Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture No. 1/09
Agroholding membership:
does that make a difference in performance?
Heinrich Hockmann
Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central in Eastern
Europe, Halle (Saale), Germany
Raushan Bokusheva
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland
Irina Bezlepkina
Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Abstract
Comparing different organizational, managerial and economic indicators
of the farms in two selected regions, the study investigates whether
agroholdings perform better and thus can be regarded as a promising
organizational model for Russian agriculture. A comparatively poor
performance of agroholdings’ members in both regions implies that this
organisational form suffers from principal management problems
hampering the move of agricultural production towards efficient
trajectories. The insights regarding farm restructuring, marketing
activities and performance cannot however be simply transferred to
Russian agriculture in general. In both analyzed regions the
establishing of agroholdings was strongly promoted by the local
government which induces a bias in the reason to integrate.
Keywords: agroholdings, competitiveness, Russia
JEL: Q13
Vol. 48 (2009), No. 1: 25-46