Russian agricultural sector requires 160,000 workers every year - minister

MOSCOW. Oct 8 (Interfax) - The annual demand for personnel in the Russian agricultural sector is 160,000 people, Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut said at a plenary session of the Golden Autumn 2025 international exhibition in Moscow on Wednesday.

The session was dedicated to digitalization in the industry. This can help solve personnel issues, among others, Lut said.

"There is a personnel deficit; we need 160,000 people per year to renew the industry, because 150,000 people leave per year, and we need 10,000 to renew the industry to achieve the stated targets," Lut said, recalling that the Russian president set a task for the industry to increase production 25% by 2030 compared to 2021 and raise exports 1.5-fold.

"On one hand, we need to increase productivity through digitalization; on the other hand, we need to remove work from routine sectors where people work with their hands. We must try to optimize this work so that people are engaged in more intellectual labor," she said.

"The main thing is the person, digitalization is only an assistant," she said.

A total of 6.4 million people work in the industry, she said. "We need to maintain this number so that with the growth of labor productivity, we can produce as much produce as necessary," she said.

Currently, the Agriculture Ministry is forming a unified personnel training system, from agro-technological classes in schools to universities.