PODLESNY, Russia: The fields around this little farming enclave are among the most fertile on earth. But like tens of million of acres of land in this country, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they literally went to seed.
Now that may be changing. A decade after capitalism transformed Russian industry, an agricultural revolution is stirring in the countryside, shaking up village life and sweeping aside the collective farms that resisted earlier reform efforts and remain the dominant form of agriculture.
The transformation is being driven by soaring global food prices (the price of wheat alone rose 77 percent last year) and a new change allowing foreigners to own agricultural land. Together, they have created a land rush in rural Russia.
"Where else do you have such an abundance of land?" Samir Suleymanov, the World Bank's director for Russia, asked during an interview.
As a result, the business of buying and overhauling collective farms is suddenly and improbably very profitable, attracting hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs, Swedish portfolio investors and even a descendant of White Russian émigré nobility.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/31/business/food.php
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