Given the slow development of markets, mergers to integrate vertically to help acquire inputs and market outputs led to the emergence of some very large companies and high levels of concentration, especially in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, the region’s three most land abundant countries. For example, in Russia, the 30 largest holdings farm million ha or of cultivated area and in Ukraine, the largest 40 control million ha or of cultivated area (Lissitsa 2010). In these countries, investment in very large farms contrasts with an overall contraction of agricultural land use and de-population of.
