Agricultural transition and integration to the world economy: NIS case

The paper studies the major trends in the agri-food trade in the NIS countries. It describes the trade flows, production cooperation and trade regimes within NIS countries; trade with the rest of the world and accession to the WTO. The key tested hypothesis of the paper is that intra-region trade dominate international trade in the NIS region, however this centrifugal tendency is forced by nations specialization set in the Soviet period. The development process in the NIS countries will cause more deep international integration. Also paper measure IIT for the NIS countries both for trade within the region and beyond it as well as IIT for some particular groups af agri-food commodities. It allowed an author to understand whether product variety explain the growth in agri-food trade within NIS and beyond it.NIS countries, agri-food trade, trade liberalization, intra-industry trade (IIT), Agricultural and Food Policy, P33, O13,

The Role of Statistics in Agrarian Policy Formulation: The Russian Case

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Markets for Purchased Farm Inputs in Transitional Agriculture: Russia's Example

The common a priori persuasion is that agriculture suffers from decapitalization due to financial constraints faced by producers. This view is the basis for the national agricultural policy, which emphasizes reimbursement of input costs and substitutes government and quasi-government organizations for the missing market institutions. The article evaluates the availability of purchased farm inputs, the efficiency of their use, the main problems in the emergence of market institutions, and the impact of government policies. The analysis focuses on five groups of purchased inputs: farm machinery, fertilizers, fuel, seeds, and animal feed. The information sources include official statistics and data from two original surveys.Russian agriculture, transition economies, farm supply channels, government support programs, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, P230, Q180,

TRANSITION AND FOOD CONSUMPTION

This paper examines why transition from planned to market economies in the countries of the former Soviet bloc has changed their mix and volumes of food consumption. During transition, consumption of high value products, such as meat and dairy products, has plummeted, while consumption of staple foods such as bread and potatoes has remained steady, or even increased. The paper shows that in the pre-reform planned economy, planners "desired" the production and national consumption of high value (and cost) foodstuffs more than consumers. When market reform resulted in consumer prices adjusting to reflect the full cost of production, consumer demand switched from high cost foods to other goods and services. The demand-driven nature of food restructuring in these countries has implications for food security, reinforcing the argument that any food security problems are not mainly the result of inadequate aggregate supplies of agricultural products.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Russia's Transition to Major Player in World Agricultural Markets

Russia, Agriculture, Trade, Grain, Meat, WTO Accession, International Development, F14, P33, Q17,

Diversification of rural incomes and non-farm rural employment: evidence from Russia

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Russia's food economy in transition

Russia's food economy is undergoing a fundamental transition. Rapid changes and adjustments are still taking place in the market and pricing systems, in the subsidies to output and input markets and the credit market, and in the process of privatization and other structural reforms. These transformations have far-reaching effects on domestic supply and demand relationships. And, as part of the still greater economic changes taking place in the former planned economies of central and eastern Europe, these transformations may have extensive ramifications for international food markets. The authors describe agricultural policy before reform and then the state of reforms and agriculture today. They then turn to future food consumption and production trends. The authors conclude that Russian agriculture will remain in transition for a long time. Risky labor and food markets and the inaccessibility of financing are causing the expansion of small-scale farming and the home production of food. Managerial deficiencies and market imperfections are hindering a revitalization of large-scale farming. Certainly the potential for major production increases exists in Russia, as well as in some other countries of the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine and Kazakhstan. One need not be overly optimistic to assume that efficiency will improve and this potential will be realized over the long term. During the period covered by the projections given here, however, institutional constraints, friction in finance, land, and labor markets, and limited infrastructure will probably prevent farmers and the food-processing sector from responding strongly to incentives and will continue to inhibit the efficiency and growth of the Russian food economy.Markets Economic policy. ,Prices Government policy Former Soviet republics. ,Agricultural policy Former Soviet republics. ,Former Soviet republics Economic policy. ,Food consumption. ,

State-of-the-Art in Russian Agriculture: Production, Farm Structure, Trade, Policy and New Challenges

