Vladimir Mishurov transformed the remnants of the “Lenin’s Path” collective farm in this village into a profitable business. He also helped make Russia the world’s largest wheat exporter for the first time since the last years of the czars. Over the past decade or so, Mr. Mishurov replaced his aging Russian equipment with a dozen high-tech machines from John Deere and other makers, and started using powerful new fertilizers and seeds. He bought and rented more acres from neighbors and family, eventually reaching about 3,600, taking advantage of Russia’s overall low prices for land.And as many farmers do in the U.S., he often worked days on end with little sleep, especially during the harvest.
The major difference between Mr. Mishurov and a farmer on America’s Great Plains: The Russian’s costs are lower, and mostly in rubles, making his overseas sales—priced in dollars—immensely more valuable. Amid a multiyear, brutal slump in grain prices, Russian agriculture is thriving. The country exported more than 40 million tons of wheat in the year ending June, around 50% more than the previous year, and the highest level for any country in the past quarter-century. Russia overtook the U.S. as the world’s biggest exporter of wheat in 2016, and again beat the U.S. in 2018.The growing Russian competition is one more pressure point threatening American farming, which is facing the biggest wave of farm closures in the U.S. since the 1980s. A global oversupply of grain has pushed prices down to around half the level in 2012, when prices peaked, making it difficult to turn a profit in dollars.