Assessment of the potential for sustainable development of rural areas of Siberia

Abstract

   An attempt has been made to assess the potential for sustainable development of rural areas of the Siberian Federal District in order to identify promising areas for their strategic development. As the main hypothesis, it is assumed that the sustainability of rural areas is achieved exclusively with the uniform availability of the economic, social and environmental potential of the territory. It is determined that the integral stability indicator is a combination of all three types of potential. The article proposes a system of indicators reflecting the economic, social and environmental potential of rural areas, and tests the developed methodology on the example of the subjects of the Siberian Federal District. As a result of calculations, the highest indicator of rural sustainability was identified in the Altai and Krasnoyarsk Territories and the Novosibirsk region. An ideal uniform stability model is not observed in any of the subjects of the Siberian Federal District. The Altai, Krasnoyarsk Territories and Irkutsk Region are the closest to it. The authors have proposed promising directions for improving the sustainability of rural areas in Siberia, including: 1) support for the acquisition and introduction of modern technologies into production that increase labor productivity; 2) implementation of comprehensive rural improvement projects involving private companies on a parity basis; 3) support for the transition of agricultural producers to an organic type of production; 4) support for social innovation projects in rural areas.