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Nation Rich in Land Draws Workers From One Rich in People
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: September 10, 2012
OSTANINO, Russia — When a Chinese investor bought a farm outside this village a few years back, he was pleased enough to name it Golden Land. The soil was rich, the sunshine and rain bountiful.
No more. Today, row upon row of greenhouses here teem with dozens of Chinese farmhands picking tomatoes. And in a season with a bumper crop of tomatoes, the foreman said he would happily have employed hundreds more.
The influx of Chinese farm labor in Russia reflects the growing trade and economic ties between the two countries, one rich in land and resources, the other in people.
For years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, both countries have struggled to convert these complementary strengths into real business opportunities. A few mining ventures are succeeding. And state companies have struck big oil, coal and timber deals that form the backbone of the economic relationship.
Although China’s ventures into Russian agriculture have been on a smaller scale, they could end up being just as important — not least because they raise tensions about the role of immigrants similar to those seen in the United States over migrant Mexican farm laborers.
According to the World Food Program, Russia has the world’s largest reserve of arable yet now fallow land, a legacy of the collapse of the Soviet collective farm system and the depopulation of rural Russia over the last two decades. Russia’s population is 141 million, compared with 1.3 billion in China.
Full Hundred
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: September 10, 2012
OSTANINO, Russia — When a Chinese investor bought a farm outside this village a few years back, he was pleased enough to name it Golden Land. The soil was rich, the sunshine and rain bountiful.
No more. Today, row upon row of greenhouses here teem with dozens of Chinese farmhands picking tomatoes. And in a season with a bumper crop of tomatoes, the foreman said he would happily have employed hundreds more.
The influx of Chinese farm labor in Russia reflects the growing trade and economic ties between the two countries, one rich in land and resources, the other in people.
For years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, both countries have struggled to convert these complementary strengths into real business opportunities. A few mining ventures are succeeding. And state companies have struck big oil, coal and timber deals that form the backbone of the economic relationship.
Although China’s ventures into Russian agriculture have been on a smaller scale, they could end up being just as important — not least because they raise tensions about the role of immigrants similar to those seen in the United States over migrant Mexican farm laborers.
According to the World Food Program, Russia has the world’s largest reserve of arable yet now fallow land, a legacy of the collapse of the Soviet collective farm system and the depopulation of rural Russia over the last two decades. Russia’s population is 141 million, compared with 1.3 billion in China.
Full Hundred
