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The Farm [July 9, 2007] In 1996 Tigran Kyureghyan left Yerevan for the liberated territories, took up residence in Karvatchar, and implemented projects aimed at resettling the villages. Today he lives in Berdzor and works on a variety of development programs in Kashatagh. Tigran Kyureghyan has served a Deputy of Armenia's Supreme Council (1990-1995) and later as a Deputy of the National Assembly of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). He has formulated a variety of projects regarding the liberated territories. Here we wish to bring to your attention his article entitled “The Farm” (Agarak-in Armenian). It is our hope that it will prove helpful to those sectors of the NKR government engaged in resettlement work. We also encourage our readers to study the article and send their thoughts and comments to us at: info@hetq.am When it comes to organizing the division of labor in the agricultural sector, the most efficient method is based on the family-owned farm. Past historical experience proves this to be true. Wage labor can never be productive since a person who doesn't own either the final product or the land itself will not be interested in working the land with all the resources and knowledge at his disposal. Based on the practical experience during the Soviet era, the use of collectivized labor in the agricultural sector proved to be totally bankrupt. The collective farm eventually became the private fiefdom of the bureaucrats who, having usurped the kolkhoz, instituted a semi-feudal system through which they exploited the labor of those working on the collective farms. No wonder that many villagers preferred not to work on these farms which were resigned to recruit students from schools and other educational institutions, under compulsion, to assist at harvest time. The state would constantly grant credit to these collective and state farms and would later write-off these loans. Today, after land privatization, there exist hundreds of thousands of village households. The majority of these are not productive due to the small size of their land plots, the fact that these individual plots are often subdivided further, and that most of the plots are located far from the villagers' homes. Today in Armenia, attempts are being made to increase the size of the plots being cultivated and thus their productivity through the implementation of “mini-collective farms”. While we believe this experiment will indeed result in increased plot size, at the same time it will force out the less motivated members from the collective and will result in an army of landless peasants. This tendency towards larger plots of land is also realized through the outright purchase of smaller plots, something that also increases the number of those dispossessed from the land. This process has a real foundation on which to develop since there's an agrarian overpopulation in Armenia. In addition to the processes with real, objective foundations mentioned above, there are also those with subjective and political underpinnings. Big capital has taken an interest in land holdings. For example, in the outskirts of Yerevan the moneyed elements have begun to purchase land, including land designated for agricultural purposes, to use as sites for urban construction projects. In the far outlying regions the super rich have found ways of purchasing large tracts of land and are setting up your typical “Latifundist” agro-businesses based on wage labor which further contributes to the army of the landless peasants and finally resulting in a population exodus from the rural villages. In terms of national security, the consequences of this process can be quite disastrous and it has already impacted on the demographic situation in the border regions. The same process is taking place in Artsakh, especially in the liberated territories. We have every good reason to assert that the political authorities, at least in Artsakh, are sponsoring this trend. Taking into account that in the future this will evolve into the primary obstacle to populating these areas, we can only imagine what the eventual results will look like. We visualize the necessity to increase the population of Artsakh by 100,000 in the coming ten years as a primary strategic objective. In our estimation, only by achieving this goal will the Artsakh issue finally be solved. Only then will Azerbaijan cease its claims to that region. This goal can be achieved if the political leadership of Armenia and Artsakh, along with the participation of all Armenians, spares no effort in this regard. We have all the objective prerequisites need to achieve the above stated objective. Firstly, during the next 10 years in Armenia, especially in the densely populated Araratian plain, an army of some 100,000 or more landless peasants will come into existence. They will emigrate if not directed to the liberated territories. Secondly, in the liberated territories there exists a land base at least equal to the size of that in the Araratian plain. At one time there was a minimum of 300,000 foreigners residing there who were engaged in agriculture and industrial remanufacturing. We've stated above that the obstacles to achieving our goal are all subjective and easily surmountable if the necessary political will is brought to bear. We also believe it's necessary to kick-start the development of farms in the liberated territories. What exactly is a farm? Let's start with a definition of what a farm is. The farm is a multi-faceted village family household whose parameters fully guarantee employment for the average peasant family as well as satisfying its other basic needs. The living quarters, animal sheds, milking stations and other auxiliary structures, along with the land under cultivation, together constitute one self-contained unit. It is the family itself that provides most of the labor to run the farm and only at harvest time are friends and relatives, and even o occasion wage labor, brought in to help out. In the United States, these family farms are not only the foundation of the agricultural sector but constitute the cornerstone of the American nation itself. Furthermore, the settlement of the American West was achieved through the expansion of the family farms. In the context of this discussion I use the term “farm” (agarak) and not “agro-business (fermer), since the former more aptly characterizes the traditional Armenian village situation while the latter term came into usage in Armenia to describe large land holdings mostly employing wage labor, something more in line with the estates of the late middle ages. Let's take a look at the differing sizes of farmland plots. I don't think we can apply the same standards applicable in the United States since farms there can reach 50 hectares in size. As a starting point we can state that for each person one hectare of land is sufficient to totally guarantee both employment and an adequate income. Since there are five people in the average Armenian village family we'd expect the average farm plot to be 5 