Вестник аграрной науки, 5(68), 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.15217/48484 УДК / UDC 332.122(100-22)
PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE ECONOMY OF RUSSIA AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
ПРОБЛЕМЫ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ РАЗВИТИЯ СЕЛЬСКИХ ТЕРРИТОРИЙ В ЭКОНОМИКЕ РОССИИ И ЗАРУБЕЖНЫХ СТРАН
Markina E.D., Senior Researcher Маркина Е.Д., старший научный сотрудник Federal State Scientific Institution "All-Russian Research Institute of Economics and Standards", Rostov-on-Don, Russia
ФГБНУ «Всероссийский научно-исследовательский институт экономики и нормативов», Ростов-на-Дону, Россия E-mail: elena-markina49@mail.ru
The experience of many economically developed countries shows that the modern development of rural areas is based on the modern application of scientific and technological progress in the organizational and economic activities of agricultural producers. A significant number of problems is solved by creating comfortable living and working conditions for all sections of the population in rural areas, including businessmen who are not engaged in the production of agricultural products, but who live in the given territory. For example, in the UK economy, agricultural production is less than 2% of GDP and unemployment is 2% of the workforce. In Russia, the main emphasis is made on two important parts of food production: plant growing and livestock. Herewith their share in the turnover of finance is almost equal: livestock production is 49% and crop production is about 51%. A promising course for the development of rural areas is the revision of the entire funding system to ensure the same living conditions of the population in the city and in the rural areas, reducing the dependence of remote regions from the center and creating the necessary conditions for rural entrepreneurs. The principal point is the creation of comfortable conditions for the implementation of business projects at the level of territorial entities. So, in our opinion, it is possible to create wholesale distribution centers on the technological chain "field-counter" in rural areas: purchase of products from agrarians, its transportation, storage and sale. When determining the location of the centers, first of all, it is necessary to take into account the availability of a sufficient raw material base, as well as a developed engineering and transport infrastructure. The main goal of this project is to provide the population with high-quality local production and establish fair market prices for agricultural products in the region, which will be attractive both for producers and consumers. Vegetables will be processed, prepacked and then sent by the most convenient route to consumers. Key words: rural areas, sustainable development, import substitution, development prospects, effective growth of agricultural production.
Опыт многих экономически развитых стран показывает, что в основе эффективного развития сельских территорий лежит современное применение научно-технического прогресса в организационно-экономической деятельности сельскохозяйственных производителей. Значительное число проблем решается путем создания комфортных условий жизни и деятельности для всех слоев населения в сельской местности, в том числе бизнесменов, которые не занимаются производством сельскохозяйственной продукции, но проживают на данной территории. Так, в экономике Объединенного Королевства сельскохозяйственное производство составляет менее 2% доли от ВВП и безработица - 2% от рабочей силы. Значительное количество необходимых продуктов Великобритания привозит из других стран. В России же основной упор делается на две важных части производства продовольствия: растениеводство и животноводство. При этом их доля в обороте финансов практически равная: животноводство составляет -49% и растениеводство около 51%. Перспективным направлением развития сельских территорий является пересмотр всей системы финансирования с целью обеспечить
одинаковые условия жизни населения в городе и на селе, сокращение зависимости отдаленных регионов от центра и создание необходимых условий для деятельности сельских предпринимателей. Принципиальным моментом является создание комфортных условий для реализации бизнес-проектов на уровне территориальных образований. Так, на наш взгляд, на сельской территории возможно создание оптово-распределительных центров по технологической цепи «поле - прилавок»: закупка продукции у аграриев, ее транспортировка, складирование и реализация. При определении мест расположения центров в первую очередь необходимо учитывать именно наличие достаточной сырьевой базы, а также развитой инженерной и транспортной инфраструктуры. Главная цель данного проекта - обеспечить население и качественной продукцией местного производства и установить в регионе справедливые рыночные цены на сельхозпродукцию, которые будут привлекательны как для производителей, так и для потребителей. Овощи будут обрабатываться, расфасовываться и после направляться самым удобным маршрутом к потребителям. Ключевые слова: сельские территории, устойчивое развитие, импортозамещение, перспективы развития, эффективный рост сельскохозяйственной продукции.
The relevance of this topic lies in the fact that in the modern state economy in agriculture, not much attention is paid to sustainable development of rural areas, resulting in continued and increased heterogeneity of individual territories, becoming a factor of social instability, threatening the food security of the country [1].
