Organizational and legal forms and production structure of agricultural enterprises

Agricultural production is carried out by various commodity producers: agricultural enterprises, peasant (farm) economies (K(F)Kh), and household plots. Before the start of the agrarian reform, agricultural production was carried out by agricultural enterprises and household plots. As a type of entrepreneurial activity without forming a legal entity, K(F)Kh began to develop in the early 1990s. Recently, their share in the total volume of agricultural production has been gradually increasing.

T a b l e 6.1. Structure of Russian agricultural production by category of farms (in actual prices), %

Farm type 1970 1980 1990 1995 2000 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Agricultural

68.6 71.0 73.7 50.2 43.4 41.2 40.9 47.6 48.1 45.4 enterprises Household plots 52.7

31.4 29.0 26.3 47.9 53.6 53.1 44.3 43.4 47.1 K(F)Kh - - - 1.9 3.0 5.7 6.4 8.1 8.5 7.5

A legal entity (Article 48 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) is an organization that owns, manages, or has in operational control separate property and is liable for its obligations with that property, can acquire and exercise property and personal non-property rights in its own name, bear duties, and be a plaintiff and defendant in court.

A legal entity is subject to state registration in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, which is open for public inspection. The date of entering the corresponding record into the Unified State Register of Legal Entities is considered the date of the creation of the legal entity.

A legal entity acts on the basis of a charter, or a constituent agreement and a charter, or only a constituent agreement. The constituent agreement of a legal entity is concluded, and the charter is approved by its founders (participants). A legal entity created by a single founder acts on the basis of a charter approved by that founder. Legal entities are liable for their obligations with all the property belonging to them.

The constituent documents of a legal entity contain its name, location, management procedures, and the subject and objectives of its activities.

In the constituent agreement, the founders undertake to create a legal entity, determine the procedure for joint activities for its creation, the conditions for transferring their property to it, and participation in its activities. The agreement also defines the conditions and procedure for the distribution of profits and losses among the founders (participants), the management of the legal entity's activities, and the withdrawal of founders (participants) from its composition.

An organization may create representative offices and branches.

A representative office is a separate subdivision of a legal entity located outside its location, which represents the interests of the legal entity and carries out their protection.

A branch is a separate subdivision of a legal entity located outside its location and performing all or part of its functions, including the functions of a representative office.

Representative offices and branches are not legal entities. They are provided with property by the legal entity that creates them, act on the basis of regulations approved by it, and must be specified in the constituent documents of the legal entity that created them. Heads of representative offices and branches are appointed by the legal entity and act on the basis of a power of attorney.

A legal entity may be reorganized through: ◊ merger — the consolidation of several organizations, as a result of which a new legal entity is created. The rights and obligations of each of them pass to the newly emerged legal entity under a transfer act; ◊ acquisition, when one or more organizations join an existing organization and lose their independence. The rights and obligations of the acquired legal entity pass to the new legal entity in accordance with the transfer act; ◊ division, when an existing organization ceases its activities, and two or more organizations are created on the basis of its property. Its rights and obligations pass to the newly emerged legal entities in accordance with a separation balance sheet; ◊ spin-off, when an organization continues to exist, but part of its assets is moved on the basis of a separation balance sheet to create a new legal entity; ◊ transformation — a change in the organizational and legal form of a legal entity, for example, the transformation of an open joint-stock company into a closed joint-stock company. During the agrarian reform in agriculture, the majority of collective farms (kolkhozes) and state farms (sovkhozes) were transformed into joint-stock companies, partnerships, and cooperatives.

Liquidation of an organization means the termination of its activities and is possible: ◊ by the decision of its founders (participants) or the body of the legal entity authorized to do so by the constituent documents, including due to the expiration of the term for which the legal entity was created, as well as due to the achievement of the objective for which it was created; ◊ by court decision in the event of gross violations of the law committed during its creation that are irreparable in nature, as well as in the event of carrying out activities without proper permission (license) or activities prohibited by law.

Along with the concept of an "organization" as a legal entity, the category of an "enterprise" is also used.

In accordance with the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (Art. 132), an enterprise is a property complex used for carrying out entrepreneurial activities, which includes all types of property intended for its activities, including land plots, buildings, structures, equipment, inventory, raw materials, products, rights of claim, debts, as well as rights to designations that individualize the enterprise, its products, works, and services (trade names, trademarks, service marks), and other exclusive rights, unless otherwise provided by law or contract.

Consequently, an organization is a subject of market relations, while an enterprise as a property complex is their object.

can be classified according to several criteria: 1) based on the participation of founders (participants) in the formation of the property of a legal entity, which may have: ◊ obligations in relation to the legal entity — business partnerships and companies, production and consumer cooperatives; ◊ property rights to its assets — state and municipal unitary enterprises, as well as institutions funded by the owner; ◊ no property rights — associations of legal entities (associations and unions); 2) based on the purpose of the activity, legal entities are divided into: ◊ commercial — organizations pursuing profit as the main goal of their activity — business partnerships and companies, production cooperatives, state and municipal unitary enterpri