Eurasia Foundation: Agricultural Extension Program

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A Eurasia Foundation Grantee Profile

Ensuring a Bountiful Harvest:

A Eurasia Foundation Grantee Gives Farmers
a Boost in Southern Russia

Story and Photos by Elizabeth Buchanan, Southern Russia Regional Office

The road to Marx may be bathed in dust and pitted with potholes, but it is bordered by the most fertile farmland in Russia. Where the cracked pavement ends, the rich soil of southern Russia’s "Black Earth" region begins.

Residents of Marx, a small farming community on the Volga River, know the value of their land, for they rely on their crop yield to feed and clothe their families. An occasional visitor passing through on their way to Saratov or Volgograd might assume that Marx is a typical Russian village with all aspects of a quiet life intact.

Here in the fields, however, things are not always as they seem. An innovative agricultural development project funded by the Eurasia Foundation is changing the face of farming in southern Russia today.

In the Soviet Era, large-scale farming took place on centrally controlled collective farms, where workers tended, harvested, and transported the crops to state-run stores for sale. Farmers did not think about profitability, expansion, or the latest advances in farming technology, so the farms’ output was minimal—in some cases, the collective farms only produced enough to feed their own workers.

Today, with southern Russia accounting for roughly 40 percent of Russia’s total agricultural output, local farming is being recognized as a profitable industry with plenty of room for growth and development. Although most of these state farms have since been privatized, many still suffer from the inefficiencies of collective agriculture, such as a lack of information and the use of outdated farming methods and archaic machinery.

In order to provide farmers with access to business, technical, and legal information, the Eurasia Foundation and the Saratov State Agricultural University teamed up to create the Agricultural Extension Service Operation Program (AESOP). AESOP farming specialists provide farmers with free on-site consulting services on low-cost, sustainable farming techniques, as well as advice on how to grow and market their crops.

This type of assistance to farmers is unprecedented in southern Russia. These farmers are not amateurs; they just have very limited resources at their disposal. Now, thanks to a $64,315 Eurasia Foundation grant, the university is able to deliver the most current farming knowledge directly into the fields.

The View from the Fields:
New Knowledge Means Better Crops

Andrei Kuznetsov pauses from working his field to take a drink of water and wipe the sweat from his brow. "I studied accounting in college, and I never thought I'd be a farmer. But now I wouldn’t trade the feeling of this black earth under my feet for anything."

Andrei, whose career began eleven years ago on a Soviet-run collective farm, now tends nearly 2,000 acres of wheat, which he sells to local manufacturers.

"This year I had a great crop, thanks to the advice and insight of Mikhail Lugovsky from AESOP," explains Andrei. Mikhail Lugovsky, a soil and fertilizer expert and professor at Saratov State Agricultural University, divides his time between teaching theoretical farming practices in the classroom and sharing his more than 35 years of agricultural experience with farmers in their fields.

"Mikhail taught me how to enrich the soil with new fertilizers in order to maximize yield. Before, I didn’t even know that I needed to prepare my seeds or to use insecticide," Andrei explains, gesturing proudly towards his 50 most fertile acres. "Now people from all over are offering to buy my land, but I won’t sell it."

As a result of the information that Andrei received through the AESOP project, he has more than doubled his annual crop yield, harvesting six more tons of wheat per acre than other farmers in the area. Andrei is just one of many farmers who have benefited from the services offered by the Saratov Agricultural University’s program. The agricultural extension service provides farming advice to more than 30 wheat, livestock, and produce farmers in the area surrounding Marx.

A few miles south of Andrei Kuznetsov’s farm lives another AESOP client, Valentina Mikhailichenko, owner and proprietor of a modest pig farm. Valentina, a self-taught farmer, well known in her village of Alexandrovka for her hard work and ability to solve problems, is more than grateful for the help she received from the extension service’s experts. Two years before the AESOP project began, a mysterious illness began killing her pigs. She lost almost all of her livestock—a total of 35 pigs. Valentina, whose family of four depends on her ability to sell her animals for a good price at market, was afraid that she would lose her livelihood. She spent thousands of rubles on medication, trying desperately to find a cure for a disease no one could diagnose.

"I tried everything I could think of to save my pigs. None of the local vets knew what the disease was or how to treat it," explains Valentina. She had almost given up hope and was on the verge of losing her farm when she learned of the new AESOP program. She contacted the university and arranged to have Vladimir Avdeyenko, an AESOP veterinarian, come and examine her pigs. Vladimir, trained in modern livestock treatment and with over 25 years of experience under his belt, diagnosed the problem as paratyphoid, an infectious fever that rarely affects livestock, and began treatment immediately.

"This year, thanks to the timely rescue by the extension service's vet, I haven’t had a single sick pig," Valentina explains with relief, pausing to knock superstitiously on her wooden table. "I work day and night to keep this farm running, and so I don’t have time to keep up with what’s the latest in farming. The help I received from the Agricultural Extension Service was not only practical, it saved my farm."

In addition to helping farmers increase their crop yields and modernize their farming practices, the Agricultural Extension Service has improved farmers’ business and marketing skills. In 1999, due to their poor record keeping and reporting, farmers in Marx were overwhelmed with tax fines. In 2000, after working with AESOP experts and learning proper accounting practices, the same farmers paid no fines at all. In addition, with the help of AESOP lawyers, these farmers successfully won five court claims on unfulfilled contracts, winning more than one and a half million rubles.

Technology Is Half the Battle:
Sharing Knowledge Benefits the Entire Community

The Agricultural Extension Service has also helped farmers understand the value of a strong community. Anatoly Dekisov, one of the most successful farmers in southern Russia, is one of Marx’s esteemed community leaders. The first person in the area to take advantage of the sale of private land ten years ago, Anatoly started his farm with 40 acres and a wagon. Now he farms more than 20,000 acres and employs a small army of workers and a fleet of combines. Anatoly enthusiastically supports the AESOP program and has been instrumental in convincing the at-times-skeptical farming community of the value of the consulting services.

"At first, the farmers out here thought they knew everything. But once they saw the real benefits of the advice that AESOP provides, they all signed up for the service," explains Anatoly, sitting in his farm office. "Why should we each individually drive hours to see a farm expert or lobby the government, when we can solve our problems as a group through AESOP?"

With the help of the Saratov State Agricultural University and its Eurasia Foundation grant, Anatoly has set aside space on his farm for a new Regional Farming Center, a place where farmers will be able to access the Internet, hold seminars, and experiment with new farming techniques on an adjacent plot of land. Anatoly hopes the center will attract farmers from neighboring regions who have not yet participated in the AESOP program.

"Farmers are realizing that in order to survive, they have to work together to solve their problems," Anatoly explains. "We all meet regularly now, thanks to the AESOP project that the Eurasia Foundation funded. Without it, we might never have talked to one another, much less shared our farming secrets."

2001