The total area of agricultural land in Russia is 222 million hectares, including 122.7 million hectares of arable land, 24 million hectares of hayfields, 68.5 million hectares of pastures. At the same time, the area of unused land is, according to various estimates, from 80 to 97 million hectares (36-44% of the total area. Some of the areas that are considered arable land according to official statistics have not been plowed for a long time and have become a fallow land. Turnover of unused land is one of the most important tasks of Russian agriculture, and this problem exists in many other countries as well.

In the world, the total area of land suitable for growing crops (land of superior and good quality) is about 4.4 billion hectares (4.0 billion hectares, if we exclude territories with protected status). This is significantly more than the 1.6 billion hectares currently under cultivation. Thus, there is a significant amount of currently uncultivated land that can theoretically be used for agricultural production.