Agrarian transformation in the Russian breadbasket: contemporary trends as manifest in Stavropol'

A team of US and Russian geographers combines field observations with satellite imagery in an examination of how major trends in Russian agriculture are manifest in one of Russia's most productive agricultural regions: Stavropol' Kray. A nationwide pattern of agricultural consolidation during the 1990s (featuring rural depopulation and a reduction in cultivated area and herd sizes upon the termination of Soviet-era subsidization levels) has had decidedly different outcomes in different parts of the vast Russian countryside. This paper – using Stavropol' as a surrogate for regions which by physical attributes, location, and human capital are best positioned to support agricultural activity – identifies a number of developments that may signal a new growth trajectory for agriculture in Russia: evolving specialization of former socialized farms in response to market conditions (in Stavropol' involving the shrinkage of animal husbandry and the release of surplus labor); increased levels of absentee (corporate) ownership of farmland in the more favorable locations; decoupling of the economic fate of large farms (success) from local municipal budgets (deficiency); and the expansion of non-Russian ethnic communities in the countryside, with attendant land use changes.     

俄罗斯克拉斯诺亚尔斯克边疆区的投资环境

克拉斯诺亚尔斯克边疆区是俄罗斯重要的矿物资源基地之一。其丰富的燃料动力资源和矿产资源对国内外的投资者吸引力很大。该边疆区还是西伯利亚地区的科研中心,拥有高科技的智力创新潜力。区内还有大型出口企业,国际市场对谊地区出口商品的需求量多年来一直是稳增不减。所有这一切都为吸引外资开发该地区的自然资源,进而与毗邻地区共同参与经济全球化提供了有利的条件。