BREEDING CONDITIONS FOR BIRDS IN THE NOWADAY FARMLANDS OF THE EUROPEAN RUSSIA: THE IMPACT OF AGRICULTURE INTENSIFICATION AND POLARIZATION. PART I. HABITATS

Abstract

The recession of agriculture in Russia approximately from mid 2000s changed to an increase, accompanied by the reversion to intensive technologies, market transition to cultivation of quick payback crops (potatoes, rapeseed, sunflower) and raising pigs and poultry instead of the cattle; transition from grazing of cattle to indoor keeping system. The rates of this increase are not equal in different economic sectors and regions of European Russia. It is more pronounced in the Black Soil zone and in the south of European Russia as well as in some of regions in the south of Non-Black Soil zone. These changes have been particularly evident during the last decade and resulted in changes of the crop structure and development in some regions new for them directions of agriculture. They are determined both by socio-economic factors and current climate changes. In general, the nowaday trend of agriculture development is that pastures and most hayfields are becoming irrelevant, whereas the demand for arable fields is increasing. Modern agriculture intensification is different from the intensification of the mid20th century, as large areas are still abandoned and therefore getting more overgrown. As a result the considerable polarization of bird habitats formed in European Russia exhibited splitting into extensive abandoned lands, of low suitability for nesting by typical grassland species, and into increasingly intensively cultivated fields.