Owners of the native land. Potato Brand

The person who first visited the village of Nikola, Ustyuzhensky district Vologda region will undoubtedly impress the modern cottages of local farmers. Immediately there is a feeling that you are not in the village, but in the "green" area for the local elite. Over the past few years, farming on Nikolskaya land has not only successfully taken root, but also gave a “harvest” in the form of a mass peasant movement. It is not for nothing that when mentioning this place, many people talk about the “Nikolsky phenomenon.” But first things first...

After the reorganization of the collective farm"Russia" here, in the course of economic reforms, peasant farms began to appear, of which there were 48 at the beginning of 2012. They grow potatoes on an area of ​​more than 1,200 hectares with an average yield of 380-450 centners per hectare.

Creation of a cooperative

On September 25, 2009, a significant event took place in the life of Nikolsky potato growers. An organizational meeting was held, during which sixteen peasant farms united into the Ustyuzhensky Potato cooperative. Together it was easier to meet the growing market requirements for manufactured products and meet credit obligations.

Headed the cooperative head of the peasant farm Vasily Solovyov, which, according to the results of the All-Russian competition dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the farming movement in Russia, took first place in the nomination "The Best Potato Farm". The potato harvest on his land is more than five hundred centners per hectare.

Alexander Kuznetsov, Executive Director of the Ustyuzhensky Potato Cooperative:

- In July 2009, farmers Viktor Alexandrovich Burov and Vasily Nikolaevich Solovyov contacted me in the department Agriculture, where I then oversaw work with farm and personal farms, with a proposal to establish a cooperative. The conversation was about uniting several farms to resolve issues related to the sale of their potatoes. They began to study various forms of associations of agricultural producers, agreed on the idea of ​​creating consumer cooperative.

Having studied the sales markets, we decided that we need to join forces primarily in the pre-sale preparation of potatoes, because in retail chains Vologda region did not have packaged potatoes.

We considered proposals from German, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Belarusian companies that produce the corresponding equipment. Unfortunately, in Russia they are not engaged in the production of such equipment. We visited agricultural enterprises that already use the lines of pre-sale preparation of potatoes in the Tula, Moscow, Novgorod regions. We went to St. Petersburg twice to see representatives of companies supplying the equipment we are interested in...

In November 2009, a group of farmers traveled to Germany to see the selected line option in action.

Now the agricultural consumer supply and marketing cooperative "Ustyuzhensky Potato" has 16 founders. But this does not mean that it is closed to new peasant farms who wish to join it.

Thanks to the cooperative, any farmer in the region can attend seminars held by companies supplying plant protection products and agricultural machinery, as well as representatives of leading research institutes.

In addition, through the cooperative, any producer of agricultural goods in the region can, for example, purchase fuels and lubricants, mineral fertilizers. It is profitable to do this through a cooperative, since when buying in bulk, you get a trade discount. In the overall order for farmers, there are significant cost savings.

The cooperative plans to provide mutually beneficial services to farmers not only in the Ustyuzhensky district, but even to farmers from neighboring regions.

And now, after two and a half years, we can judge that this undertaking was not in vain. Much has been done, much remains to be done.

But if you drive around the village of Nikola today, you will notice that it is almost entirely a farmer's village.

And I remember that in the first years of reforming agriculture, residents were frightened: the collective farm will fall apart, how will you solve social problems? It turned out, as farmers now recall with a smile, that they can be solved, and quite successfully! Because the farmer will not run away from his land. He is here to raise and teach children, grandchildren, and he will try to do it in such a way that in his native village there are both water and gas, and a school works. There are many examples when farmers restored farms, abandoned villages, rural temples.

So the Ustyuzhensky Potato cooperative, on its own and with some financial support from the regional government, once repaired the roof of Nikolskaya high school and revived the sports and health complex. After all, no one is so interested in developing the infrastructure of their village as the people living in it.

