According to statistics, over the past 5 years in the Russian Federation the number of farms has significantly decreased, while the total area of agricultural land in use, on the contrary, has increased.
According to the latest data, as of 2016 there were 175 thousand such farms in Russia, but by 2021 there were 118 thousand.
At the same time, the total area increased from 39.6 million hectares to 41.6 million. That is, there is a trend towards consolidation of farms.
Large and medium-sized companies are also not lagging behind small ones in terms of the pace of consolidation. For example, in 2012, 14 million hectares of land were owned by various legal entities, but in 2023 this figure increased to 23.6 million.
Moreover, all these areas belong to a very small number of companies. For example, 17.4 million hectares are owned by only 73 companies. By the way, their total area of ownership has increased by 619 thousand hectares since last year.
In general, only 27% of companies in Russia own 77% of the cultivated areas, and 5-6 companies manage 10% of the total land bank.
Similar processes are occurring in Europe
The consolidation of farms and agricultural companies is not a trend unique to Russia.
For example, in the EU, from 2005 to 2020, farms decreased by as much as 37%. Moreover, most of the farms that were eventually absorbed by others were very small, no more than 5 hectares.
By the way, this format is very typical for Europe: a significant part of farms are small farms that are strictly concentrated on the production of a single type of product (for example, olives) and are processed by the family that owns the farm, with little involvement of hired labor.
Russia is fed by agricultural holdings?
The Russian Federation is characterized by a completely different picture: only a couple of dozen companies make the most significant contribution to food production, and the holdings are primarily focused on exports.
However, it still cannot be said that the activities of small farms are completely unimportant.
If we take crop production, then in 2022 holdings produced products worth 2.8 trillion rubles, small farms — 1.1 trillion.
The amounts are comparable, and if we take into account that the holdings are export-oriented, it turns out that the share in the saturation of the domestic market may be the same.
But in livestock farming the situation is radically different.
Over the past year, farmers produced products worth 213 billion rubles, holdings – 2.32 trillion.
However, in general, both are important for Russian agriculture. At the same time, there is no doubt that the processes of consolidation will certainly continue.
