Unused agricultural lands: influence on production and export potential of agro-industrial complex in Russia

Authors of the article estimated probable economic effect of involvement into the exploitation of unused arable land for livestock production in the Russian Federation. The potential output of livestock and poultry for slaughter might increase by 10% compared with the average livestock production for the last ten years. Additional increase of milk production is estimated at 7%. A possible increase in egg production will be more than 41%. The potential effect for crop production is the increase in the production of grain and leguminous crops can be about 62% of the average annual gross yield of this type of crop production by agricultural organizations of the Russian Federation, a similar indicator for industrial and fodder crops can be 1760.62% and 1501.87% , and the production of potatoes and open-field vegetables may increase by 9747% and 21657.76, respectively. Moreover, impact of involvement into the exploitation of unused arable land on probable growth of crops and soy beans export is reflected in the article. So, potential additional volume of wheat production might be 48.42 million of ton, that can be compared with the export volume of crops from Russia for 2017/2018. Soybean production could increase by more than 14 times, which, in turn, compared with the figures for 2017 would lead to a seven-fold increase in exports of this type of agricultural raw materials. The authors introduced the term “land with low agricultural potential”. Among the measures aimed at stimulating the involvement of unused agricultural land in the turnover, the transfer of low-efficient land to research institutes, as well as experimental laboratories of universities was proposed.