Economy, Agriculture

Collective and state farms established during the Soviet period remain the dominant forms of agricultural production in Belarus. The principal crops are potatoes, grains (especially barley and rye), and sugar beets. Cultivated land accounts for 30 percent of the country’s land use. The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl’ nuclear power station in Ukraine contaminated much of the soil in southern Belarus, reducing the country’s total area of arable land by more than 10 percent.