At its 487th meeting, the Federation Council approved amendments to the Federal Law "On the Safe Handling of Pesticides and Agrochemicals" and the Law "On State Regulation of Ensuring the Fertility of Agricultural Lands" in terms of improving the legal regulation of relations in the field of protecting agricultural lands.
The document was presented by one of the authors of the bill - Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Agrarian and Food Policy and Environmental Management, representative in the Federation Council from the legislative body of state power of the Altai Territory Sergey Belousov.
As the senator noted, the changes relate to the use of pesticides and agrochemicals, taking into account the state of fertility of agricultural lands on the basis of the survey. Also, systemic changes are made to the Federal Law "On State Regulation of Ensuring the Fertility of Agricultural Lands", its basic concepts, goals, subject matter, rights and obligations of land users are concretized, as well as state registration of indicators of the state of fertility of agricultural lands.
The responsibility for conducting soil surveys and forming a plan for carrying out measures for the reproduction of the fertility of agricultural lands is assigned to state budgetary institutions subordinate to the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia. Mandatory activities will be carried out without charging land users.
The procedure for the formation of plans for conducting surveys of agricultural land, the frequency of such surveys, as well as a plan of measures for the reproduction of land fertility are established by the Government of the Russian Federation, the senator said.
The author of the bill noted that Russia has 9% of the world's arable land reserves, it is one of the four countries with the largest reserves of arable land. At the same time, the results of the state monitoring of agricultural lands carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia indicate that in the Russian Federation in recent years, land degradation processes (the development of water and wind erosion, desertification, salinization, waterlogging and other negative phenomena) have been accelerating.
According to Sergei Belousov, the level of fertility is one of the most important indicators of economic efficiency in the industry.
He also recalled that the new draft of the State program for the effective involvement of agricultural land in circulation and the development of the amelioration complex of the Russian Federation for 2021-2030 provides for the involvement by the end of 2030 of agricultural land with an area of at least 12 million hectares in circulation, as well as an increase in areas of reclaimed land by 1,6 million hectares.
The new law, Belousov is sure, will become a real help in the implementation of the prepared State Program, the basis for the formation of a policy of rational land use and a serious step in the development of rural areas, improving the standard of living and employment of citizens in rural areas.