The article analyzes the availability of grain in the Russian Federation during 1990-2019 from the point of view of considering it as the main element of the country's food security. The results of the calculation of the additional demand for feed grain necessary to bring the provision of livestock products to a one-hundred-percent level are presented. The calculation was carried out for the actual productivity and scientifically-based feeding diets for the main animal species. The level of security was estimated by the volume of actual use based on the annual balance sheets of food resources published on the website of the Federal State Statistics Service. Based on the comparison of the estimated and actual (statistical data) use of grain, the necessity of changing the method of calculating food resource balances by statistical reporting bodies is justified. According to the authors, the methodology approved in 2006 it does not allow to reliably assess the level of security in the main types of agricultural products, as it allows the repeated use of the same data when calculating the volume of production, which significantly overestimates the level of security and forms an imaginary belief in achieving food security in the country. At the same time, it should be noted that the above study is of an exploratory nature, since a large number of averaged and standard indicators were used in the calculations.
The relevance of organic agriculture research is determined by its importance for the formation of human health and immunity, restoration and maintenance of soil fertility, improvement of the quality and nutritional value of agricultural products, preservation of ecosystems, sustainable development of rural areas, export and cooperation development, support of small and medium-sized agricultural organizations. In recent years, Russia has advanced in the field of organic production - a federal law has been adopted, standards have been developed, a state register has been created, a single sign of organic products has been developed, and a quality confirmation system has been launched. Nevertheless, Russia's potential in organic agriculture is realized by only 1 percent. The further development of organic agriculture is associated with the development of technologies for cultivating organic products, its logistics and certification. The further development of organic agriculture is associated with the development of technologies for cultivating organic products, its logistics and certification. A promising area is cooperation of small forms of economy in the field of production and promotion of organic agricultural products.
The article discusses the role of inventories in ensuring the efficient operation of agricultural organizations. A methodology for the integral assessment of inventories by agricultural enterprises is proposed. The ranking of municipalities of the Ulyanovsk region according to the level of efficiency of use and provision of material reserves is presented. Two groups of districts have been identified: with high efficiency in the use of material reserves and with efficiency in the use of resource potential not exceeding 60‰. A regression model has been built that allows predicting the turnover of inventories in organizations. The factors that have the most significant impact on the turnover of inventories are highlighted, they include: the amount of material costs per 100 roubles of working capital, the duration of one turnover of inventories, the share of inventories in the structure of working capital. The ranking of the municipal districts made it possible to assess the current situation in the region, and the leading districts of the Ulyanovsk region were identified. The research carried out will make it possible to determine the production capabilities of municipal districts for the effective conduct of agricultural production and can be taken into account in the development of regional programs of socio-economic development.
The solution to the problem of providing the region with food resources largely depends on the efficiency of the functioning of the oil and fat sub complex, its ability to fully meet the needs of the population in vegetable oils and products prepared on their basis [1]. In this regard, the study seems appropriate to consider the structure of production and distribution of sunflower crops in the Ulyanovsk region. The optimization of this structure is based on an integrated assessment of municipal districts in terms of the importance and efficiency of sunflower seed production in agricultural enterprises, which allowed us to determine the most attractive areas of crop cultivation. The solution of the problem of optimizing the structure of sunflower production and distribution by the method of economic and mathematical modeling showed the possibility of expanding the sown area of the crop in the region by 6.2 ‰, increasing the gross seed harvest by 7.8‰, which will increase the overall profitability of sunflower production by 13.9 percentage points. The target function of the economic and mathematical problem, which consists in maximizing the profit from the sale of products, is determined based on the production capabilities of agricultural producers and processing organizations in the region.
The article defines the importance of economic risk management in the activities of an agricultural enterprise, taking into account the influence of external factors. The indicators of the probability of occurrence of risks, calculated according to expert estimates, are considered. The most significant reasons for the occurrence of risks in the system of economic relations of agricultural enterprises are evaluated. A number of factors limiting the development of agricultural production have been identified. The main factors highlighted were: low purchase prices for agricultural products (98.4‰ of respondents allocated); deterioration of the material and technical base (93.2‰); high taxes (86.4‰); lack of funding (85.6 per cent); insolvency of the wholesale buyer of agricultural products (64.1‰).
