Heartland Farms: A Business Model for Russian Agriculture

The recent mass migration-triggered civil unrest and 'hate speech' laws crackdown in the United Kingdom, as well as exploding costs of living and farming in the UK must have many British farmers looking abroad at options. Some may be considering emigrating to South American breadbasket countries such as Paraguay.

Here at ExitStrategy.World, our team invites British farmers to consider a move to Russia, and presents below a successful case study from the 2000s, Heartland Farms in Russia's black earth Penza region.

-- James Smith

Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, ExitStrategy.World

August 12, 2024

One of the biggest breadbaskets in the world has historically been and continues to be Russia. A nation that is often described in the West as cold and desolate yet provided a large portion of the food stuffs that the rest of Europe desperately needs to stave off mass food inflation.

For many Westerners looking to invest in Russia, the agricultural sector, for some reason, has often been overlooked in favor of heavy industry, oil-gas and consumer goods. However, this has not always been the case.

Photo credit: Milking cows eating in a modern cowshed

Uploaded to iStock by Denis Suslov May 2020

Enter stage left, Heartland Farms.

Back in distant 2003, two British entrepreneurs saw the future for what it was: Russia was going to retake its place as a food superpower and decided to get in on it on the ground floor.

Colin Hinchley and Richard Willows created Heartland Farms and were able to get a large concession on land in the Penza oblast, southwest of Moscow. This is of course, black earth, the richest soil that can be found anywhere in the world. Their “procurement” of land was a 49 lease, as foreigners are not allowed to own agricultural land. The volume was very impressive: by 2003 they had accumulated 45,000 hectares (111,200 acres) of land and continued to acquire land with the aim of reaching a staggering 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres). Part of the land “purchases” had been state owned land and the government of Penza oblast was very happy to participate and assist.

The business model was quite simple: bring in British immigrant farmers, cover their costs of the move and setup and than have them farm cash crops as dictated by the company. These cash crops would be equally augmented by Russian farmers in the area. Remember, this was 2003 and Russian agriculture was at a very low point, just starting to attract people back to farming.

Photo credit: Ears of wheat against the background of a 1000 Rubles (RUB) note

Uploaded to iStock by Max Zolotukhin April 2023

Heartland Farms would then be able to sell the cash crops in mass on the commodity markets and make a killing.

Heartland Farms started subletting the land to British farmers, bringing them in to work the land.

One of the potential investor, Clive Weir, stated: “If we’re going to have to produce commodities at world prices, we may as well do it in a place where we can get inputs at world prices, too.”

George Green from Aberdeen, another farmer trying to survive, had this to say about the project and its prospects: “Currently I contract farm in northeast Scotland and will honor my outstanding contracts. But longer term, I am very drawn to Russia. There is no opportunity to cut costs further in Aberdeen and we cannot survive at world prices. That’s why more farmers are looking at feeding whole crop, to eliminate the costs of harvesting and drying feed grains."

To bring in investors, Heartland Farms set up a demonstration farm of 2,000 hectares. Using modern equipment and low-cost Russian seed, fertilizer and insecticides. They were able to demonstrate a doubling of crop yields compared to that of British farms, with much better margins.

Since that experiment, the cost of farming in the United Kingdom as well as the rest of the (post)West has exploded exponentially. Due to insane decisions by the various governments, fuel and fertilizer prices, before the start of the Ukrainian conflict, had already skyrocketed. That led to either extremely expensive fertilizer produced locally or no fertilizer at all, as the manufactures simply closed shop. Additionally, sanctions on Russia have contributed to further shortages of fertilizer, seed and insecticides. Western food production is teetering on the edge of the abyss.

Add to this the drive to enforce globalist Carbon Zero and the Agenda 2030 insanity and most farmers in the West are facing extremely bleak forecasts for their own survival. A simple example is The Netherlands, which has already implemented taxes on cow farts, or rather to combat methane they will now extensively tax every head of cattle. This is a money grab measure even as the government debates outright closing down over 50% of their farms due to alleged nitrogen emissions.

But even without such drastic actions, high taxes, extreme and time costly regulations and reports, insane environmental standards, price-spiked inputs have all done their part to destroy the lives of tens of thousands of farmers.

Russia, on the other hand, has always been farmer friendly, with the exception of the Soviet Union's failed collective farming policies, which have been dead and buried for 32 years. Many Russian oblasts (provinces) have programs to aid those willing to work the land, with grants and other assistance. Programs include grants, subsidies (for farming insurance, seed and animal purchases, equipment purchases), free education programs (for improving work and yield), and farm loans with a maximum 5% interest rate. These programs are aimed specifically to supporting family farms and are followed on by programs supporting large families of three or more children.

This obviously is not limited only to Russian citizens. Immigration reforms working their way through parliament will be more focused on attracting quality western migrants, those bringing key skill sets needed for the economy.

Additionally, specific jobs related to agriculture allow one to gain permanent residency after six months and citizenship after one year. These include veterinary doctor, agrochemist, agroengineer, animal science, food and food processing technologist.

As early as 2016, there was a concerted effort to open up the Russian agriculture sector to investment and migration by persecuted Afrikaners whose ancestral lands in South Africa have fallen under the threat of mob violence and government pressure, as well as to various European nationalities. Various YouTube channels, those that have not been banned in the name of Our Democracy™, have sprouted up with farming families from Canada, US and Australia moving to different parts of Russia. The road of course has its bumps and issues but all have settled and they and their big families have felt very comfortable and welcomed.

This is something that is definitely worth considering. Money transfers for farmland long term lease with contractual option to purchase upon obtaining Russian citizenship is one issue. But with feasible set up of international banking/LLC infrastructure in the UAE, or banking next door in the Republic of Georgia as well as Bitcoin or stable coins for crypto-transfers, all of these issues can be overcome.

Consider Exit Strategy.World as your partner, who can help you in achieving your goals of settling on vast farming lands in a country that shares your values of faith, hard work and family traditions.