"Ustyuzhensky potato" - a brand of the Vologda region

The impressive results of the activities of potato farmers in the Ustyuzhensky district did not take shape immediately. This is a unique phenomenon in the Vologda Oblast, when a large collective agricultural enterprise that collapsed in the turbulent nineties was replaced by modern private potato farms. There is something to show, there is something to learn.

Modern potato storages, excellent agricultural equipment, more than forty varieties of cultivated potatoes - all this suggests that the real owners of their land live in Nikola. One hundred hectares of potatoes are cultivated by four workers, fifty hectares by two workers plus two seasonal workers. A couple of people using the most modern technology produce a thousand tons of potatoes.

The leaders in the production of potatoes in the cooperative are: Burov LLC, peasant farms V.N. Solovyova, I.P. Sukhanova, A.N. Volkova, V.N. Gulina, N.P. Sakharova, A.I. Solovyova, N.V. Belyakova, S.Yu. Guseva, S.Yu. Smirnova, S.A. Burova, A.N. Golubkov, V.G. Rumyantsev. Potato planting area in these KFH ranges from 30 to 50 hectares.

The sale of potatoes from Nikola goes both to the markets of the region and far beyond its borders, in particular, to the markets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Veliky Novgorod.

Burov LLC, peasant farms V.N. Solovyov and I.P. Sukhanov are included in the structure of the primary seed production of the region. The sale of seeds of high reproductions is the second financial source of their peasant farms.

Today, Nikolsk farmers can supply the market with up to 25 thousand tons of potatoes per year, both marketable and seed.

Europe is almost like home for them. In Finland and Germany, farmers adopt experience, get acquainted with foreign equipment not only at exhibitions, but also in practice.

Pavel Fedorovich Sukhanov One of the first Nikolsky farmers. Him for sixty, but he does not retire, actively participates in the life of his native Nikola. Pavel Fedorovich's parents are ordinary collective farmers, he himself was among the first to create a potato-growing peasant farm, now his son continues the work begun by his father. Farming took root on Nikolskaya land after the collapse of the collective farm, in which Pavel Fedorovich worked for a long time as an agronomist, then as chief agronomist. Visited for four years and served as chairmanVillage Council, but bureaucratic work was, as it turned out, not for him. After graduating in absentia with honors from the Vologda Dairy Institute, he returned to work as an agronomist. By the way, at the beginning, even after school, in the same specialty, he also graduated with honors from the Ustyuzhensk Agricultural College. Strong knowledge gave confidence in one's abilities, it was interesting to live a business that annually gives results, although it was not easy ...

It turns out that the native land, if you treat it in a businesslike way, gives you both your favorite job and prosperity. It attracts to itself like a magnet, generation after generation. The children and grandchildren of today's Nikolsk farmers will already inherit strong farms, the work of their fathers and grandfathers, a reliable source of life.

Therefore, it is not in vain that the residents of Nikola are worried about the development of their native village and the entire territory of the municipality. Farmers actually contribute to the economic and social improvement of their small homeland investing in it their money and labor.

Although, when each of them started his own business, he hardly thought that something like this would turn out. First of all, the new occupation was nothing more than just a means of decent income to feed the family.

So it was in the beginning. How about now? Let's find out...

Story One - Sukhanov's Father

We talked with him not about a long career path and great successes in life, but about the lessons of peasant life, which bring up the character of a person who is faithful to his native land and a consciously chosen cause.

- Pavel Fedorovich, the reforms also affected agriculture. Do you know this process from the inside, what can you say about the changes taking place?

The collective farm "Russia" is gone. When I started working here, it was one of the strongest farms in the region, the backbone of which was made up of people of the older generation. They worked with skill, they didn’t have to be taught, and they didn’t have to check what was done - they did everything carefully and conscientiously. The peasant, master's vein was still alive, connecting a person with the earth.

As time went on, there were fewer and fewer of these workers. The younger generation that came to the collective farm, for the most part, began to work as hired workers, who were only interested in money. Everywhere they needed control, as they tried to deceive in order to catch up with their salaries. They were not interested in the result of the work, pay - and that's it. But the earth requires a different attitude towards itself.