hectares. Based on the farm's location, irrigation conditions, and its primary focus (animal husbandry, plant cultivation, etc), the size of the plot can range from 2 to 10 hectares. The house and all necessary related structures must be located on the plot itself, thus constituting one self-contained unit. Presently there are legal obstacles to building on lands designated for agricultural use but these can easily be circumvented with appropriate modifications to existing statues. One of the biggest difficulties facing villagers in Armenia is the need to travel back and forth to their land plots; a problem not faced by self-contained farms. In addition, the initial gathering and recultivation of the harvest is facilitated in the ideal farm system. Some of the work can be performed using electrically powered machines. For example, the fields can be irrigated at nighttime, which is more efficient, using floodlights and a simple electrical water pump. The stated measurements of the plot, ranging from 100m x 200m to 250m x 400m, allows the villager to master all the technical and other information needed to effectively plan and efficiently work the land. The conscientious landowner can fence off his plot by using natural items like the stones and brambles cleared from the plot and which are the most effective tools to prevent soil erosion. In these small households all the products derived from the land, even the straw, dung and brushwood, are put to use. Nothing is thrown away. Many have probably seen how the leftover straw and chafe are burnt after the harvest. What remains is a black desert that, greedily absorbing the sun's rays, dries out the soil. At the smallest hint of a breeze the land is engulfed in swirling clouds of dust. Every year this scene can be witnessed in the southern reaches of the liberated territories after the harvest. A few more years of the same and you won't be able to plant anything there. If these lands were divided into smaller plots and instead of solely planting hundreds of hectares of wheat and barely we planted other crops as well as implementing a system of crop rotation and divided these smaller plots with greenbelts, we could avoid the desertification of these regions. Let's underline the fact that these expanses can and must serve as Armenia's breadbasket.
The establishment of farms in the liberated territories, something that can easily be done, will also facilitate the settlement of the lands as well. There you do not face the myriad of obstacles as in Armenia. Rather there exist entrenched stereotypes regarding the resettlement issue that have taken shape over time and which today prevent us from developing a master plan for the whole nation. To date, existing settlement schemes have copied formulas from the past, when foreigners were living here. This is explained by the ease of communications, the fall in construction costs, etc. What's amazing is that starting from zero, those interested in and capable of constructing settlements (Yerkir Union, Tufenkian Foundation) have drafted schemes based on the traditional models; villages with micro-land plots (not more than .06 hectares) adjacent to the house with much larger plots of land far removed. As opposed to the above scheme, the extra costs involved in building a village based on a cluster of farms wouldn't exceed 10% of the former. I should point out that according to NKR standards the amount of land provided to one family corresponds to the farm parameters mentioned above. The only difference is that in the case of the farm (agarak), the land and the house constitute one complete unit, whilst in the above example they are separate entities, which is also the case of villages in Armenia. Let's remember that settlements existing today took form either in the Middles Ages, when for defensive reasons Armenians built their homes close together in mostly inaccessible locations, or during the Soviet era, when there were no specific laws regarding private property rights and the land was cultivated on a collective basis. It thus becomes clear that existing modalities cannot serve as guideposts for us today. It's also necessary to mention that from a psychological viewpoint a plot of land far removed from one's house isn't really considered private property and it's thus easier to forego any commitment to those plots. Soon after the work of resettlement is finished we could find ourselves facing the same reality of land deprivation now taking place in Armenia. Repopulation schemes based on the creation of farms (agaraks) will also change how the settlers are presently treated which I'd now describe as being quite disdainful, and not without reason. A large segment of today's settlers moved to the liberated territories to escape the pitiful conditions they faced at home. Through land grant and the dint of hard work many have improved their lot in life while others have sunk deeper into the mire of poverty. Generally speaking, social conditions in the liberated territories can be described as bad, if not very bad. Such a situation creates a negative landscape that hinders the flow of investments and the relocation of villagers already residing in the liberated territories. The establishment of farms there must initially be based on the foundations of existing village households. This can be easily accomplished and will serve as a well-deserved showcase for those industrious individuals so inclined to create. In the future, this experience needs to be disseminated and used as the practical basis for future resettlement programs in the liberated territories. Let's see what it would cost to construct one of these farms. House – 400,000 drams Total Costs – 11,000,000 drams This calculation is fairly approximate and merely serves as a functional guidepost. All the resources necessary to construct a farm must be given in the form of credit loans. Loans for the purchase of real estate can be given interest-free for up to 10 years; primary asset loans up to 5% annually up to 5 years; circulating asset loans up to 10% for 2 years. The annual costs for resettling and providing for 10,000 individuals or 2,000 families would be calculated thusly: 2000 x 800,000 = 16 billion drams or about 30 billion U.S dollars. Given the wide parameters of the Armenian nation this sum can be readily made available through the collective efforts of appropriate governmental bodies and non-governmental organizations. As stated above, all allocated resources are to be paid back over time and used for other projects in the liberated territories. Through the establishment of a farm system as described above a master plan for all the liberated territories can be achieved with an investment of 300 million U.S. dollars over a ten year period. Again, these funds must be returned and can be invested in other projects. This sole aim of this analysis is to stimulate dialogue and debate amongst those individuals, state bodies and NGO's interested in the resettlement issue. Tigran Kyureghyan Translated by Hrant Gadarigian |
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