Putin’s trading Kalashnikovs for tomatoes and cucumbers

Vladimir Putin will do anything so Russia can return to its former glory. In the last decade, Russia has seen a decline in its population. Low birth rates, and extremely high rates of alcoholism and violent deaths suggest that Russia will lose 100 million people by 2025. Meanwhile, Putin promises to make Russia self-reliant from food imports by 2020. How will this work?

The Yuzhny Agricultural Complex grows 2,300 football-fields worth of fresh produce, and ships it to Moscow.

How does Russia keep up moral, strengthen jobs, expand to the Arctic circle and grow its economy? Putin is banking on greenhouse, or indoor farming. According to Bloomberg, Putin’s recent support of greenhouse-grown food, funded by companies such as AFK Sistema, has created a strong case for Russia’s future in food — not only wheat. Putin’s government is putting stimulating capital into agriculture, and it is paying off.

Woman working at the Yuzhny Agricultural Complex, south of Moscow.

Sistema owns the Yuzhny Agricultural Complex, a complex of greenhouses built between the Black and Caspian seas. The greenhouses grow 2,300 football fields-worth of fresh produce. Thanks to efforts like these, Russia’s food exports now exceed the sale of Kalashnikovs and all its military exports combined. Russia needs to diversify away from oil by 2030 when its oil and gas reserves are expected to decline. Agriculture is a key part of this diversification.

During Communist times, the Soviet’s expanded its farming practices to present-day Kazakhstan (then part of the USSR) to fill its breadbasket. Farming plans failed, leaving ghost farms the size of France in Kazakhstan, with massive, highly polluted tracks of land deemed unsuitable for farming.

The Ghost farm Chilinka Sovkhoz in Kazakhstan

But man can overcome nature, and rough Russian winters, with indoor farming. And Russia, with its people familiar with keeping small family garden plots at home, has succeeded and prospered. Prosperity has come by way of hybrid tomato called the T-34, named after the tank that helped Russian take down Hitler. These tomatoes are the the pride of the Yuzhny Agricultural Complex, a complex of greenhouses built between the Black and Caspian seas.

The highly efficient complex is watered by pristine ice melting from Mount Elbrus resulting in millions of tomatoes and highly coveted fresh fruit which are trucked to Moscow, an 18 hour truck drive to the north.

Unlike Stalin who promised prison for non-compliance and whose rule led to the Great Famine, Putin is promising prosperity and profits to those who support his vision for agriculture. Russia aims to grow all its own food by 2020. Like the Sunkist orange of Florida, or the Jaffa of Israel, the T-34 is a symbol of Russian prosperity.

As America relies on fresh food imports from countries such as Mexico, with some food being shipped in from Africa or Asia, Russians are learning fast how home-grown strengthens the economy and its people. Agriculture has become a hot investment trend, according to Bloomberg:

“The two hottest investments for rich Russians are farmland and European hotels,” said Yevgenia Tyurikova, the head of private banking at state-run Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender. “This trend is absolutely new.”

Small businesses and hotels have even started commissioning private indoor greenhouses like the one below.

Built in the woods near the Klyazminskoe Lake in Russia, the simple and elegant Pirogovo greenhouse is part of a larger building enterprise designed by Totan Kuzembaev Architects for Alexander Ezhkov, the owner of Pirogovo Resort. It was commissioned by the owner to grow healthy vegetables and greens for the rest of the resort.

Alexander Lebedev, a former KGB officer turned businessman who co-owns Russia’s biggest potato grower has not regretted a move into agriculture: “If someone were to ask me what the most proper and profitable business to invest in now is, I’d say agriculture,” he said.

Some of the biggest set backs to Russia’s agriculture industry growth, include technology, reports Bloomberg. As Russia expands into areas of farming such as dairy and indoor agriculture, highly controlled and easy to use tools are simply lacking. For many, working in farms is back-breaking and mundane work. Software and automation tools dedicated to serve the people, and farming, while maximizing profits, could free Russian’s up for more fulfilling activities.

Karin Kloosterman is the founder and VP of Marketing for flux. flux has developed highly sophisticated artificial intelligence technology out of the Israeli military to create the world’s first fully automated indoor farm. Contact karin@fluxiot.com for more.