"Few People Want To Be A Serf In A Remote Area Of Belarus"
- 24.07.2025, 14:54
Why Belarusians boycott agricultural universities.
This year only two out of four agricultural universities have fully met the enrollment figures, 80 budgetary places remain vacant. Agricultural Academy in Horki and Vitebsk Veterinary Academy will announce additional enrollment.
Last year, the situation with enrollment in agricultural specialties was much worse - 500 people were not enough. Now everything is not so bad, but, nevertheless, even on the budgetary form the desired number of people is not recruited.
- About five years ago they began to lower the minimum threshold for admission to agrarian universities. This indicates that, firstly, the level of applicants is very low. Secondly, that agriculture is unattractive in our country - you have to plow there and earn nothing," says former official Nikolai Lysenkov in a commentary to "Filin".
The former official believes that some young people, including those who want to become veterinarians, go abroad to study, because there is no compulsory work there, as in Belarus.
- We have a disaster in agriculture - in spring there were no potatoes in the store. And all this is a link in the same chain. Yes, the authorities are trying to do something to bind people to the countryside. But the problem is that we still have collective farms - people don't want to join them.
Perhaps a person would like to become a farmer, but you know how we treat them - we'd rather bury money in collective farms than give it to develop farms. They are afraid to give money to private farmers and do not give the same help that they give to unprofitable collective farms.
I see a way out of the situation: private farmers should be given the same subsidies as collective farms. We spend all the money not for development, but for the survival of collective farms. And the private sector would invest it in development. And if a private citizen will be a master on the land, agriculture will be attractive.
And now few people want to be a serf in a remote area of Belarus. After all, as a rule, the poorest collective farms are poisoned for working out. You don't need to go to the rich ones, they lure you there with a salary.
As for young people from rural areas, the entrepreneur shares his observations:
- Recently, I've noticed that they don't want to get higher education at all. They want to get a working specialty right away. It is easier for them to train as welders, tractor drivers, serve in the army and go to work.
Lysenkov says that he keeps in touch with people who now work as kolkhoz chairmen or officials in the state administration.
- Everything is stable for them: salary, company cars, housing. But, of course, they note problems in financing, fertilizers, seeds, people. There is a great shortage of people.
- But they do not want to work for the money they are offered. And there will be no decent pay until the government changes its approach to agriculture.