The collapse of the state economy in the late 1980s and the withdrawal of state support to agriculture to the extent that had existed for a long time before the adoption of the first National Program of Agriculture Development and Regulation of Markets for Agricultural Products, Raw Materials and Foodstuffs for 2008-2012, mostly affected the agriculture in the non-black earth region, with its low agricultural potential, low-yielding podzolic and grey forest soils and inefficient dairy production, low technical and technological level of agricultural production, which lags behind the global standards, high import reliance on such resources as seeds, plant protection products, feed additives, veterinary medicinal products, etc.
Given a considerably greater increase in the acquisition cost of capital goods as compared with the prices for agricultural products and the profitability reduction in agricultural production, the use of mineral fertilizers has decreased dramatically, which, given the significant decline in the cattle population and reduced application of organic fertilizers to the soil, led to the increased widespread unsustainable use of soil fertility and to soil degradation.
The share of wages dropped by 2.4 times, from 38.5% in 1991 to 16.2% in 2017, in the agricultural production cost structure, which affected the life quality of the agricultural workers' families.
The share of depreciation allowances dropped by 2.8% (30%), from 12.2% in 1990 to 9.4% in 2017, which resulted in continued use by many medium and especially small agricultural producers of primitive technologies and technical means, restraining the transition to the resource-saving technologies, modern machinery and equipment. Imported tractors accounted for 69%, and imported animal husbandry machinery and equipment, for approximately 90%, in the total agricultural machinery. With the lack of investments, the rate of technical and technological renewal of agricultural machinery is slow. The renewal rate is only 4%, and the average service life is almost a quarter of a century. Its disposal rate is almost twice as high as that of new equipment purchase; the existing agricultural machinery fleet is much lower than the necessary quantity for efficient agricultural production.1