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Having fingers on the pulse of food security

Taking into account the impact of the severe sanctions and attempts to "turn off" our country from international economic flows, food security becomes the basis of sustainable socio-economic development and an essential element of economic and national security.

In the near future, it is necessary to implement a number of program tasks in the agro-industrial complex, to prepare grain fodder for animal husbandry considering the requirements of rations that ensure a high level of milk and meat production. The issues of import substitution in the industry are no less important. In particular, the President raised an extremely important issue of increasing sunflower crops, as at the moment we import significant volumes of sunflower oil. Besides, the restriction of foreign trade, as well as the need to support citizens (including the self-employed, whose activities are regulated by the new tax legislation), put on the agenda the task of creating optimal mechanisms through which farmers will be able to provide retail chains with vegetables and fruits.

Before, retail chains used to cooperate only with entrepreneurs which was necessary for tax control. In addition, private individuals were unable to provide large volumes of the same goods that retail chains like to work with. One of the solutions to the first issue may be providing self-employed citizens with the opportunity to receive technical documentation. This status will enable to conclude contracts with legal entities and apply a simplified taxation system. To solve the issue of the volume of farm goods, a separate category can be introduced that would allow to supplement the assortment with an emphasis on quality, but at a slightly higher price. An acceptable price will stimulate the output in the volumes necessary for the networks. In general, a special law on the sale of farm products through retail chains can contribute to a more successful installation of the self-employed in the agricultural business.

To fulfill the above, it is important to keep in mind that food security is more of a macroeconomic problem, since it is associated with the efficiency of public production, the level and differentiation of monetary incomes of the population, the state of market infrastructure.

Indeed, if they eat less in developed countries, no food will be added in the third world from this: the current situation with hunger is a consequence of insufficient purchasing power, not an insufficient amount of food in the world. Similarly, by closing the agriculture of the countries of the "first" world, we will not help to develop it in the third world.

Based on approaches accepted in the world, food security is a condition when all people of a country at any given time have physical, social and economic access to nutritious food sufficient in quantity to meet their needs and necessary for an active and healthy life. In this sense, we should keep in mind that achieving and retaining food security is connected not only with the number of liters and kilograms supplied to foreign and domestic markets, but also with a set of systemic measures that ensure macroeconomic stability in the country, including the creation of conditions for the growth of income, providing effective employment in rural areas, creating special regulatory barriers that blocking the import of inflation by food groups of goods, as well as building an innovative strategy for the food market development.

It would seem that we are successfully following the path of digitalization of farms, introducing GPS system on tractors, automated feed dispensers, feed mixers, milking machines, etc. But after a better look all these digital tools turn out to be just small cogs in the overall system that we have yet to build. The first step towards creating such a system should be a software platform that could collect data from all installations, analyze them and show the real work of the farm in all directions. In the future, it will be necessary to build effective practices to accumulate relevant data from enterprises at the level of institutions of public administration, and to create the necessary regulatory framework to take into account the data collected when making managerial decisions.