Penza, 18 January 2016. PenzaNews. A total of 80,200 hectares of agricultural lands reportedly will be reintroduced back to farming in 2016, announced Ellada Sukhova, head of the Department of Agricultural Lands Use Effectiveness Monitoring And Legal Support of the Penza region Agriculture Ministry, during the videoconference meeting with heads of city areas and regional municipalities held on Monday, January 18.

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She explained that the officials held a full inventory of agricultural lands in 2015 and, among other things, discovered that 19% of arable lands fell out of use.

According to her, the monitoring results will be published on the Penza region Agriculture Ministry website before the sowing season.

Also, Ellada Sukhova added that in the year of 2015, a total of 27,502 hectares of municipal and state lands were leased out, 5,035 hectares more were sold into full ownership, and 69,297.88 hectares provided by owners to other invested parties for farming reintroduction.

The Penza region governor Ivan Belozertsev called for heads of municipalities to constantly and personally monitor the issue of farming land reintroduction.

“If we do not engage with this issue today, it will be harder to reintroduce the lands tomorrow,” he pointed out, explaining that such work in the future would require more effort and expensive funding.

Moreover, Ivan Belozertsev warned to prevent the cases when a landplot is reintroduced to farming but the company that receives it fails to work on it.