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1 have also worked with other organizations that are financed under the AID 

 program, including the Cochran Fellowship Foundation, Communicating for 

 Agriculture and ACDI's Reverse Farmer to Farmer program and Georgetown 

 University. 



Last summer under the auspices of VOCA, I had the opportunity to work and 

 live with the new private farmers in the Ivanovo Oblast Teikovo District of 

 Russia. Last December and January, VOCA sent me to work in Kazakhstan with 

 the new private farmers of that country. 



The private farmers of Russia are in every sense pioneers. They are some of 

 the first people in Russia to have perpetual land " use " rights in some 70 years. 

 Land cannot yet be bought or sold in Russia, but it now can pass from one 

 generation to the next. Therefore, farmers have no rights to mortgage the land 

 or borrow on it. So, like the pioneers of America, they are starting out with 

 very few material goods, no credit, little or no machinery, no homes, no 

 electricity, and no water except for what they haul from rivers or ponds. Yet 

 they have something much more valuable, they possess the personal attributes 

 that ensure success; namely a positive attitude, dedication, desire, hard work, 

 and they are teachable with a strong desire to learn. They have the " I Can " 

 attitude . 



There are approximately 200,000 private farms in Russia. The RF Agrarian 

 Institute estimates there are 2.4 workers (farmers) per farm for a total of 

 480,000 private farmers, with more than 1 million people living on private farms. 

 Many of the new pioneers came from the state and collective farm system, a lot 

 of them are specialists in various agricultural areas with management experience 

 in farming. 



During my assignment, I accomplished established goals for this project. They 

 included numerous farm visits; farm meetings; meetings with local, regional, and 

 national governmental authorities; credit authorities; and government agencies 

 both Russian and American. In addition, I met with many other sources that 

 can and will provide resources to help the private and government farmers. 



We discussed business plans, marketing, credit and financing, the importance of 

 farmer-owned cooperatives, storage methods, processing, small scale business 

 methods and techniques, profitable livestock production, and the possibility of 

 training programs for the private farmers and related agribusiness people in 

 Russia and in the USA. 



It was both extremely challenging and humbling to work with the new private 

 farmers who are literally starting from scratch; building homes, barns, and 

 corrals while trying to establish crops and care for a few head of livestock. I 

 found farmers living in discarded truck bodies, wagons, tents, cars, and even 

 some were living in haystacks . 



The typical farm that I worked with was a diversified operation, with 25 to 50 

 hectares (or 61 to 123 acres). Livestock includes a cow or two, 5 to 25 sheep, 



2 to 4 pigs, and some chickens. The crops customarily consist of a vegetable 

 garden, a few hectares of oats, some wheat, buckwheat, rye, and often about 

 half em acre of potatoes for home and livestock use. The remainder of the land 

 is usually pasture and woods. Roads to the farms are nothing more than paths 

 in the sod that have become deep ruts, difficult to maneuver in the summer and 



TG.017, 3/25/93 



