The well-being of any country is largely determined by the level and pace of agricultural development. Unfortunately, in recent years Russia has not been able to boast of any particular success in this area. The country's government is making efforts to develop agriculture in the regions, but it will not be easy to take the leading positions in the world economy in most indicators in the near future.
Features of agriculture in Russia
Russian agriculture consists of two main branches: livestock and crop production. In turn, each of them has a finer division. A significant place in the development of regional agriculture is occupied by the production of grain and industrial crops, as well as vegetable growing.
The most important livestock industries are livestock and poultry farming. Dairy and dairy-meat cattle breeding is typical for the forest zone of the country. In drier areas and semi-deserts, livestock raising for meat is predominant.
In the development of regions in recent years, fishing has acquired particular importance; in terms of catches, the Russian Federation is confidently among the top ten in the world.
The territorial distribution of agro-industrial enterprises is influenced by climatic factors: the number of warm days per year, the amount of precipitation, the duration of the winter period. The composition of the soil is also important: the richer it is in minerals, the wider the network of agricultural enterprises.
Agricultural problems in Russian regions
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the area of arable land in Russia has decreased by more than 16 million hectares. Today, the entire agricultural industry faces an acute problem of increasing exports and decreasing imports. This requires decisions at the federal government level and legislative changes. Without such measures, regional enterprises in the industry will not be able to confidently develop.
The main agricultural enterprises are located in the European part of the country, in the North Caucasus, southern Siberia and the Urals. One of the most critical regions of Russia in terms of agriculture is the Non-Black Earth Region. A difficult demographic situation is observed in the Central and North-Western regions of the country, which leads to a shortage of labor resources employed in the field of animal husbandry and agriculture. The North-West region is also less supplied with mineral fertilizers.
The leaders in the production of agricultural products remain the North Caucasus, Krasnodar Territory and the Volga region, where the Samara, Saratov and Volgograd regions stand out.
In the suburban areas of regional centers, the greenhouse and greenhouse economy is still well developed, which makes it possible to provide the urban population with fresh vegetables throughout the year.
In 2013, the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation tried to promptly direct funds to the regions for targeted support of agriculture. But here the local agrarian departments acted as an inhibiting factor: subsidies to end producers did not always reach the deadline. Violations in the targeted use of finances at the regional level were also revealed.
