The Notts entrepreneur and the Russian prairie

A few years back, Notts property developer Robert Monk bought a vast tract of barren farmland in Russia. A strange decision turned out to be a very smart move, says Business Correspondent RICHARD BAKER.

For a property developer, Robert Monk does a good impression of a fortune teller.

While everybody else was busy piling into a property market he'd already made a few quid from, the Notts entrepreneur was buying Russia's equivalent of the prairies.

When I first spoke to the people managing these farms for him back in 2003, I'll admit it seemed like a slightly long bet.

Sure, the Russians were desperate for Western farming expertise because they had land as far as the eye could see sitting there doing nothing thanks a collective farming system that had gone bust years ago.

But it was difficult to see where the quick return was.

There was a repair job to do on the land, businesses to set up in an area where there was no history of western-style commerce, new farming practices to introduce, inevitable cultural differences.

And that was before you even tried to grow anything and sell it.

How different the picture looks now.

World food prices are rising (so there's more money in basics like wheat), demand for biofuels is about to take-off (creating a bigger market for crops like oil-seed rape), and there's growing appetite for land with rich soil that can churn out the crops on a large scale.

Which is where Mr Monk and his business, Heartland Farms, come in. He already has 75,000 acres in Penza State, the 'Black Earth' region of Russia famous for its productive soil.

And he reckons the business could ultimately grow to 495,000 acres - the equivalent of 2,000 square kilometres of Russia. You don't need to be a land agent or a commodities broker to realise the vastness of the potential there.

While Russian business is generally far from the ganster-ridden environment some caricatures suggest, it is not easy. President Putin has proved intolerant of corporates he sees as trying to make a quick buck at Russia's expense, while the British Government's relationship with the Kremlin is currently as warm as it was in the Cold War.

But Robert Monk has so far proved himself every inch the diplomat. When he brought Penza State government officials over to the UK last year to help them find new investors, he was an attentive, considered host.

Rather than act like the big I Am, Heartland has been careful to embed itself in Penza, to work with the state government and to involve Russians.

Away from the glitz of Moscow (which is where most of the international corporates and consultants make a spectacle of themselves), Heartland has been welcomed by people who, a few years back, it seemed Mother Russia could no longer provide for.

Now, the land his business cultivates is effectively providing one in every 10 loaves in Penza.

That Monk's move was a smart one is illustrated by the arrival of other Western agri-businesses now trying to do the same thing.

But while Heartland makes bread, it will be a while before the dough rolls in for the newcomers. Monk observes drily: "I wish them well and await with interest their move into profitability. This may take a number of years, as they have only just started to plant."