The balanced development management of the agro-food complex is carried out through the regulation of the proportions between its elements. One of the traditional tools for controlling the balanced development of economic systems is inter-sectoral balance models. The total of features of agro-food systems as the objects of modeling in combination with theoretical and methodological problems of the applied use of balance models objectively necessitate the use of alternative approaches to substantiate the optimal proportions of the development of agro-food complexes at the regional level. Due to the fact that the task of achieving and maintaining the balance and proportionality of economic systems belongs to the competence of strategic management, the substantiation of optimal proportions should be based on the strategic goals of the system. In the Strategy for the Development of the Krasnodar Territory, its developers were unable to provide a systematic approach to assessing the prospects for the development of the agro-food complex, without specifying the direction and depth of its structural changes and parameters that ensure the balance and proportionality of the agro-food system of the region. To solve the problem of substantiating the parameters of the balanced development of the agro-food system of the region, it is proposed to use an aggregated optimization economic and mathematical model for balancing the region's agriculture and its food supply, which has a block-diagonal structure. Agricultural producers of various types (agricultural organizations, peasant (farm) farms and households), the volumes of possible import of certain types of agricultural products from outside the region, possible channels for the use of agricultural products and products of its processing present the blocks in this model, while the binder the block simulates the predicted balance of food resources of the region, and the criterion of optimality is the maximization of the amount of conditional profit.
In order to ensure the sustainable and balanced development of dairy cattle breeding, its rational placement and concentration of production is important. The article analyzes the territorial distribution and changes in the processes of industry concentration in the region using statistical groupings, cluster analysis and decision tree construction, which allowed us to show the effectiveness of the development of concentration processes in dairy cattle breeding and their positive impact on the financial results of the industry. In the dynamics of structural changes in milk production occurred geographically, both by categories of producers and by the level of concentration of production in the municipalities of the region. To assess structural changes, the article suggests using the Herfindahl-Hirschman index and the concentration coefficient, which allowed us to note the high level of concentration of milk production in agricultural enterprises and the average level for all categories of milk producers in the region. Based on the results of the typological grouping by the level of concentration of dairy cattle breeding in the municipalities of the region, measures for the development of dairy cattle breeding in the region are justified.
The article is devoted to certain aspects of the policy of the European Union in the field of export support and promotion of agricultural products on the markets in third countries. The article analyses the EU initiatives to stimulate food supplies to the external market. The experience learned can become a good practice for Russia. The 2015 Trade Facilitation Policy Reform introduced new rules to improve trade policy implementation in both foreign and domestic markets. Funding for the promotion of EU agri-food products to third-country markets increased significantly from EUR 61 million in 2013 to EUR 200 million in 2020. Although the implementation of trade facilitation policies is based on pan-European rules, specific measures and their strategic orientation may vary among member States.
The article considers the problems of the implementation of international interaction of Russian scientists for the realization of joint mutually beneficial projects in the field of agricultural research. The analysis of the ranking of agricultural universities of Russia by the criterion of the number of publications and citations in international bibliographic databases of scientific journals made it possible to come to the conclusion that it is necessary to facilitate the integration of Russian researchers into the international scientific community. The statistical analysis of the survey of scientists from agricultural universities revealed the main measures of research output of Russian researchers and the main difficulties in promoting the results of scientific findings to the international level. The main obstacle to the implementation of international projects is the low level of representativeness of the research results of Russian scientists in international agricultural journals such as Scopus or Web of science. The article emphasizes the necessity to adopt Western traditions of writing scientific articles and presentation of the results of scientific research in English. The authors propose the solution to the problem of entry of Russian agricultural researchers into the international scientific community. This can be achieved by academic writing skills development in English in the course of training of undergraduates, specialists, graduates and postgraduates. The implementation of topical units dedicated to the theory and practice of academic writing in English into the academic course working programs will make it possible to develop the skills set necessary for academic cooperation with foreign peers.
Improving the efficiency of the use of fixed assets is considered in this paper as one of the conditions for the price competitiveness of domestic food products. The analysis of statistical data on the dynamics of growth in the physical volume of agricultural production in the subjects of the Russian Federation in 2012-2019 showed significant differences between regional agricultural systems. Thus, in 16 of the 57 regions considered, the volume of production remained virtually unchanged, or there was a decline, so in 13 regions, the average annual growth rate of production was more than 4‰. The purpose of the study is to assess the prospects for the growth of agricultural production by reducing the regional differentiation of indicators of assets productivity and the provision of agriculture with fixed assets. The article describes the method of applying production functions and other statistical methods for the mathematical description of the predicted trends in the volume of gross output and labour productivity in agriculture in groups of regions of Russia, depending on the change in the values of relative indicators of the availability of fixed assets and labour resources.