Markets for Purchased Farm Inputs in Transitional Agriculture: Russia's Example

The common a priori persuasion is that agriculture suffers from decapitalization due to financial constraints faced by producers. This view is the basis for the national agricultural policy, which emphasizes reimbursement of input costs and substitutes government and quasi-government organizations for the missing market institutions. The article evaluates the availability of purchased farm inputs, the efficiency of their use, the main problems in the emergence of market institutions, and the impact of government policies. The analysis focuses on five groups of purchased inputs: farm machinery, fertilizers, fuel, seeds, and animal feed. The information sources include official statistics and data from two original surveys.Russian agriculture, transition economies, farm supply channels, government support programs, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, P230, Q180,