The 10th Overview compiled by BEFL includes 71 companies, the total area of which is 16.7m ha, 1.3m ha more than last year.

The period from 2021 to the beginning of 2022 saw heavy prices for agricultural commodities. The situation in the sector as a whole was auspicious to the extent that such factors as the surge in production costs, the quotas and export duties imposed on grain and oilseeds, the drought in some key agricultural regions of the country did not make much impact on the year results. The positive trends of the year also include record food exports and access to new markets in the Middle East.

Due to the high margin received by crop producers throughout the past year, the demand for crop production assets grew. By the end of 2021 – the beginning of 2022, in the center and the south of Russia the cropland prices increased by 30-50 %, and in some areas they almost doubled. The M&A market of crop production assets remained vigorous despite the limited number of offers. Large agricultural holdings continued to expand their land portfolios, which is evident, for example, from the TOP-10 leaders of the overview whose total land portfolio grew by almost 300k ha over the year.

The TOP-5 of the Overview has remained unchanged this year, though their total land portfolio has grown by 258k ha. Talina Agroholding, Kosminvest, Komsomolets Breeding Farm, moved up the highest number of lines (18, 17 and 17 respectively). This year’s leader in gain / loss of land under control is Agrocomplex (+158k ha). There were no remarkable downward changes in the positions of the companies or any palpable reduction of land under control of the ranking participants this year.

Three companies are no longer in the list of large agricultural land holders (Agronova-L, Solnechnye Produkty and Primorye Agroholding), but 8 new companies joined the ranking, most of which are large agricultural holdings of the Volga region; there are also companies from the Ural Federal District and the Stavropol Krai.