Rediscovering the Virgin Lands: Agricultural Investment and Rural Livelihoods in a Eurasian Frontier Area

Petrick, Martin; Wandel, Jürgen; Karsten, Katharina

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.09.015

Cited by 71 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Cropland abandonment and reversion to grasslands continues in our study area, partly due to incomplete land reforms, termination of agricultural production by bankrupt enterprises and ongoing structural change in the agricultural sector (OECD 2013, Petrick et al 2013, Glauben et al 2014. Although the overall amounts of re-cultivation and abandonment from 2000 to 2010 were almost equal, the two processes resulted in distinct spatial patterns of agricultural land-cover change because cropland abandonment primarily affected marginal areas (table 4, figure 5(B)).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…After 1963, cropland expansion slowed, and croplands reached a maximum extent (8.5 Mha) in the early 1980s. Toward the end of the Soviet era, the cropland area in Kostanay Province started to decline, and after In 2010, the agricultural sector of Kazakhstan comprised three main types of producers: corporate enterprises, which are successors of Soviet collective farms (kolkhoz) or state farms (sovkhoz), registered and commercially-oriented individual farms, and small, partly subsistence-oriented household farms (Dudwick et al 2007, OECD 2013, Petrick et al 2013. The large-scale corporate enterprises constitute the backbone of the Kazakh crop production, controlling about three fourths of the total cropland in northern Kazakhstan (ASK 2014).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Long-term agricultural land-cover change and potential for cropland expansion in the former Virgin Lands area of Kazakhstan

Kraemer

Prishchepov

Müller

et al. 2015

Environ. Res. Lett.

150

131

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During the Soviet Virgin Lands Campaign, approximately 23 million hectares (Mha) of Eurasian steppe grassland were converted into cropland in Northern Kazakhstan from 1954 to 1963. As a result Kazakhstan became an important breadbasket of the former Soviet Union. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered widespread agricultural abandonment, and much cropland reverted to grasslands. Our goal in this study was to reconstruct and analyze agricultural land-cover change since the eve of the Virgin Lands Campaign, from 1953 to 2010 in Kostanay Province, a region that is representative of Northern Kazakhstan. Further, we assessed the potential of currently idle cropland for re-cultivation. We reconstructed the cropland extent before and after the Virgin Lands Campaign using archival maps, and we mapped the agricultural land cover in the late Soviet and post-Soviet period using multi-seasonal Landsat TM/ETM+ images from circa 1990, 2000 and 2010. Cropland extent peaked at approximately 3.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term agricultural land-cover change and potential for cropland expansion in the former Virgin Lands area of Kazakhstan

Kraemer

Prishchepov

Müller

et al. 2015

Environ. Res. Lett.

150

131

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“…Across the Eurasian steppes, people were detached from their land during Soviet collectivization, and there is a history of c. 100 years of industrialscale agriculture. In Kazakhstan, indigenous land-use patterns such as transient nomadism were ignored and Kazakh nomads forced to settle and join collective forms of production during the 1920s and 1930s (Petrick, Wandel & Karsten 2012). Land was state-owned during Soviet times, and the rural population considered themselves not as farmers, but as state employees.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since 2000, the agricultural sector of the steppe zone has recovered in Kazakhstan (Petrick, Wandel & Karsten 2012). More than 50% of abandoned cropland has been reclaimed, and agricultural expansion and intensification are predicted to continue (Kamp et al 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural development and the conservation of avian biodiversity on the Eurasian steppes: a comparison of land‐sparing and land‐sharing approaches

Kamp

Urazaliev²,

Balmford

et al. 2015

Journal of Applied Ecology

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1. The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to the abandonment of >40 million ha of cropland, a collapse in livestock numbers and the recovery of depleted biodiversity on the steppe grasslands of Kazakhstan and southern Russia. More recently, large-scale reclamation of abandoned cropland and intensification of agriculture are observed, highlighting a need for strategies to reconcile agricultural development and biodiversity. 2. We related bird densities along a land-use gradient to yield estimates from arable and livestock systems in central Kazakhstan to decide whether a land-sparing, a land-sharing or an intermediate strategy would result in the largest benefits for biodiversity. 3. For 'loser species' (whose population size is reduced by farming), land sparing was predicted to support higher total populations of more species than was land sharing, at all production targets. 'Winners' (species benefitting from agriculture) profited from land sharing when judged from food energy or protein. Intermediate yields were best for very few species. Heavily grazed steppe grassland was important for several globally threatened and biome-restricted species. 4. Government statistics suggested that over 50% of abandoned cropland has been reclaimed since 2000 and crop yields have increased. In the same period, there was significant progress towards the designation of new protected areas, but the total area in Kazakhstan still falls short of the Convention on Biological Diversity's 17% target. 5. Policy implications. Further increases in agricultural production are likely to reduce populations of most birds, especially if they are achieved by conversion of abandoned cropland, or grassland. Our results suggest that production increases would do least harm if they resulted from increasing the output of existing cropland, using approaches such as snow accumulation, no-till and more efficient grain harvesting and storage, rather than from further reclamation of abandoned land that is now reverting back to steppe. Production increases should be offset by improved conservation planning through the designation of protected areas on land potentially suitable for cropland expansion.

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“…He is known for a political management style that entails clear orders to his subordinates, setting deadlines and demanding action plans (SCHIEK, 2014: 166). In the eyes of the rural population, Nazarbayev already delivered: after the turmoil of the first years of independence was over, wages in agriculture increased and real consumption spending of rural households doubled, which secured him high approval rates in the countryside (PETRICK et al, 2013).…”

Section: The President's Bureaucratic Modernization Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Policies in Kazakhstan

Petrick¹,

Pomfret²

2017

Handbook of International Food and Agricultural Policies

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in ABSTRACTAgriculture plays an important part in Kazakhstan's self-image, and continues to be a significant economic sector, employing about a third of the workforce. In the two decades since independence, agriculture has experienced dramatic swings in performance and in public policy. During the 1990s the sector suffered from external shocks, reduced public support and inchoate land tenure reform, while providing a safety net for families suffering from the transitional recession. Since the turn of the century, the booming economy has seen ruralurban migration and substantial public funds devoted to the agricultural sector. This article illustrates the steps taken to consolidate and improve Kazakhstan's position as a major agricultural producer and exporter, while also highlighting the shortcomings of current policies. It places Kazakhstan's agricultural policy evolution in the broader context of political independence from the Soviet Union and the general course of economic reforms. We highlight the driving forces of agricultural policy evolution from a political economy perspective and give an overview of specific policy measures.

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Rediscovering the Virgin Lands: Agricultural Investment and Rural Livelihoods in a Eurasian Frontier Area

Cited by 71 publications

References 14 publications

Long-term agricultural land-cover change and potential for cropland expansion in the former Virgin Lands area of Kazakhstan

Long-term agricultural land-cover change and potential for cropland expansion in the former Virgin Lands area of Kazakhstan

Agricultural development and the conservation of avian biodiversity on the Eurasian steppes: a comparison of land‐sparing and land‐sharing approaches

Agricultural Policies in Kazakhstan

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