Agricultural nature management in the Russian regions: environmental and resource «dissonance»

Abstract

The environmental consequences of the transformation of the agricultural nature management in post-Soviet Russia have been carried out in the regional context. It has been ascertained, that more than half of the regions have changed the livestock on crop specialization. The comparison of the regional indices (1990-2014) of the production of agricultural products and indices of used resources (acreage, livestock and fertilizer application) has been made. The phenomenon of environmental and resource «dissonance» in the agrarian sector, leading to degradation of agro-landscapes, has been revealed. It has been ascertained, that the more successful a regional agriculture is developing, the higher is the resource and environmental «dissonance». Two groups of regions are revealed which differ by diametrically opposed environmental trajectories: 1) regions of accelerated «primitivization» of agriculture, where one can expect changes in regional climatic characteristics; 2) the regions of Central-Chernozem zone in which the over-exploitation of agricultural landscapes is threatened by their accelerated environmental degradation.