MOSCOW, June 26 (UPI) -- The lower house of Russia's parliament approved a historic bill Wednesday that allows for the sale and private ownership of agricultural land in Russia for the first time since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.
By a vote of 258-149, the bill, which had been opposed by Communists and nationalists, also denies foreigners the right to purchase farmland, but instead allows foreigners to rent farmland in some areas for up to 49 years.
The Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, must now approve the land code, which was supported by the Kremlin, before it is signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.
Putin insisted on passage of the legislation to allow money losing state-owned agricultural collectives to sell their land to private owners, in an effort to improve the productivity of Russian farms.
Putin said passage of the bill was essential for Russia's economic reform.
Most of the land is currently owned by Soviet-era Kolkhoz and Sovkhoz collective farms which are largely cash-starved, run-down enterprises lacking technology and unable to use the land productively.
The bill requires the buyer to continue using it as farmland, preventing construction of heavy industry on land that was once crop fields and meadows.
Under former President Boris Yeltsin, Russia adopted a new Constitution in 1993 that allowed private land ownership, but the Communists have up till now used their veto in the Duma to prevent its passage.
An important amendment to the bill passed Wednesday allows each of Russia's 89 regions to individually decide when the time is right to begin land sales. A number of regions in the agricultural heartland are controlled by Communist and Agrarian governors who will undoubtedly seek to stall implementation of the new legislation.
Regional leaders will also be able to regulate the size of farmland plots on the market, an amendment liberal economists warned would open the door to extensive corruption. The size of land eligible for leasing to one person or business has been limited to 10 percent of the entire farmland available in any of Russia's 89 respective regions.
Boris Nadezhdin, a member of the pro-reform Union of Rightist Forces, was critical of the amended bill, noting that big businesses with long-term leases on farms negotiated before the law takes effect will be allowed to hold on to their leases, preventing sale of land to the private sector.
Nadezhdin was also critical of the ban on foreign ownership of farmland, pointing out that it sent the wrong message to investors. He said foreign companies could still buy land through Russian subsidiaries in which they have a minority holding.
However, even with the restrictions, passage of the bill opens the way to legal private ownership of farmland and the establishment of a market for the sale, purchase and mortgage of agricultural land in Russia for the first time since the czars.
Analysts hailed the vote as a sign that long-needed investment in agriculture could at last begin to transform the under performing sector and help Russia one day achieve self-sufficiency in food and -- possibly -- its pre-Revolutionary status as the breadbasket of Europe.
