Land policies and agricultural land markets in Russia

Russia has experienced dramatic changes in land ownership and land tenure since the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991: agricultural land has been largely privatized, individual landowners now have legal rights to most agricultural land in the country, and previous prohibitions on buying and selling of land have been removed by recent laws. The necessary pre-conditions for the development of agricultural land markets have been met and we are beginning to witness transactions that involve individual landowners, and not only the state. However, further development of the embryonic land market is severely circumscribed by the inadequacy of the administrative and technical infrastructure. The paper reviews the dynamically evolving legal framework for land reform, considers the impacts of land reform on privatization and ownership structure of agricultural land, and analyzes the development of land market transactions. The analysis is based on the results of a questionnaire-based survey conducted by the authors in 2003 in three regions. The survey results are supplemented with data from official statistical sources when appropriate. The paper concludes with a review of the existing constraints on land transactions and some policy recommendations.