Traditionally, the lands northwest of Kargopol were used to grow crops, and until the 1970s linum was also cultivated. However, these activities became unprofitable due to depopulation (in a hundred years, the number of villages was reduced by a factor of five), and in the 1970s the district's production shifted to beef and milk. This has been further reduced in the 1990s due to the economic crisis in Russia. There is also fishery, mainly on the lakes including Lake Lacha.
