region and in the rest of Russia, rural workers fell into a deep depression, as their dreams of productive farming were shattered. 40 out of 130 million ha of arable land in our country are abandoned. Up to 20 million people earn their daily bread by cultivating their household and countryside plots. Only one question is left: Has Russian agriculture passed the point of no return to the efficient landowner?

Keywords

reindustrialization, cooperation, collectivization, forms of ownership, efficiency, agricultural policy

References

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4. Sovety Severa, 1936, no. 9, p. 36.