Degradation of land used in agricultural production is studied. Different land use practices influence on the organic carbon content in arable soils of agrolandscapes on arid territories as an example. By the example of Rostov and Samara regions, the existing agricultural land ownership structure has been analyzed, and the dynamics of sown areas and humus content in arable soils has been studied. It is shown that in the course of the land reform there was a redistribution of land ownership,

more »

... h is more pronounced in the Samara and Rostov regions than in the Russian Federation as a whole due to agricultural land predominance in the land fund. Agricultural landscapes in the provinces occupy most of the studied regions and are currently characterized by the processes of degradation. Private land ownership does not guarantee the implementation of measures to preserve and improve soil fertility without the development in the implementation of regulatory and legal framework for the rational use of land at the regional or federal level. Without the development of a system of comprehensive measures to organize the rational use of land at the federal and regional levels, landscape agro-ecological condition will continue to deteriorate.