Resource information
Discussion Paper 34 contains information on property relations and profitability of 100Russian large-scale farm enterprises, gathered in interviews in the Volgograd region in 2000.They are an integrated part of research activities concerning the privatisation and restructuringof farm enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe and take up the subject of Discussion Paper18. 31 questions were formulated. The answers were evaluated using multivariate statisticalmethods. Comprehensive knowledge was obtained about number and size of land and capitalshares, voting mode, indebtedness, cost of social security contributions for the employees andof the support for household plots and ensuing consequences for the profitability ofenterprises.Within a farm, land shares are principally of the same size varying between 2.6 and 48.5hectares. Farm workers hold 53.0 % of the land shares and 53.3 % of the capital. In 14 out of23 corporations the voting mode was not in agreement with the legal rules. A significantnonlinear relationship between acreage and profitability could be confirmed. Compared with medium-sized farms, the profitability was higher in some very large (>20 thousand ha) andalso in relatively small farms (approx. 4 thousand ha). In case of the latter it was to be checkedup whether and which way restructuring would be feasible in order to raise the profitabilitylevel.The average cost efficiency of large-scale farms as used in Russia for reporting on profitabilitywas 3.4 % in 1999. If the costs of social security contributions by the farms for the workers,support for family farms and sometimes unusually high depreciation rates are neglected, theaverage cost efficiency is clearly higher (25.5 %). 15 farms out of 59 believe that they are ableto settle the debt problem under their own steam; 9 hope for contributions by the government,and 35 expect a full assumption of their debts by the state.
