Russia's Black Earth lures British farmers

By Robin Paxton

BELINSKY, Russia (Reuters) - On Russia's fertile Black Earth, two Englishmen are making money where other investors saw only risk.

"All of this was derelict land last year. We've turned it into fields of golden wheat," operations director Colin Hinchley says as he drives through a field six times the size of an average British farm.

Moscow needs investment to cut its dependence on food imports and, as the two Britons start turning a profit from the farm they have run for five years, others are being tempted to swap home for Russia's wide open lands.

Hinchley and Richard Willows, general director of Heartland Farms, form half the expatriate community in Penza, a city of 600,000 people 650 km (405 miles) southeast of Moscow.

Both own property in a city where every 10th loaf is baked from their wheat.

"We're not trying to create Little England in the heart of Russia," says Hinchley.

"At first people weren't sure -- 'Are they going to come and rob us blind?' -- but now there's a buzz about the place."

Russia has made agriculture, which collapsed after the fall of the Soviet Union, one of four priority areas for development, offering tax breaks to those willing to invest in its fields.