Rural areas of our country are the most important resource of the national economy, which is greatly increasing in modern conditions of crisis and sanctions applied to Russia from the EU and the United States. Problems of rural areas are an integral part of the problems experienced by the country, however, there are specific differences. These include: the destruction of the existing system of rural territorial settlement, and including low quality of life of rural residents, rising unemployment, and demographic crisis.
The experience of the Western developed countries shows that the economic problems of rural areas of EU countries are resolved through the creation of comfortable living conditions and activities for all segments of the population in rural areas, including businessmen who are not engaged in agricultural production, but living in the area. To maintain agricultural production, almost all countries outside the EU, carry out state regulation of the economy of agricultural producers.
Thus, a system of guaranteed prices for products, market surveillance, export and import for trade with other countries is envisaged. This economic policy contributed to the EU within a few years, to solve the problem of transition from the status of importing countries to leaders in the export of agricultural products.
In 2016, the Russian government has relied on agriculture, as the leader of the production growth of the economy. Agricultural production is a sector, which not only creates one of the required products, but also provides some catalyst that indicates economic development of the country.
As a rule, a significant share of the agricultural sector to the GDP is inherent to the developing and underdeveloped countries. Such countries include Liberia, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau and other developing countries. In Liberia, agricultural production in GDP is around 80%. Share in Ethiopia - 44.9%, in Guinea-Bissau -62%. In the Russian Federation, agriculture has a relatively low share in the structure of gross value and is not much more than 4%, but in comparison with Western countries and the United States, this value is quite significant [2].
Figure 1 shows the share of agriculture in the GDP of developed countries and Russia.
Figure 1 - The share of agriculture in GDP of the country with high economic
development
A modern application of scientific and technical progress in economic activities of agricultural producers is in the basis of the effective development of rural territories in many economically developed countries [3]. In the economy of Russia traditionally the rural areas were mainly engaged in the production of agricultural products and currently the most important and significant link is agricultural production. Agriculture has a large share of the activity among the other sectors of the economy.
Despite the fact that in countries with high development of economy, the share of agriculture in GDP has a few percent, this does not mean that these countries have problems with food. Since, at present, in agriculture the present level of development of science and technology in developed countries, allow to obtain quite high rates with relatively low investment. So, in the economy of the United Kingdom agricultural production accounts for less than 2% share of GDP and unemployment -2% of the labor force. Farms are highly mechanized. However, the farms aren't large in size and specialize on the farming of sheep and cattle.
Agriculture of the United Kingdom is not absolutely economically independent. Mainly they produce wheat, barley, sugar beet and potatoes. Therefore, a significant number of required products the Uk brings from other countries. The country imports 4/5 of butter, 2/3 of sugar, 1/2 wheat and 1/2 pork, 1/4 beef and veal.
In Russia the emphasis is on two important parts of food production: crop and animal production. However, their share in the turnover of finance is almost equal: animal production has 49% and plant growing is about 51%, According to preliminary data, in 2016, Russia took the first place in the world in the export of wheat in view of the fact that from 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016 (the agricultural year) the export of grain in Russia amounted to 24-25 million tons. It turns out that, for the first time in 50 years Russia removes American wheat farmers from the first position in the export.
At the same time, it should be noted that the volume of sales of meat and meat products in Russia in 2015 decreased and amounted to 11.3 million tons, which is
1.1% below the level in 2014. There are bad forecasts for 2017. Economists believe that the market capacity of meat in Russia can be reduced to 10.5 million tons and can reach -0.8% to 2015. But, despite the decreasing livestock population, the country continues to be among the leading countries according to this indicator. In fairness, it is important to note that the Russian livestock is approximately 5.91% of the livestock population of India. Figure 2 presents the diagram of production of livestock in the countries - leaders.
Russia - 19
Mexico - 33
Sudan - 42
Argentina - 49
China -107
Brazil -211
India - 322
Figure 2 - Production of livestock in the countries - leaders
The war of sanctions has revealed a number of problems in activities of agroindustrial complex of Russia. This can be attributed to problems of credit, access to the market by the rural producers themselves, the appearing of the competition between agricultural holdings, small and medium-sized farms. According to some experts, the sanctions can become a major impetus to the successful development of rural areas, unfortunately the country cannot avoid sanctions, but it is necessary to do everything to mitigate the current situation [4]. Besides, due to the change in the political situation in the world sanctions against Russia may lose their relevance.
Most of the imports is food, some of which is not possible to substitute by its own production for many objective reasons. Import in Russia is $ 38 billion including about 12 billion in food. These products include a range of exotic goods (coffee, cocoa, palm oil, bananas, etc.), that don't grow in Russia and we need to import them from countries with the southern climate.
