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“New technologies in agriculture may be a dead end”
Review of trends and some ways to solve problems of providing food to the world's population
How to feed ten billion people in the 21st century? A review of trends and some ways to solve the problems of providing the growing population of the Earth with food is presented by Gazeta.Ru together with.
The number of people in the world is growing by about 70-80 million people per year. Never before have so many people lived on the planet at the same time. If we look at agriculture and food supply, each person strives to increase consumption, respectively, along with absolute consumption due to population growth, relative consumption also increases.
The question arises: “Will there be enough food to satisfy the growing appetites of a growing population, given that about 1 billion people are already hungry?”
Therefore, from a food perspective, the world faces a triple challenge in the 21st century: a) to feed the growing demand for food from a growing and richer population; b) do it in an environmentally sustainable way; c) cope with the problem of hunger.
Global agriculture will face the following global constraints over the next 50 years:
1. There are no new lands available.
2. Changes in climatic conditions in traditional crop growing areas. Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns.
3. Soil degradation.
4. Increasing regional freshwater deficit.
5. Decrease in the rate of yield growth even with an increase in the volume of fertilizers.
6. Increased dependence on fossil fuels (logistics, raw materials).
7. There are no new fish resources.
8. Population growth.
9. Dietary transition due to increased prosperity.
In the past, the main ways to combat food shortages were through agricultural development of new lands and the use of new fish stocks.
However, over the past five decades, while grain production has more than doubled, the amount of land devoted to arable farming worldwide has increased by only a few percent.
Of course, some new land could be brought into cultivation, but competition for land from other human activities makes this an increasingly unlikely and costly solution, especially with greater emphasis on biodiversity conservation. In recent decades, certain agricultural areas that were previously productive have been lost due to urbanization and other human activities, as well as due to desertification, salinization, soil erosion and other consequences of unsustainable land use. Further losses are likely, which could be exacerbated by climate change. Producing first-generation biofuels on good, quality agricultural land also adds competitive pressure to food production. Freshwater scarcity is already causing significant problems in China and India. Human influence on the nitrogen and phosphate cycles has been disrupted natural systems utilization of these elements and this influence will not weaken, since fertilizers are responsible for half of the harvest, and the use of fertilizers will only increase.
However, in more detail about the limits of agriculture in the 21st century, with an emphasis on fresh water, nutrients and hydrocarbons, “Gazeta.Ru” talked about it in the article “Traps of fresh water and acid rain.”
Accordingly, at the global level in the 21st century, more food will need to be produced on the same amount of land (or even less area). Recent studies of future demand show that the world will need 70-100% more food by 2050.
It is obvious that humanity will actively solve these problems in the coming decades. For different countries there will be different challenges, for example in China the main problems of agriculture will be the rapid dietary transition due to rising incomes. Dietary transition from a predominantly vegetarian diet to a diet containing a large proportion of meat products requires a several-fold increase in the use of nutrients, fresh water, soils and other things, which will significantly increase the burden on agriculture and have a negative impact on the environment. African countries are characterized by other problems - low yields and such negative impacts of expanding agricultural areas on the environment as deforestation and desertification.
In Russia, the problems are of a completely different nature: we depend on food imports, the country does not provide itself with meat products. Accordingly, Russia is dependent on international markets for meat products, which is an unsustainable long-term strategy.
Each region can have its own problems, but if we consider agriculture as a single global industry over a long period of time, then the limits and trends listed at the beginning of this article will play a crucial role, although global agricultural problems will be solved locally.
Below is an overview of trends and some ways to solve the emerging problems of providing food to a growing population. These solutions are the scientific and practical mainstream. It is far from certain that these solutions, even if implemented, will be able to improve the situation and not drive it into an even greater dead end.
Method 1: Increasing yields using traditional practices
There are significant differences in crop and livestock productivity even in regions with similar climates. The difference between actual productivity and the best productivity that can be achieved using current genetic material, available technology and management is called the "yield gap". Achieving the best local yields depends on farmers' ability to access and use seeds, water, nutrients, soil, soil pest control, biodiversity benefits, and access to advanced knowledge and management systems.
Closing yield gaps could dramatically increase food supplies, but also increase negative environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions (especially methane and nitrous oxide, which have a larger greenhouse effect than CO2 and are largely produced by agriculture). , soil erosion, depletion of fresh water horizons, increased eutrophication, destruction of biodiversity due to conversion of agricultural land.
Method 2: Increasing food production using genetic modification
Today, the speed and cost of sequencing and resequencing genomes is such that improved breeding and genetic modification techniques can be easily applied to the development of crop varieties that produce high yields even under challenging conditions. This primarily applies to crops such as sorghum, millet, cassava, and banana, which are staple foods for many of the world's poorest communities.
Today, genetic modification is used mainly in the production of soybeans (70% of the total area under the crop), cotton (49%), corn (26%), rapeseed/canola (21%). The area under GM crops accounts for 9% of the world's crop area, mainly in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, India, Canada and China. According to Sygenta, about 90% of farmers growing GM seeds are farmers in developing countries and mostly cotton farmers.
