صادرات غذایی: نگاهی به شرق Food Export: Looking to the East

Grain is the base of the Russian food export. For the past 15 years, Russian agriculture in general and its grain sector in particular have gone a long way from stagnation to sustainable development. Russia has become one of the leading countries in grain exports, simultaneously increasing the production and supply of quality livestock and other agricultural products. The overwhelming majority of domestic food needs are now fully covered by Russia’s own production. The country is gradually turning from an importer of food into the world’s largest exporter, which gives it additional income and forms powerful incentives for the development of productive forces and the social sphere of the village and improvement of the living conditions of rural residents. Of course, there are still many acute problems hampering the progress of an agrarian economy, but the positive dynamics are being increasingly felt in both the productive and scientific circles of the agrarian community [1–4]. The development of the grain industry after a long and painful recession in the 1990s has finally acquired a steady positive trend, which significantly increased the gross output and yield of cereal crops and made it possible to achieve the highest per capita output of grain of 813 kg in 2016 (Table 1). Grain currently accounts for about 40% of total Russian food exports. At the moment, this is mainly wheat (80% of external grain supplies), but some increase in the export of feed grain (barley, maize) with the unconditional provision of the growing domestic needs of Russian animal husbandry is possible in the future. Based on the analysis of the balance structure of grain resources and the use of grain in recent years, we can conclude that the main growth was demonstrated just by grain exports, in contrast to imports, which fluctuated steadily around the 1 mln t mark. The share of Russian grain exports in the total volume of its production has almost doubled, having increased from 15.8% to almost 30% in comparison with 2005 (Tables 2, 3). Undoubtedly such a significant structural shift has required active regulatory state actions, which were aimed primarily at ensuring the stability of the domestic market, including the supply of food to the Russian population and the provision of the livestock sector with feed grain. In general, this problem has been successfully solved, although a number of regions were characterized by structural and price deformations in the grain market, which were due to its sharply increased export orientation. The strengthened position of Russia among the world’s leading grain producers and exporters, as well as the completion of the country’s long-term dependence on food imports have become the main positive result of these processes