During transition from Soviet to market economy Russian regions developed in different ways – in particular, regions became very different in prices, welfare and distance from the economic centers. The paper considers relations between these variables in dynamics for 2002-2019. It’s shown that during the whole period regions have converged at prices. At the same time during high growth (2002-2008) and after 2014 the goods became more expansive in rich regions. During international economic crisis and in the recovery period 2009- 2014 this tendency was insignificant. During 2002-2014 the highest in flation was in the most distant regions. In the last 5 years this trend was reversed. Some more dependencies have been identified using panel data models. The research is supported by RFBR, grant 19-010-00183.
The economic security of agribusiness as a subject of regulation has a rather complex synthetic structure, the content of which is revealed through a set of conditions and factors ensuring economic efficiency, competitiveness, stability and sustainability of functioning, ability to self-development and progress, forming a state of protection of vital interests of individual enterprises and the country as a whole from internal and external threats (sources of danger). The economic and food security should be assessed on the basis of an integral indicator (group of indicators). At the same time, it is impossible to break the link between the tasks of ensuring the development of agro-industrial enterprises and the economy sector as a whole and the applied tasks of choosing methods of assessing possible risk situations, methods of documentation, methods of monitoring risk management measures, methods of assessing the effectiveness of managing the implementation of established tasks and development plans. The problem of food security management can be considered at three levels: federal (macro-level) as the implementation of state programs, regional (meso-level) and local (micro-level). The methodological approach and tools for assessing the economic security of the agro-industrial complex, as explored in the article, allow to analyze the complex of risk-factors that threaten economic security at each individual level and enterprise, to purposefully organize and carry out the necessary monitoring, to systematically analyze the dynamically changing socio-economic situation, to carry out a feasibility study of the management decisions taken.
The May Presidential Decree defined the main national goals - the creation of a modern economy and the improvement of the quality of life of Russians on this basis, so that they see changes for the better every day, a real turn of the state to the needs of the person. Disputes over the creation of the optimal structure of the national economy of Russia and its foundation - APK (With the transition from "gross" to high "final" results) has been going on for a long time, but little is being done because of the extensive development of agriculture (Including small-scale potato and vegetable production), we are still unable to solve the food problem, because we have not yet created optimal non-waste agro-industrial formations - agro-industrial enterprises (of the type "state farm - plant" or associations (holding type), as well as specialized farm vertically integrated agricultural production and trade cooperatives.
It is justified that in order to ensure food security of the country and transition to full import substitution with food, it is necessary to create a strategically effective structure in the agrarian economy, first of all, sectoral, and the efficiency of economic entities depends not only on natural conditions, but also on other factors. The importance of the factor of territorial location, the impact of the distance of territories from the centres on the economic efficiency of the activities of economic entities is stressed. The place of the region in the agricultural system of the Russian Federation and the North-West Federal District is shown. It has been revealed that despite the growth of agricultural production in the region, negative trends in rural areas continue, and production volumes in the industry are unstable, as confirmed by the indices of production according to statistical data. Trends and challenges to the development of agriculture in the region have been identified and ways to address them have been proposed. The revival of the traditional ice industry in the region is in demand, and in order to solve this problem, it is necessary to develop a Strategy for the production and processing of products and measures of state support and stimulation of its development.
There was a slight increase in gross milk production in Russia in 2017, while its decline continued from the beginning of the 90s. Dynamic industry development in farms and increase in production volumes at agricultural enterprises based on the commissioning of a large number of mega complexes and the growth of milk productivity ensured an increase in total milk production despite a continuing decrease in number of cows and milk production in households. However, the milk threshold values of the food security Doctrine remain unfulfilled and, according to our estimates, will be achieved no earlier than in eight years, and if the level of milk consumption per capita is restored - 14 years. Steady and dynamic growth in milk production is possible with the active introduction of highly productive and labour-saving technologies by most industry participants. Implementation of mega projects by a limited number of large milk producers doesn’t ensure the steady growth of industry output at the necessary level. Further stable growth in milk production requires adjusting the forms of government support for the industry: expanding access to preferential investment lending to most milk producers regardless of production size and type of management, extending to the federal level subsidizing the purchase of machinery and equipment for dairy farming and fodder production.
The article dealt comprehensively with the production and consumption of dairy products in one of the rapidly progressing regions of the Russian Federation in terms of the rate of development of dairy cattle breeding over the past five years; The priority nature of the social purpose of milk products in solving the interrelated problems of development of milk-and-food sub-complex is justified; Reveals the social dimension of dairy production and consumption; The high degree of correlation between the level of nutrition and demographic indicators of reproduction of the population of the Kaluga region is reflected; The causal relationships of cyclical development of dairy cattle breeding of Kaluga region over the last fifty years have been analyzed; The differentiation of households of the Kaluga region by the level of consumption of dairy products for 1996-2018 was investigated; The results of sociological surveys of the population for preferences in the purchase of dairy products are given; The contradictory influence of the Moscow metropolis on the level of production and consumption of dairy products in neighbouring regions has been revealed; Issues of export-import policy of Kaluga region in the field of food are touched upon; The necessity and possibility of using social and economic instruments to regulate the milk market is argued; The capacity of the Kaluga region to increase milk in the nearest area has been justified; Preliminary calculations of step-by-step achievement of raw milk production volumes of 1 million tons by the Kaluga region are given.
