Agrarian Land Use in Russia and Siberian Regions Under Digital Transformation
O.P. Fadeeva1,2, V.I. Nefedkin1,2
1Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
2Novosibirsk National Research State University, Novosibirsk, Russia
Keywords: land reform, farmland, agrarian land use, inventory, information systems, Altai Krai
Abstract
The article discusses agricultural land-use problems in Russia and Siberia and the opportunities to grow its value thanks to digital transformation. An analysis of land statistics, collected from censuses and annual reports of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, shows that the present data are incomplete and inconsistent. Low quality of information on agricultural land availability and use is one of the main factors hindering a full-fledged land market and an increase in land-use efficiency. Semi-formalized interviews with heads and specialists of district administrations in Altai Krai show that most land registration and inventory decision-making have been delegated to local authorities. Unified geographic information systems and databases with up-to-date information on the quantity and quality of available land resources, distribution of land rights and the nature of land use could bring changes to the monitoring of land use in the agricultural sector. However, using digital technologies alone does not guarantee any improvement in data quality. It may be obstructed by various institutional, legal, economic, organizational, technological, and social factors that substantially determine local practices developed under inconsistent land reform. We conclude that minimizing the difficulties and costs of the next land-use innovations, which are already evident at the moment, involves transforming the entire system of relations between regulators, landowners and land users: from rules of state support for producers to legal mechanisms for the accumulation of land resources (primarily unclaimed) from efficient land users. Otherwise, rather costly measures initiated from above will not give the expected effect and instead of streamlining the system of land relations may bring even greater “digital chaos”.
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