Methodological approaches to the choice of policy of agricultural seed provision of the Russian Federation

Abstract

Relevance. In the normative legal documents and scientific publications, various options for the policy of providing Russia with seeds are considered. In most of them, the emphasis is on increasing the share of the sown seeds of domestic selection (including those produced in the country or abroad), the share of seeds of domestic production (including seeds of domestic selection and seeds of foreign selection localized in Russia), the share of varieties of domestic selection allowed for use in the Russian Federation, the number of newly developed varieties of seeds. Business does not always select seeds in accordance with the recommendations of the authorities and science: its policy is aimed at sowing seeds of high quality, which in many cases leads not to an increase, but to a decrease in self-sufficiency in the seeds of domestic selection and production.Methods. Various options for the policy of seed production in Russia have been studied, including the production of seeds of domestic selection, the localization of production of seeds of foreign selection in Russia and Russian selection abroad, import and export of seeds of domestic and foreign selection. Indicators for the economic assessment of each of the crop-specific policy options have been developed. The comparison of the results of the Russian policy of seed provision with the policy of Germany and Poland is carried out. As one of the indicators of the quality of domestic seeds, it is proposed to use the ratio of prices of exported domestic seeds and similar seeds exported by other countries.Results. The necessity of transition from the threshold level of seed self-sufficiency established by the Doctrine of Food Security 2020 to its differentiation for individual crops, taking into account the seeds of domestic and foreign selection produced in Russia, is substantiated. With regard to sunflower, along with the localization of the production of foreign-bred seeds in Russia, special measures are needed to replace the import with domestic-bred seeds. For peas and soybeans, the task of import substitution has been solved due to the localization of the production of seeds of foreign selection (the share of imported seeds is less than 1%). A forward-looking policy should be aimed at achieving a positive export-import balance in seeds.