And no matter how hard they tried to apply different forms of management - both self-financing and other things, no matter how wise they were - they still could not advance far. The feeling of the owner was lost, the skills of a hired temporary worker were strengthened. They began to work, as they say, “from the wheel”: to catch up with the number of hectares, but the quality was not of interest. Constant control barely saved the case, everything was not controlled, and the further it went, the worse it got.

When the land began to be transferred to ownership, those who decided to become farmers understood that the land and the master's attitude towards it were the source of their future well-being. On your land you will not be a hired worker. Attitude towards it has changed, and the results of labor - too.

- That is, the farmer understands that he is obliged to treat the land as his property, a kind of labor partner. And the land will not let you down when it is taken care of, when, figuratively speaking, they participate in the work on an equal footing. He is her master, and she, in a certain sense, brings him up.

I remember the saying of one very good machine operator. When I praised him for the work done, he said: "I did it as for myself." It was a bar of quality that everyone understood.

And the farmer does not have to do "as for the collective farm", because he works for himself. This is where everything fell into place. No need to push anyone. How many nerves have been spent on the collective farm on these "adjustments", every time you had to say unpleasant things to a person. When I worked as an agronomist, I had to deal more with control than with technology. And they did not achieve high results, although the collective farm had good indicators.

- It turned out that with the farming movement, the land in Nikola found an owner, falling into the hands of those who wanted to work on it.

At first, it fell into the hands of those who could not manage it effectively. It doesn't work without it. And now there are different farmers.

When he left the collective farm, they had practically no equipment, they worked by hand from morning until late evening. Two years later, my son and I decided to work independently. They took the land, bought a broken T-25 tractor in the neighboring Tver region, and repaired it. The plow was for him, they bought a digger, a small planter - that's where they started. Gradually increased production. The lands had little - how much they could then process. Then they began to rent, then demand their shares, and we were given fifteen hectares for the three of us, my wife and son. Things went faster. Then they bought land. Now the son's farm has twenty-five hectares, and ours has fifteen. The total area is forty hectares.

- How much technology?

Lot. Five tractors "MTZ", "DT-75", T-25, the Finnish tractor "Valtra" is very good, it is comfortable for the tractor driver to work in it; a potato harvester from the GDR, the latest modification, can dig up to three hectares a day; a set of trailers manufactured by "Grimme" - planter, hiller, haulm harvester; trailers; vertical milling cultivators; discators; Amazon fertilizer spreader; Italian sprayer - in a word, the whole set of equipment necessary for the production of potatoes, allowing any operation to be carried out on time.

- You and your son work, and how many more people are involved in production?

In the spring we attract two workers for planting, and we put five people on the combine for harvesting in the fall.

Pavel Fedorovich Sukhanov: I have lived all my life in the countryside, and now I think that living in the countryside can be no worse than in the city. A person here feels more free. And the work is nearby, and he is in demand by nature itself, in his homeland. When busy with business, everything is in harmony. And in a big city - an eternal flea market, people are “wound up” in the morning. There are pluses now in the village, and the pluses are tangible. After all, in the city no one will give housing for nothing, and your house is much better than an apartment. It is not in vain that city pensioners return to their native places, develop parental plots and spend most of the year in the free air. After all, money can't buy health. If only good, knowledgeable people would choose a village to live in!

-Talking to you, you understand that now, having land and equipment, and the desire to live and work in the countryside is implied, you can make good profits and improve living conditions.

Can. But not everywhere, unfortunately. We are dealing with potatoes. She is in demand in the market.

- Pavel Fedorovich, when you were young, what determined your life choice?

Born here, raised here, and when I thought about future profession, I wanted to become not just an ordinary machine operator, but an agricultural specialist. And now it’s interesting to work as a machine operator, so much new technology has appeared that allows you to approach things creatively.