The development potential of cattle breeding is considered as the sector’s ability to organize the reproduction process, ensuring the maintenance of optimal structural proportions and adjusting the functioning in accordance with the changes in the operational environment. The features of its formation and use are determined by the specifics of the organization of reproduction of the herd and the forage base of the sector; differences in the structure of investments in projects for the development of dairy and beef cattle breeding; significant differences in the efficiency of livestock production; differentiation of territories according to the sector development conditions; heterogeneity of development potentials among business entities of various categories. The development potential of cattle breeding is largely determined by the development level of the market for milk and meat of cattle and their processed products. The degree of this influence is affected by: relatively high localization of livestock product markets, differences in territories in terms of the self-sufficiency level of livestock products and the structure of the agricultural sector, the decrease in demand for it, underutilization of milk and meat processing capacities associated with high level of saturation of dairy and meat products markets, which remains import dependence of domestic cattle milk and meat markets, maintaining high proportion of milk and meat consumed omitting the exchange stage, insufficient competitiveness of the domestic cattle products. To ground the forecast parameters of the sector development, the method of exponential smoothing with a damped trend is used. The performed calculations indicate the tension, but the realism of the indicators for the development of dairy cattle, set by the Strategy for the region development, while the possibility of reaching the specified parameters for increasing the livestock of specialized meat breeds is considered unrealizable.
It is wrong to narrow the digitalization of agriculture to the development of agricultural robots and the use of artificial intelligence. Digital agriculture should be based on the intention to increase productivity/ profitability in agricultural production through the use of agricultural data. The starting point for presenting this approach to understanding digital agriculture was the concept of agricultural technology and the use of systems and historical methods. The article gives definitions of digital agricultural technology and digital agriculture, provides the structure of the latter. Further, the development of agriculture is analyzed from the point of view of changing the concept of a manufactured product and expanding the boundaries of economic sectors in the era of the enormous influence of digital technologies: product – smart product – smart connected product – product system/ cyber-physical system – system of systems/ system of cyber-physical systems. The dynamics of the development of agricultural technologies are also considered in the framework of such concepts as the technological paradigm of the industry, radical and revolutionary innovations. So, at present, digital agriculture has the potential to revolutionize the technological paradigm of agriculture, however, in order to put it into practice, certain challenges must be overcome.
The growth of the potential of agriculture and rural agriculture and their development is one of the most important ways to ensure the economic security of the State. In the regions of agrarian specialization, rural territories perform productive, demographic, labour and spatial communication functions, stimulate the growth of the competitiveness of the economy and ensure food security. In modern conditions, strategic planning is the most important instrument for the formation of topical goals and tasks of socio-economic development of rural areas, both at the level of the country as a whole and of individual agrarian-oriented regions. In the process of planning it is necessary to form parameters of probable scenarios of development of rural economy, which should become a driver of growth for many sectors and sectors of the domestic economic system. Agricultural industry organizations, now key economic actors with the bulk of the able-bodied rural population, have to deal in the short term with such problems as the development of new markets for products and agricultural raw materials; Building sustainable links on mutually beneficial terms with food industry; Limited resources of small and medium-sized agricultural producers for the development of promising developments and technologies; Lack of interaction with educational institutions and the scientific community. There is therefore a need in modern realities to establish a mechanism for the integrated development of rural areas, which gives an active role to State authorities, based on an integrated inter-agency approach in achieving the planned values of targets and implementing programme activities.
In order to stimulate agri-food exports, Russia is forming an appropriate set of measures of a financial and non-financial nature. These measures are program-targeted and infrastructural in nature, designed to provide exporters with resources to support the competitiveness of their products. The article describes the mechanisms of state export support of the Russian Federation, their goals and directions of activity. Recommendations are offered on improving the effectiveness of state measures to stimulate agricultural exports of the Russian Federation in modern conditions. The article also analyzes measures to support the agri-food export of foreign countries (USA, EU and Canada). The problems and obstacles in the development of domestic agricultural exports are identified. It has been established that the most effective development of national agricultural exports is carried out with a combination of program and institutional methods for its management. The paper gives examples of providing state support to national exporters of agricultural products: credit insurance, opening a credit line, reimbursement of costs for transportation of products, the introduction of uniform certification rules. The conclusion is made about the unstable development of national exports of agricultural products due to the lack of a significant increase in export volumes and the invariance of its geographical structure. During the study, the following methods were used: comparative, tabular interpretation of data, logical, historical, deduction and induction, analysis and synthesis.