A modern strategy for the development of the northern territories should take into account not only the prospects for industrial development, but also provide for the creation of favourable and safe conditions for «habitation». The formation of conditions for a stable and uninterrupted food supply is an important component of ensuring the safety of the population in the Arctic zone. The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of modern provision and self-sufficiency of the population of the Murmansk region with food products based on Rosstat data for the period from 2000 to 2018. In general, the population is sufficiently protected from food problems, but mainly due to imported products. A significant problem in the Murmansk region is the critical drop in regional agricultural production. Only 2.4-8‰ of the population can be fully provided with their own products within 10-28 days. A further drop in agricultural production will lead to a complete loss of the agricultural sector in the Murmansk region. The development of own program for the development of the agricultural sector will serve as a factor in keeping prices down on the regional food market. The data obtained will serve as a rationale and motivation for the implementation of measures to improve the food security situation in the northern region.
This article discusses the current problems of agricultural land use. Based on statistical data, the analysis of the land potential of the Smolensk region was carried out. The calculation of the number and total area of land plots, the cadastral value of which is higher than the average value by 10 and 30‰ for each municipal district in the Smolensk region. Recommendations and proposals on attribution of agricultural lands to particularly valuable lands by cadastral value are given. When assessing the efficiency of land use, the question arises of improving the organizational and legal aspects of managing this type of resource. It is impossible to improve the efficiency of land use without a certain algorithm of actions, norms and rules governing the management of objects (land resources) at the level of the municipality, the region and the country as a whole. The proposed activities on various aspects of land administration in agriculture will contribute to improving the efficiency of land using.
The question of the quantitative aspects of sustainable development of rural areas and the definition of specific quantitative parameters of programs for the development of rural areas is not resolved, despite the large volume of literature in the world on sustainable development. There is also no definition of sustainable development that would reflect the specifics of the development of rural areas and, in particular, rural areas of Russia. The indicators of “adjusted net savings” and “net national income” calculated by the World Bank are also not a universal quantitative expression of sustainable development, since in essence they characterize only the potential value of investments, reduced by the amount of excess profits from the sale of natural resources. However, there is an internationally recognized approach of the UN and the EU in the direction of concretizing development goals and their quantification (determining quantitative parameters) for a certain period. Nevertheless, there is no and, apparently, there cannot be a single list of key issues and indicators of sustainable development suitable for all countries due to the differences in their historical development and current state. However, the problem of natural population growth is key problem for most countries with a high and medium level of development. Without its solution there can be no sustainable development of the economy and society. For Russia and its rural territories, this problem is of particular importance due to its complex historical development in the 20th century. There is world experience in the quantitative determination of the sustainability of development by means of gradation of the required rates of achievement of the set goals and the indicators corresponding to them. This experience can be applied in the development of programs for sustainable development of rural areas in Russia.
As a result of the study, the reasons hindering the implementation of scientific developments related to the substantiation of the prospects for the development of infrastructure for servicing the agro-industrial complex of a rural municipality are divided into reasons typical for running an agricultural business, reasons that form problems for the development of the infrastructure itself, and reasons associated with the promotion of research results scientific institutions; the conclusions were made that without the development of production in the countryside, the services of infrastructure organizations will not be in demand, and without changing the attitude of district authorities to the development of local business, they will not be able to become customers and coordinators of the implementation of either scientific achievements or infrastructure development in general.
With the introduction of the new Food Security Doctrine in 2020, the criteria for its assessment have changed - the level of food independence has given way to the level of food self-sufficiency. At the same time, both the first and second criteria are known in the practice of analyzing foreign trade - they are derived from the level of dependence on imports and the ratio of net exports to consumption. Such a transition reflects a change in the model of agricultural development - from overcoming import dependence to export orientation. The aim of the present study is to attempt to address a number of methodological problems arising from the use of self-reliance as a criterion for food security. The first problem is the need to reflect intra-industry trade in assessing self-reliance. The proposed solution is to factorize the corresponding indicator into elements that characterize the level of food independence and the contribution of exports to production. The practical effect of the proposed model was to prove that the self-sustainment thresholds established in the Doctrine were not related to the export volume of specific products and did not take into account the planned objectives of the federal project "Export of agro-industrial products." The second problem is the potential unreasonable increase in self-sufficiency in replacing consumption with export. As a solution to the problem, a factor model is proposed, based on the use of sustainable consumption standards, taking into account its endowment with domestic resources and the contribution of exports to production. The use of the model showed that, despite the increase in the level of self-sufficiency in vegetable oil and fish, there was an increase in the relative volume of imports for these products, and an additional decrease in consumption for fish. A third problem relates to the aggregation of self-sufficiency by product into an overall level of food security. A formula is proposed for calculating it as an average level weighted by the structure of household consumer spending.
Modern innovations should largely reflect the introduction of digital technologies in the agricultural sector. At the same time, the active development of modern, including digital technologies does not take into account a whole range of factors that can slow down the introduction and development of digital technologies, not only in agriculture, but also in the country's economy as a whole. The existing legal regulation regarding state support and regulation of digital technologies does not reveal the essence of these technologies and does not set clear, quantitative goals that must be achieved. In addition, constant discussions on the topic of digital technologies are usually not supported by analytical material, which is also a problem when assessing the effectiveness of both the use of digital technologies and their impact on the efficiency of agricultural production. This study examines the direction of development of digital technologies in agriculture, as well as some of the reasons that hinder the development of the digital economy; the reasons for the lack of sufficient effectiveness of scientific and technological policy are analytically justified.