- What, in your opinion, prevents the agro-industrial complex from developing effectively in order to ensure the country's food security?

It is necessary to support our native agriculture capitally, subsidize it, as abroad, then it will become competitive. We are good at potatoes, but dairy production, for example, constantly suffers due to low purchase prices for milk.

When they began to work with the Finns on potatoes, they raised the harvest. We used their experience in the production and storage of potatoes - and an excellent result. There is no need to invent anything if there is a ready-made experience.

Yes, and our experience cannot be denied. In Soviet times, in the 1980s, large funds were allocated for the social sphere, for housing construction. We had our own construction team. Thanks to the developed social sphere, Nikola was preserved as a large settlement, and young people remained here, who later became farmers.

- When your son decided to stay in the village, did he have any doubts?

The time was difficult, he came from the army in 1992. Everywhere was difficult. But we already had a private household. I told him: "If you want to stay here and work, stay, there are enough things to do."

- A strong agricultural enterprise, a strong farmer show a good example of village life.

Yes it is. You can live in the village. And it is necessary!

Son

“He chose the village of Nikola, graduating from high school here,” - so, paraphrasing a well-known line from a poem by Nikolai Rubtsov, one can say about the son of Pavel Fedorovich - Igor.

- I didn’t even have thoughts of leaving the city, I didn’t feel like going there, - Igor Pavlovich Sukhanov said in our conversation.

The farm, despite the difficult conditions in the spring of 2009, managed to increase potato production by 26.2% compared to the previous year. The success is significant, and the award is well-deserved.

“Of course, not everything comes at once,” Igor Pavlovich continued. - While still at school, I got the rights of a tractor driver, then at a vocational school in Ustyuzhna I learned to be a driver. After the army, he returned to his homeland, got a job as a driver on a collective farm. But the collective farm was already on the eve of collapse, no prospects were visible.

My father and I decided to organize our own peasant economy: I am familiar with the technique, my father has an agronomic education, he could apply all the agrotechnical subtleties in practice. The land was owned. They didn't take loans or loans. Slowly every year we increased production: we bought equipment, expanded the landing area.

Over the eighteen years of development of the economy, a loan was taken once for the purchase of foreign equipment, when they switched from row spacing of seventy centimeters to seventy-five.

Potato production does not stand still. We try to improve our knowledge, introduce new technologies. We are constantly learning at various seminars, adopting best practices, using the necessary information from the Internet.

Work on the ground, I think, is more interesting than at the factory. Every day there is the same thing, but here there is a variety: you prepare equipment, plant potatoes of different varieties, dig, sell. Constantly at your own business, and you yourself dispose of the results of labor. There are no commanders above you.

Not everyone, of course, is suitable for such work, but there is no need to be afraid of it. Living in the countryside, working on the land, you will never go hungry.

On the contrary, the land makes it possible to firmly stand on your feet and honestly earn money.

The market does not allow you to relax. It is also interesting to fit into modern market requirements.

- Igor Pavlovich, did you build the house yourself?

Yes, it has all the amenities. The house is connected to water supply, sewerage, heated with a wood-burning boiler. Your house cannot be compared with a city apartment, and it is much more convenient to live in it.

We do not keep livestock, as they would take a lot of time, but it is necessary for the production process. The income from the sale of grown potatoes is sufficient so that everything you need can be bought and lived without feeling disadvantaged in some way.

Now in Nikola, seeing the success in potato growing, young people began to stay. After work we go in for sports, we have our own volleyball team, which wins prizes in regional competitions, including the first ones. I go to training three times a week.

If the village has Kindergarten, school, House of Culture, FLC, medical center, roads connecting it with the regional center and others settlements, she will not feel deprived, and people will live here.

Second story - Burov

After school, Viktor Alexandrovich Burov graduated from the Gryazovets College of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture with a degree in electrical engineering, and began working on a collective farm. After the army he returned to his native economy.

