Despite a number of objective factors preventing the development of agriculture (zone of risk agriculture, high level of urbanization of the region, etc.) the agroindustrial complex holds an important position in the economy of the Chelyabinsk region - its share in the Gross Regional Product totaled 8.0% in 2007.

At the beginning of 2008 the population in the countryside was 652.8 thousand people or 18.5% of the total population of the region.

The greater part of the agricultural output is produced by the crop growing sector - 51.8%, cereal crop growing prevails. In 2007 cereal crop production made 1,880.1 thousand tons per year (weight after reprocessing), meat – 231.6 thousand tons (live weight), milk – 595.7 thousand tons, eggs – more than 1.2 billion pieces. Summarizing the results of 2007 the Chelyabinsk region has been the 4th in Russia by its level of poultry husbandry development. The Chelyabinsk region has a large crop area which totaled 1,918.7 thousand hectares in 2007.

Investment in agriculture amounted to over 2.4 billion rubles.

In the Chelyabinsk region in 2007, within the framework of realization of the national project "Development of agriculture":

- the cattle-breeding complexes for 13,150 livestock have been constructed and modernized;

- the grants have been provided for the sum of 278.37 million rubles in compensation of part of expenses on payment of interests on the credits taken for construction and modernization of cattle-breeding complexes;

- 34.7 million rubles have been allocated with the purpose of stimulation of the small business forms development by means of subsidizing the interest rate on the credits;

- 7 credit and 13 procurement and marketing cooperative societies have been created;

- personal subsidiary plots and country (farmer) economies have taken out 507.4 million rubles of credits for production of commodities.