What foreign companies have large land plots in Russia?


Our company is engaged only in agricultural projects in Russia, so we will not talk about all the foreigners who have reached great heights in Russian business.

About 410 million hectares belong to agricultural land in Russia, of which about 120 million hectares are under arable land. However, about 80 million hectares are currently cultivated, most of the uncultivated land in Siberia is about 29 million hectares, and the remaining 11 million hectares are located in the North-Western region, the Urals and the Volga region. 2.5 - 3 million hectares of land are under the control of foreigners, which is about 2-2.5% of the total Russian arable land. But we are talking only about open transactions, how many real land assets belong to a Chinese entrepreneur in the Far East and Siberia, no one can say for sure. According to the expert assessment of the land consulting company «GeoBuro», the volume of land assets can reach 3 million hectares that Chinese entrepreneurs have acquired over the past 20 years.


Together, foreigners may own up to 5% of all arable land in Russia.

  1. 1. In the first place is the Kazakh agricultural holding «Ivolga-Holding», established in 1992 in Kazakhstan, by businessman Vasily Rozinov. Initially, the company specialized in grain trading. Since 1997, the strategic direction has been agriculture - growing grain and producing livestock products. By 2015, the «Ivolga-Holding», was able to increase crops by 30 times and bring the land bank to 1.5 million hectares, including about 550,000 hectares of the company owned in Russia.
  2. 2. In second place is the Swedish «Black Earth Farming» (BEF) agro-holding with a land bank of 256,000 ha of agricultural land, 227,000 ha of which are owned. The direction of growing corn, wheat and barley.
  3. 3. In third place is the «Econiva» company owned by German entrepreneur Stefan Duerr. He concentrated a total of about 240,000 hectares of Russian land, he owns many dairy farms, which graze up to 30,000 cattle (dairy cows).
  4. 4. In fourth place is the French company «Louis Dreyfus», together with the Russian partner AFK Sistema, they control more than 87,500 hectares of Russian farmland and continue to purchase land assets with the desire to bring the land bank to 120,000 hectares by 2022.
  5. 5. In fifth place is the Danish company – «Trigon Agri». The chairman of the board of directors is Ulo Adamson, and the head of the enterprise is Raul Toomsalu. «Trigon Agri» is one of the leading holding companies and specializes in grain and dairy production, storage and trade in agricultural crops. Its assets are currently located in Ukraine, Russia and Estonia. «Trigon Agri» shares are traded on the NASDAQ OMX stock market in Stockholm. «Trigon Agri» is managed by «Trigon Capital», a leading company in Central and Eastern Europe with an estimated $ 1 billion in assets. At the end of June 2015, «Trigon Agri» owned and owned 140,200 hectares of agricultural land, including 93,500 hectares in Russia, 8,000 hectares in Estonia and about 50,000 hectares in Ukraine - Kharkiv Oblast (33,000 hectares), Mykolayiv region (12,000 hectares) and Kirovograd region (5,000 hectares).
  6. 6. The sixth place is occupied by the Lithuanian «Agrowill Group» (capitalization on the Vilnius Stock Exchange) founded in 2003 and brings together 15 companies (milking herd - 5600 heads, sown area under grain - 9000 hectares in the Leningrad Region in 2007). «Agrowill» CEO Valentas Sulskis told Reuters in May 2008 that by the end of 2014 the company would receive up to 50,000 hectares in Chernozemye, this happened by purchasing a 75% stake in Russian agro-holding Agroprom. The assets of this agro-holding were concentrated: Penza, Samara, Kursk and Pskov regions.

Why do foreign companies buy land in Russia? The main factor is that land in Russia costs from 200 to 3,000 dollars per hectare. If we take, for example, 1 hectare of French agricultural land, then it costs on average from 5,000 to 20,000 euros, the Spanish hectare costs from 14,000 euros, the most expensive hectare in Belgium is 26,000 euros. Cheaper land in the US from 5,000 to 12,000 US dollars. Our experts are waiting for a rise in price and Russian land assets already starting in 2022, approximately annually by 12-18%. The main driver of growth will be the purchase of land in Siberia by Chinese agro-holdings, and in the European part of Russia by large Russian agro-holdings, such as Miratorg, Step, and others.


To buy a large plot of land in Russia and guarantee its payback in the future, you just need to contact us and we will help you.