- I had to perform all functions: from the start of production to the sale of products. Potatoes, for example, were sold to the collective farm and the Cherepovets region; The money earned by the brigade went to the school cash desk. Having mastered in practice the entire chain - from production to sales, I thought: why not start working independently and earn as much as I can, and not how much they pay in one or another organization or in production. The salary, frankly, was poor here and there. From here, as they say, “the legs” of my farming “grow,” continued V.A. Burov. - Under the collective farm organization of labor, people worked for wear and tear, and now I have to work like that, but the result of labor is not alienated from a person.

When they say that a person will perish alone, I want to object. It rarely happens that a person is completely alone, there is a family, friends, like-minded people. Burov LLC, for example, is a family business.

What is good about the "Nikolsky phenomenon" of potato growing: on the one hand, they are competitors, and on the other hand, they constantly contact, share secrets, and there is a rapid process of mutual learning.

The farmer cannot exist in isolation. By expanding production, it creates jobs. Purchasing plant protection products, mineral fertilizers, seeds, - stimulates the demand for the development of other industries.

He binds his business, because it is his own, and he wants to develop it. Everything related to the production of potatoes is also developing.

Viktor Alexandrovich Burov Burov is also one of the first farmers in the Ustyuzhensky district. Now he leads a strong potato farm. Burov LLC. In the truest sense of the word - busy with his work. Looking at him, you can’t say that this person dreams of a well-deserved rest. In March 2012, it was 21 years since he organized his peasant farming. He worked almost as much on the former Rossiya collective farm until he decided to work on his own. - Your job is to be in shape. There is no need to be afraid of increased load, since it is one of the components of the expected result. The joy of a job well done compensates for the mental cost. And the sale of manufactured products provides funds for the development of production, - says Viktor Aleksandrovich. The farmer is also pleased with a reliable change. Today, side by side with him, his son-in-law, deputy and chief assistant Alexei Novozhilov is successfully working. Alexey Albertovich Novozhilov

- What, in your opinion, is farming for modern Russia?

- The situation in agriculture continues to be difficult. The farmer invests his money in production. This makes you work more responsibly and intensively. There was no expectation that the state would help, although it is customary for foreign countries to support their own agricultural producer, regardless of the form of ownership.

I consider farmers to be creative people, akin to artists, musicians who have a certain gift. There are far fewer such people in any society than those who are used to working on orders. To each, as they say, his own.

A good leader must be creative. This means that the fate of agriculture depends on who will be entrusted with it. Continuity has always played a positive role in Russia and has been supported. But there is such a sphere of activity - the bureaucracy, in which continuity, in my opinion, plays the role of a brake. Reformation is going too slowly there, not meeting the needs of the time.

I think that having become a farmer in my time, I made the right step. It was hard, even in the family at first I did not find understanding. But the results of the work, taking into account the fact that we started almost from scratch, impress and please, first of all, myself. There is something to be proud of, and the desire to work has not diminished.

The third story - Solovyov

- Viktor Nikolayevich, what helped you organize your work correctly at the very beginning?

First of all, seminars, which were held by the former head of the district for the cultivation of potatoes. Then specialized specialists from Finland were invited. For three days in a row, all the main agronomists gathered in the premises of the district committee of the party in the assembly hall and, using slides, they told in full about the system of agriculture, the system of growing potatoes. Then there was a landmark in the work. Then there were repositories that you could look at and find out what to focus on. Before that, we had storage in piles.

We were shown how to systematize the production process, which is necessary for this. This continued for a number of years both in the district and in the region. The Finnish specialist came, including to the farm, and completely controlled the process of growing potatoes. Calculated methods, taught to plan the yield. According to the formulas, he calculated what the additional yield would be. It surprised me then. The push was very strong. It all started from there.

And a farmer cannot have such an approach to work less and get more. We started from scratch and proved our right to exist.