Add to this another billion dollars that the country spends on the import of vegetables and fruits that grow in the country. So, we import in large quantities apples and pears from Poland (45 percent of imports), Argentina (11 per cent, Belgium (13 per cent) and China (9 per cent). In this regard, it is possible to increase the laying of apple orchards, improve production technology and sales. By the way, some of the investment projects started to show interest to the laying of apple orchards in the South, however, they are mostly rare and atypical.
In spite of effective fight against the sanctions, Russia remains dependent on other countries. Since Russian consumers continue to buy branded alcohol imported from France and other countries. Russian wine producers, including Krasnodar and Stavropol territories need several decades to achieve the same success, to compete
on an equal footing with French winemakers. For the last two years, alcoholic beverages were brought into the country on $ 3.5 billion.
The past two years for the Russian dairy business had a few ups and downs. So, in connection with the introduction of the food embargo, new goals and problems were put in front of the milk producers and milk processors. Prior to the introduction of antisanctions the share of imported products in total market size was about 50% for cheese, 37% for oil and 32% dry milk. The food embargo contributed to the creation of favorable conditions for import substitution in the dairy market. However, milk production differs in considerable investments with long payback period. In terms of the fluctuations of the ruble, there is some reduction of investment in dairy production and therefore increases the level of industry risks.
Consumption of milk and dairy products, the Russians are much inferior to the inhabitants of the European countries and the USA. In Russia the annual consumption of these products is around 220 kg. per year, whereas in occupying the first places in the list - France and Germany, the consumption of dairy products is at 425 kg per person per year.
With regard to consumption of eggs, Russia here is on a par with such countries as Germany and Italy. On average, the inhabitants of these countries consume about 220-230 eggs per year. Thus, Russia can substitute by domestic goods, a significant share of the agricultural market.
The largest segment of the agricultural production is meat and meat products. For the last 2 years meat products were delivered to Russia on about 7 billion dollars. Here are mostly meat products from beef and pork. Poultry meat is scarcely imported from abroad in connection with the development of our own poultry. We can assume that soon Russia will cease to import products from pork, if the conditions of import substitution will follow the same pace. Thus, we can conclude that significant and obvious issues on import substitution in the food sector of the country can be avoided. It should be noted that Russia is fully provided with a significant range of food products (flour, pasta, sugar, cereals, etc.) by domestic production.
However, for some range of products there are still opportunities for import substitution. It is vegetable oil, canned meat, confectionery products, fish and fish products, etc. But despite this, domestic production already satisfies the needs of the country in 75-86%.
Thus the sanctions imposed to our country will not substantially impair the further development of agricultural production. Efficient production of agricultural products directly affects the development of rural areas [5].
So, profit from the sale of agricultural products helps to improve the lives of citizens in rural areas, to increase the prosperity, to improve the living conditions, the creation of additional jobs, growth of cultural level, etc.
The economic potential of rural areas within the localization of the population and development of agricultural production has a number of features. These characteristics include the effectiveness of investments in agricultural production; the improvement and the redistribution of land; the retention of staff in rural areas; increase in business activity of the young rural population; increasing the quality of life in rural areas; strengthening of the development of rural and recreational infrastructure [6].
To improve the development of rural areas we can offer a variety of effective ways, including:
- diverse natural resources and historical-cultural potentials contribute to the development on the territory of the sanatorium-resort complex, cultural tourism, recreation and sports, and many other types of tourism;
- development of small and medium-sized businesses. Of crucial importance is the creation of comfortable conditions for realization of business projects at the level of territorial entities. So, in our opinion, in rural areas it is possible to create wholesale distribution centres in the technological chain "field - counter": the purchase products from farmers, its transport, storage and implementation. In determining the locations of the centres in the first place it is necessary to consider the presence of a sufficient resource base, and developed transport and engineering infrastructure. The main goal of this project is to provide the population with quality products of local manufacture and to install in the region the fair market prices for agricultural products that will be attractive to producers and consumers. Vegetables will be processed, prepacked and after that go by the most convenient route to consumers;
- one of the major directions of rural development is attracting investment. As a priority for investment in agriculture the farming of cattle, sheep and construction of enterprises for processing of livestock products are defined.
Currently in Europe there are (7.4 million hectares) of ecologically pure agricultural land, and each year this figure increases by 7.5%. Products obtained from this type of production, do not carry the GMO changes and the accumulation of pesticides and other substances which are harmful to human health.
However, in the US, this technology is exploited by only 5 percent of farmers, as organic products have a high cost that affects the final cost of goods, but such production is gaining momentum at a rapid pace. The experience of foreign countries, undoubtedly, will be useful for Russia to achieve sustainable development of rural areas.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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