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TERRITORIAL PLANNING AS THE BASIS OF

THE RATIONAL UTILIZATION OF LAND RESOURCES

E.G. Meshchaninova, candidate of economic science,

professor Dep. CaML

I.Y. Goncharova, applicant

Agriculture is one of the most important industries in the economy of a country. It ensures its food security; it is also a source of raw materials for certain industries. In fact, it shows the structure and level of development of the country. The intensity of land utilization and its economic efficiency in agriculture is one of the areas of the public policy. One of the main purposes of land resources is territorial conditioning for agricultural production.

Over the past 20 years significant changes in the structure of the environmental management and utilization of the land reserves have taken place because of the changes in principles of the economy regulations towards market-based ones. Implementation of agrarian and land reforms led to the emergence of new forms of economy and the build-up of multiform industrial relations. The government land monopoly was liquidated, large segments of the land reserves were privatized, and the social structure of the agricultural land users changed. As a result of land reforms significant changes in the structure of the forms of land ownership occurred. Some changes also took place in land tenure and land utilization. 115.9 million hectares of land were privatized, 11.6 million collective farmers were entitled to their share of the land and became owners of land plots. 274 thousand farms were established. In 1997 they owned 12.6 million hectares of land.

However, in the process of the implementation of the land reform issues about the security of land resource and its effective utilization were missed. For example, in agricultural production more than 13 million hectares of arable land have not been used, large areas of agricultural land have been overgrown by shrubs and low forest, swamped, erase, devastated and degraded. In full these changes occurred in Rostov region too.

Rostov region has an important role in the agriculture of Russia, as agricultural production is one of the fundamental in its economy structure. The region has favorable climatic conditions for agricultural production, good agro climatic potential and a high degree of land development. Agriculture in the Rostov region took a significant territory and has a greater impact on the environment than any other sector of the national economy. The negative tendency is irrational use of land resources when the environmental and socio-economic characteristics of the territory are not considered. This led to deterioration of the ecological situation in the region and to cost increase. These two factors made agricultural production of the region less competitive. As a consequence, the quality of rural living environment has deteriorated; poverty and unemployment among country people increased.

As a result, transition to sustainable development and to modern strategic planning of socio-economic development became essential. Contemporary strategic planning of the regional socio-economic development should be conducted considering area heterogeneity of the region. It also has to include elements of regional planning. This system should take into account both present needs and fairly long term prospects.

An integral part in a scheme of the regional agricultural planning should be a developed system of procedures developed for the stable land utilization. It also has to guarantee the sufficient land placement of various forms of ownership in accordance with environmental and socio-economic requirements and providing favorable conditions for efficient farming.

For developing the scheme of the regional agricultural planning it is necessary to design scientifically grounded zoning by presence of the land resources and by methods of their utilization. The main factors of the land zoning have to include a land estimation and a selection of complex planning areas that characterized by the next factor combination: history-based specialization, natural-geographic conditions, economic activities of the region, ecological situation of the land resources, and social setting.

Therefore, the territorial planning of the agricultural land should be directed to achieving the following requirements:

- assessment and territorial differentiation of environmental problems in the Rostov region;

- identifying possibilities for extension of arable land and its reclamation for use in agro-industry;

- enhancement of efficiency of land utilization for agricultural production to meet the needs of the population in agricultural products;

- introduction of new organizational-economic and territorial methods of the land utilization in agro-industry;

- territorial coordination for the whole system of environmental activities;

- definition of necessities for capital investments in order to ensure efficient use of the land and its protection.

Literature:

1. Goncharova I.Y., Meshchaninova E.G. Cartographic support of regional planning. /Information technologies in education and consulting functioning in agriculture: Materials of rus. scientific-industrial conference, Novocherkassk, 2-3 June, 2010: RIPKA. – Novocherkassk, Lik, 2010. – c. 55-57.

2. Goncharova I.Y. Assuring of improving development of the agrarian sector of a region on the basis of territorial planning./Innovation in inventory: theory and practice: materials of the theoretical and practical conference, devoted to the 15 anniversary of the cadastre and land monitoring department FSEI HPE NGMA. – Novocherkassk: Publishers "NOC", 2010. – c. 82-85.

3. E.V. Girnel. Regional planning as factor for the optimization of region control (for the Republic of Karelia)//Problems of the modern economy. Economic problems of regions and industrial complexes. No. 2, 2007. C. 229-233.