Vasily Nikolaevich Solovyov: - Immediately after the army, he worked on a collective farm as a driver. He drove the chairman of the collective farm. In the process of work, between chores, at first I planted 10 acres, then 50. And after the reduction, I took it seriously. We united as a team of four people, took the MTZ-52 tractor by shares, we had a planter. So four of us on one tractor began to work. The beginning was rather difficult: there were no seeds, no diesel fuel, no plant protection products. For the same plant protection products, we realized that they were needed, but we didn’t really understand what exactly to do. In general, each of us knows from childhood how to plant potatoes. The boys saw how they plowed with a horse, grew it, dug it out by hand. There was some serious business here. In the first year we planted 4 hectares. Potato seeds were traded for a milk cooler. As I remember now - 10 tons of potatoes. And so it began to develop slowly. Four of us helping each other. One "boiler" - four farms. We worked together, together, despite the fact that each has its own land and its own account, but we worked as on collective farm land. We are still working this way. In fact, we have four different legal entities, four different bank accounts, but nevertheless we are always together. This is a kind of informal cooperative. In fact, a cooperative within a cooperative.

A real farmer is purposeful and able to solve momentary problems with a long-range vision, with a forecast of how the farm will behave in the current situation. He has to make decisions.

So, we told you just a few success stories. And there are already at least sixteen of them, only on Nikolskaya land. And there will be more, since the cooperative is an open enterprise and always welcomes new members. There will be enough land and hands to help everyone. How so, you ask? But what about your own, personal interests? Are they above everything? It turns out that not always. And this is proved to us by farmers from the village of Nikola.

"The unusualness of our village," argues Vasily Solovyov, head of the cooperative,- lies in the fact that the more people will work, the less envy will be and the social situation will be better. Everyone understands this, and everyone tries to help a neighbor. Someone has learned new information, so it must be shared with others. Yes, we are kind of competitors, but at the same time we will always come to each other's aid. One is harder to survive. And the realization that together everything will work out faster and better helps us achieve success. In addition, the constant exchange of information contributes to the rapid learning of people. It's harder to figure things out alone. And when one prompted, the other, the third, it turns out accelerated training in the profession. I believe that this case is inherited for life. I don’t know how it will turn out, but for most of us, continuity has already formed here. Since no one is waiting for us anywhere, and if you do not teach your children to work and live, no one will teach them."

EDITORIAL

Perhaps this is the most important condition for such a fruitful and successful work. This is the “Nikol phenomenon”!

And we, in turn, can only agree or not with this statement. And work out your plan, vision of life. But the fact that it is better to do business together, in the circle of reliable partners, cannot be argued with.

Ustyuzhensky potatoes can become another brand of the region

Acting Governor Oleg Kuvshinnikov visited the production base of the agricultural consumer cooperative "Ustyuzhensky Potato" the day before.

According to the press service of the regional government, the cooperative was established in the village of Nikola in July 2009 to combine efforts in the production of potatoes, provide services for the purchase of high-quality seeds, fertilizers, plant protection products, organize seminars held jointly with representatives of leading research institutes, study sales markets and assistance in the sale of marketable potatoes.

In accordance with the task of providing the country with domestic high-quality vegetable seed material set by the government of the Russian Federation, close attention is paid to the cultivation of high-quality seed potatoes by the cooperative's farms. This work is carried out in close cooperation with the State Scientific Institution of the All-Russian Research Institute of Potato Farming. A. Lorch, the Scientific and Practical Center of the National Academy of Sciences for Potato and Vegetable Growing of the Republic of Belarus, the Canadian company "McCain", the German company "KVS" and the German-Dutch company "HSPC Sadokas".

On behalf of the head of the region, on the basis of the SPSSK "Ustyuzhensky Potato", the Department of Agriculture created a commission to organize a potato seed growing zone in the Ustyuzhensky district. According to Oleg Kuvshinnikov, this is necessary due to the growing export of low-quality seed material from foreign countries, the increased demand of the private sector for varieties of Russian selection, as well as the inability of peasant farms engaged in the production of marketable potatoes to compete with large commodity producers due to the high cost of seed material .