The article analyses the state of food security at the international and national levels, carried out a system of international indicators used to assess the food independence of countries. Analysis of data from international organizations has led to the conclusion that the problem of food security is becoming more urgent and the prevalence of malnutrition in the world shows a slight but steady increase due to a variety of environmental, political and social factors. The article highlights the main regions of the world where the level of food insecurity is the highest. The approaches of the Food Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation were compared with the principles used by international organizations. Based on the comprehensive economic analysis of the state of food security, problems were identified, defined directions and objectives of its provision, including increasing the efficiency of domestic agricultural production, expanding the range of domestic food products, which will ensure high competitiveness in the world market and reduce the dependence of the country's economy on imports, improving the level of material and technical equipment of research institutions, improving the regulatory, legal and logistical framework for quality control and safety of food products, development and implementation of the Federal Law "On Food Security in the Russian Federation," etc.
In recent years, there have been some positive changes in the country's agriculture in terms of its structural and technological modernization. This is facilitated by a structured system of state support for priority areas of development of each particular region. At the same time, the nature and pace of ongoing changes vary markedly from region to region. This is influenced by the investment policy of a particular subject of Russia, the state of rural development, the level of state support, and the role of agricultural organizations in the agricultural structure of the region. In this regard, it is necessary to analyze the nature of the changes in the context of the country's subjects, primarily for agricultural organizations, the state of which directly affects the situation in the industry as a whole. It is necessary to study the share of the rural population in the total number and the economic behaviour of agricultural organizations. It is revealed that among the regions that demonstrate high rates of economic growth in agriculture, the subjects included in the Central Federal district, which are characterized by noticeable investment activity, are overwhelmingly represented. To a large extent, the increased investment activity in these regions is due to systematic efforts to attract private capital for the implementation of major projects. At the same time, regions with a predominance of rural population and low-commodity forms in the structure of the agricultural economy are unable to compete with the above-mentioned subjects in terms of investment activity, which contributes to the growth of deformational manifestations in the socio-economic development of agriculture. In this regard, and in order to reduce this gap, it seems appropriate to develop measures of state incentives for structural and technological modernization of the agro-industrial complex individually for groups of regions.
Scientific literature thoroughly debates the foresights and risks of the federal project “Export of production of agro-industrial complex”. However, the failures of its planning have not been studied. The paper shows that, as a consequence of such failures, some federal subjects of Russia have made such commitments that are either cannot be fulfilled or may yield severe difficulties. This is proved by the outcome of computer simulation on the model of equilibria in the regional markets of agricultural production. The simulated scenario reflects the regional commitments on the federal project made for year 2019. It is found that six oblasts adjacent to the state border, namely Amur, Astrakhan, Bryansk, Kaliningrad, Rostov and Smolensk, are unable to fulfil their obligations under the scenario terms. The case of the Astrakhan oblast has shown that the oblast made its commitment on grain assuming that the transit of exported grain from other regions is to be accounted for. As a consequence, its year 2019 commitment exceeds the existing grain production almost 24 times, while its planned production growth for the period 2014 to 2019 is just 49‰. Thus, the commitment of the Astrakhan oblast needs to be revised. Based on the performed analysis, it is proposed to reform the planning system for the federal project so as to supplement it with obligatory resource usage calculations for each federal subject taking into account its commitment. This can be provided by means of the mathematical economic model that has been applied for this study. Moreover, it is suggested to publish rationale for the federal subjects' commitments for the purpose of timely revealing inaccuracies by the expert community.
The assessment of the change in the structure of the State Program for the Development of Agriculture and the regulation of markets for agricultural products, raw materials, and food after its prolongation is given. The factors affecting the substantiation of the directions of strategic development of agro-food complexes at the regional level are substantiated. Critical analysis of the Strategy of socio-economic development of the Krasnodar Territory until 2030 in terms of the development of the agro-food complex is provided. It is noted that the scale of the tasks facing the agro-food complex of the region requires its structural modernization, certain diversification of both the agrarian sector and the processing industry, increasing the efficiency of interaction between producers and processors of agricultural products, improving the system of integration relations, increasing the rate of technical and technological modernization of all links of the agro-food complex, optimization of technological chains, minimization of transaction costs and, ultimately, the formation of sustainable competitive advantages, allowing regional producers in the long term to successfully compete both in the Russian and foreign markets. The "gaps" of the Action Plan for the implementation of the Strategy are revealed when describing the indicators of the development of agriculture and the processing industry, which violate the principle of systematic consideration of the problems of the functioning of the agro-food complex as a complicated territorial-sectoral system. As a priority measure for the implementation of the Development Strategy of the Krasnodar Territory, it is proposed to develop the Strategy for the development of the agro-food complex of the region. It is concluded that the problem of effective development of the agro-food complex can be successfully solved only if a rational system of inter-sectoral and inter-subjective relations is formed and the possibility of balancing the multidirectional economic interests of entities forced to integrate to ensure their own reproduction.