IMPORT SUBSTITUTION, AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND FOOD SAFETY: TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK

In the context of the global crisis, "the war of sanctions" and limited access to financial resources the import substitution in almost all sectors of Russian economy has no alternative. This strategy is of rather a forced than planned character with scientifically elaborated foundation. The process of import substitution in the Russian agricultural production is ambiguous, accompanied by difficulties with the existing technological and technical lags, import restrictions of technology and financial resources. The implemented economic policy has significant impact, based on the rental model. The analysis of the import substitution showed that the first expert assessments of its opportunities and implementation deadlines were overoptimistic. It has been revealed that the creation and development of the own agricultural production is hampered due to a number of reasons, including lack of financial resources, long term projects and others. It has been noted that the devaluation of the national currency has not had great influence on the acceleration of the production establishment, but the growth of food prices has become a key feature of the import substitution. The analysis concludes that the new trends in the development of the agricultural sector and agricultural economics form new requirements for food safety assessment as a component of the economic safety. The aim is to take into account new factors affecting the basic blocks of food safety assessment, namely economic and physical availability of food products, nutrition, and food quality. To speed up the import substitution in agriculture it has been proposed to divide JSC «Rosselkhozbank» into two structures, one of which will deal with the financing of investment projects in the agricultural production and will support agriculture, the other will function as a commercial bank. This approach enables to separate classical banking risks from the investment risks in agriculture, which a specialized structure will regulate.