“Ustyuzhensk potato growers are leaders in Russian Federation on the creation of closed phytosanitary zones for the production of original and seed potatoes, which is successfully implemented not only in the Vologda region, but also abroad. Our region can rightfully take a leading position in the production of high-quality elite potato material, the Acting Governor emphasized. — Ustyuzhensky potatoes should become the same recognizable brand of our region as Vologda Oil.

To date, the agro-industrial complex of the Ustyuzhensky district includes 12 agricultural organizations and about 40 peasant (farm) farms producing potatoes. In 2014, in accordance with the instruction of the head of the region on the creation of logistics centers in the Ustyuzhensky district, it is planned to put into operation 6 new generation potato storage facilities. By the way, according to the producers themselves, the Vologda Oblast is able to take up to 10% Russian market seed potatoes.

E.A. Simakov

In early 2009, in the process of reorganizing the Rossiya collective farm, in the village of Nikola, Ustyuzhensky district, Vologda region, the first peasant farms for growing ware potatoes appeared, of which there were already about 50 by 2012 ...

In September 2009, a significant event took place in the life of the Nikolsky potato growers. An organizational meeting was held at which sixteen peasant farms united into the Ustyuzhensky Potato cooperative, within which it was easier to take into account the increasing market requirements for the quality of potatoes grown and ensure the fulfillment of credit obligations.

The cooperative was headed by the head of the peasant farm Vasily Solovyov, who, following the results of the All-Russian review competition dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the farming movement in Russia, won first place in the nomination “The Best Potato Farm”. Its potato yield exceeds 50 t/ha.

After studying the sales markets, the farmers decided to focus their efforts primarily on the pre-sale preparation of potatoes, because there were no packaged potatoes in the retail chains of the Vologda Oblast. With absence necessary equipment in Russia, farmers considered proposals from German, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Belarusian manufacturers of the relevant equipment. We visited with. - X. enterprises that already use potato pre-sale lines in the Tula, Moscow and Novgorod regions. Twice we went to St. Petersburg to see representatives of companies supplying equipment of interest, and in November 2009 a group of farmers visited Germany, where they got acquainted with the work of the selected variant of a similar line.

Now in the composition of - X. consumer cooperative "Ustyuzhensky Potato" has 16 founders, but this does not mean that it is closed to new peasant farms. Thanks to the cooperative, any farmer in the region can participate in seminars held on its basis by firms that supply plant protection products, etc. - X. technology, as well as representatives of leading scientific institutions of Russia.

In addition, through the cooperative, any regional producer can purchase fuels and lubricants, mineral fertilizers and protective equipment. It is profitable to do this through a cooperative, because buying in bulk, you can get a discount. In the overall order for farmers, there are significant cost savings.

The cooperative plans to provide mutually beneficial services to farmers not only in the Ustyuzhensky district and the Vologda region as a whole, but even to farmers from neighboring regions.

After two and a half years of joint work of farmers, one can judge that this idea was not in vain. Much has already been done, much remains to be done. However, the main thing is that if you drive around the village of Nikola today, you will notice that it is almost entirely a farm.

A person visiting the village of Nikola in the Ustyuzhensky district of the Vologda region for the first time will undoubtedly be amazed by the modern cottages of local farmers. Immediately there is a feeling that you are not in the village, but in the "green" area for the local elite. Over the past few years, farming on Nikolskaya land has not only successfully taken root, but also gave a "harvest" in the form of a mass peasant movement. No wonder when mentioning this place, many people talk about the "Nikolsky phenomenon".

And I remember that in the first years of reforming agriculture, residents were frightened: the collective farm would fall apart, how will you decide social problems? It turned out, as farmers now recall with a smile, that they can be solved, and quite successfully! Because the farmer will not run away from his land. He is here to raise and teach children, grandchildren, and he will try to do it in such a way that in his native village there are both water and gas, and a school works. There are many examples when farmers restored farms, abandoned villages, rural temples.