This article is devoted to the modern state of Russian agriculture, which has made significant progress in recent years. The authors cover three major areas of agricultural development: changes in the structure of agricultural production, trade development, and agri-food policy. The article concludes by listing the major challenges Russia must address in order to maintain its position in the national economy and in global markets. The article is based on academic studies by the Institute of Agricultural Studies (InAgRes) at the Higher School of Economics - HSE (Russia)

Der aktuelle Zustand der russischen Landwirtschaft: Produktion, Betriebsstruktur, Handel, Politik und neue Herausforderungen

Dieser Artikel stellt den modernen Stand der russischen Landwirtschaft vor, die sich in den vergangenen Jahren deutlich weiterentwickelt hat. Die Autorinnen behandeln drei große Bereiche seiner Entwicklung: Veränderungen in der Produzentenstruktur, Handelsentwicklung und Agrar- und Lebensmittelwissenschaft. Der Artikel endet mit einer Aufzählung der großen Herausforderungen, die Russland meistern muss, um seinen Binnenmarkt zu schützen und seine Position auf den globalen Märkten zu behaupten. Er basiert auf den wissenschaftlichen Studien des Instituts für Agrarstudien (InAgRes) an der Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Russland

Case Study #7-7 of the Program: ''Food Policy For Developing Countries: The Role Of Government In The Global Food System''

10 pp.©Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. All rights reserved. This case study may be reproduced for educational purposes without express permission but must include acknowledgment to Cornell University. No commercial use is permitted without permission.The agrarian reform of the 1990s in Russia was targeted at transforming the formerly state-owned and centrally planned agriculture sector to a market-oriented one. The reform dramatically changed farm structure and land tenure in rural areas. The preconditions of the reform prohibited land restitution, as took place in many Eastern and Central European countries in transition. Instead, the major instrument of Russian reform was land sharing based on the allocation of conditional land shares, which were not indicated on the ground, to the rural population. This fragmentation of landownership was not coupled with the fragmentation of farming operations: the big farm enterprises were preserved but had to rent small land shares from their holders. Moreover, in the late 1990s huge agribusiness companies entered Russia's agricultural sector and rented hundreds of thousands of hectares for cultivation. Agricultural growth started to recover after 1998, but a severe contradiction between the system of fragmented land tenure and the prevailing largescale farm structure remained. For agribusiness investors, the process of gaining access to land had become costly and prolonged, hampering the growth of investment, and consequently, growth in the agrifood sector. The complicated systems of land registration laid a foundation for rent-seeking activity in land administration across the country, aggravating the problem of high transaction costs in the farmland market. On the other hand, the land share system provided the millions of rural dwellers with an additional source of income that was crucial given the severe fall in living standards stemming from the reforms in the countryside. The objective of increasing the efficiency of agriculture by consolidating land ownership thus contradicts the objective of protecting the civil rights of millions of land shareholders who were allotted their shares in the early 1990s. Around this problem four groups of stakeholders were formed. Domestic and foreign agribusiness investors are interested in consolidating land shares in farm enterprises and simplifying the land registry system. The land shareholders are also interested in reducing land transaction costs, but most of them have benefited from the possession and disposal of shares. The private firms that offer consulting and land engineering services are profiting from the existing land registry system, land transactions, and plurality of parties in farmland transactions. The land bureaucracy has a strong background of rent seeking in existing land tenure arrangements. Policy makers are debating several political options, some of which have already been introduced. The political challenge raised here is a typical one for the policy-making process—the contradiction between efficiency and social justice. The challenge is to find a compromise political decision that would balance the objective of economic growth in agriculture, which may require consolidating farmland in the hands of producers (which are mainly large in scale), with the objective of protecting the property rights of land shareholders, for many of whom these shares provide an important source of income. Your assignment is to find a political solution that will (1) make agriculture attractive for investors (domestic and international) by simplifying land transaction procedures, and (2) secure the rights of rural dwellers who received land shares through the reforms. Take into account the farm structure and land tenure systems that emerged in Russia after the agrarian reforms of the 1990s, current stakeholders' interests and the distribution of political forces in Russia, and the possible opposition to change by rent seekers in the land registration system.Cornell University Division of Nutritional Science