So the Ustyuzhensky Potato cooperative, on its own and with some financial support from the regional government, once repaired the roof of the Nikolskaya secondary school and revived the sports and recreation complex. After all, no one is so interested in developing the infrastructure of their village as the people living in it.

Of course, such impressive results of the activities of potato farmers in the Ustyuzhensky district did not take shape immediately. This is a unique phenomenon in the Vologda region, when on the site of a large collective village that collapsed in the turbulent nineties. - X. the enterprise managed to create modern private potato farms. There is something to show and something to learn.

Potato storage facilities, equipped with the latest equipment, modern village. - X. equipment, more than forty varieties of grown potatoes - all this suggests that the real owners of their land live in Nikola. One hundred hectares of potatoes are cultivated by four workers, fifty hectares by two workers plus two seasonal workers. As a result, two people using the most modern technology produce 1000 tons of potatoes.

Among the leaders in the production of potatoes are cooperatives: Burov LLC, peasant farms of V. N. Solovieva, N. V.Belyakova, S. Yu.Guseva, S. Yu.Smirnova, S. A.Burova, A. N.Golubkova, V. G.Rumyantseva. The potato planting area in these peasant farms ranges from 30 to 50 hectares, and in total - 1200 hectares.

Commodity potatoes from Nikola are sold both in the markets of the region and far beyond its borders, in particular, in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Veliky Novgorod.

However, it is known that seed material provides the basis for yield in potato growing, therefore, the Nikolsky potato growers pay increased attention to the cultivation of high-quality seed potatoes.

Ustyuzhensky district is located in the western part of the Vologda region, the most favorable region for potato seed production. The weather here is cool in summer, and the relatively low background of insect vectors helps to minimize the spread of viruses. The growing season is rather short, from May to September (100–110 days), but the length of the day characteristic of the northern latitudes (up to 20 hours a day) creates favorable conditions for the rapid growth and development of plants, especially during the initial growing season.

Moreover, the small contour of the fields, their isolation from each other by forests, the use of green manure crops (oil radish, white mustard, etc.) in the crop rotation, as well as 3–5 phyto- and cultivar cleanings during the growing season under the supervision of specialists from the Rosselkhozcenter and close cooperation with specialized research institutes of the Russian Agricultural Academy and leading breeding and seed companies allows us to grow high-quality potato seed material.

In order to ensure and maintain the most favorable phytosanitary and technological conditions for the production of seed material, the Ustyuzhensky Potato cooperative applied to the state authorities of the Vologda region with a proposal to determine a special territory in the Ustyuzhensky district in accordance with Federal Law No. 122-FZ of July 21, 1997. "O state registration rights to real estate and transactions with it” and the Federal Law “On Seed Production”, Art. 20 "Special zones for the production of plant seeds".

It should be emphasized that of the entire regional farming community, only Burov LLC and the peasant farms of V.N.Soloviev and I.P.Sukhanov are included in the potato seed production system of the Vologda Oblast. All of them are also members of the Ustyuzhensky Potato cooperative. High-quality seed potatoes produced by these farms are sold both in the Vologda region and abroad, in particular, in the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, Astrakhan, Voronezh, Rostov, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov and Arkhangelsk regions of Russia. Today, Nikolsk farmers can supply up to 25,000 tons of commercial and seed potatoes to the market.

It turns out that the native land, if you treat it in a businesslike way, gives you both your favorite job and prosperity. It attracts generation after generation like a magnet. The children and grandchildren of today's Nikolsk farmers will already inherit strong farms, the work of their fathers and grandfathers, a reliable source of life. Therefore, it is not in vain that the residents of Nikola are worried about the development of their native village and the entire territory of the municipality. Farmers actually contribute to the economic and social improvement of their small homeland, investing their money and labor in this.

Simakov Evgeny Alekseevich,
doctor of agricultural sciences Sciences,
director of the All-Russian Research Institute of Potato Farming named after A.G. Lorch.

Email: [email protected]