Currently, the main commercial genetically modified crops are created by relatively simple manipulations, such as introducing a herbicide resistance gene or a gene to produce a toxin against insect pests. The next decade is likely to see the development of combinations of desirable traits and the introduction of new traits, such as drought tolerance. By mid-century, much more radical options may be possible.
EXAMPLES OF EXISTING AND POTENTIAL FUTURE APPLICATIONS OF GM TECHNOLOGIES FOR GENETIC IMPROVEMENT OF CROPS. SOURCE: SCIENCE
| Period of time | Target crop trait | Target crops |
|---|---|---|
| Currently | Tolerance to broad spectrum herbicides | Corn, soybeans, cabbage oilseeds |
| Resistance to chewing insect pests | Corn, cotton, cabbage oilseeds | |
| Short term (5-10 years) | Nutritional Strengthening | Main grains, sweet potatoes |
| Resistance to fungus and viral pathogens | Potatoes, wheat, rice, bananas, fruits, vegetables | |
| Resistance to sucking insect pests | Rice, fruits, vegetables | |
| Improved processing and storage | Wheat, potatoes, fruits, vegetables | |
| Drought resistance | ||
| Medium term (10-20 years) | Tolerance to excess salt | Common grains and roots |
| Increasing nitrogen use efficiency | Common grains and roots | |
| High temperature resistance | Common grains and roots | |
| Long-term period (more than 20 years) | Apomixis | Common grains and roots |
| Nitrogen fixation | Common grains and roots | |
| Production and denitrophification | Common grains and roots | |
| Transition to perennialism | Common grains and roots | |
| Increased photosynthetic efficiency | Common grains and roots |
Most likely, with the goal of increasing crop yields in a limited area while being resilient to climate change, the world will move aggressively toward genetic conversion of plants.
For example, Bill Gates is already investing in Monsanto (this company, founded in 1901 as a purely chemical company, has now evolved into a concern specializing in high technology in the field of agriculture, and its main products currently are genetically modified seeds of corn, soybeans, cotton and the world's most common herbicide, Roundup). Gates believes that genetically modified plants will save the world from hunger.
Although there are many arguments against the widespread use of GM products. Since genetic modifications involve changes to the germ line of an organism and its introduction into the environment and food chain, the problem with GM technology is that the long-term effects of genetically modified crops on the human body, the environment, and biodiversity are unknown. That is why there is significant and completely understandable resistance to genetically modified products in the world, especially in countries like India, where the huge population and growing demand from the growing middle class force us to look for such radical ways as GM technologies to provide for the population. food. Suman Sahai, professor of genetics and recipient of the Norman Borlaug Award for Excellence in Agriculture and the Environment, notes in the article “Why is there distrust of GM foods” that the production of GM seeds is controlled by only six companies in the world, What
causes a significant lack of open information and a corresponding lack of trust on the part of consumers, regulators and non-profit organizations.
Method 3: Reduce waste
To the question “What needs to be done to provide 10 billion people with food?” Ida Kubiszewski, a professor at the University of Portland and managing editor of The Solutions magazine, argues that the world today produces absolutely enough food, but approximately 30 to 50% of food is lost in both developed and developing countries wasted, although for very different reasons.
In developing countries, losses are mainly due to the lack of infrastructure in the production chain, such as technologies for storing produced food on farms, during transportation, during storage before sale. Huge losses during storage are typical in developing countries, such as India, where 35-40% of fresh produce is lost because neither wholesale nor retail outlets are equipped with refrigeration equipment.
In Southeast Asia, there is significant loss even of rice, which can be stored without special equipment. As a result, after harvesting, up to a third of the crop is lost due to pests and spoilage.
IN developed countries ah, losses up to the retail stage are much lower, but losses arising at the retail, catering and individual consumption stages are significant. For example, consumers are accustomed to buying products that look cosmetically good, hence retailers throw away a lot of edible but slightly damaged products. Also, for consumers in developed countries, food is relatively cheap, reducing incentives to reduce waste.
Accordingly, one of the main strategies for sufficient food supply for humanity will be to reduce losses throughout the entire production and consumer chain. At the same time, food waste will be more widely used in agriculture for livestock feed, since it is necessary to reduce the load of livestock farming on arable land, as well as fertilizers, since such use does not require the direct use of inexhaustible resources and additional significant energy costs (except for transportation).
Method 4. Changing diets
The efficiency of converting plant energy into animal energy is about 10%, so more people can feed on the same amount of land if they become vegetarians. Currently, about one-third of global grain production is used as livestock feed, and one of the main drivers of increasing pressure on the food system is the rapidly growing demand for meat and dairy products. Demand is growing as a result of general development, which is accompanied by rising incomes.
The next one is amazing Feedback - world population will continue to grow down to a likely plateau of 9-10 billion people to be reached by 2050.
The main factor in slowing the rate of population growth, and accordingly the means of combating hunger, is the elimination of illiteracy. This leads to increased wealth and income, and with higher purchasing power comes higher levels of consumption, as well as increased demand for processed food, meat, dairy and fish. As a result, such hunger trends only add pressure to food supply systems in the long term. Growing demand has led over the past 50 years to a 1.5-fold increase in the world's cattle, sheep and goat populations, and a 2.5- and 4.5-fold increase in the world's pig and chicken populations, respectively. A new round of this growth in the coming decades will be triggered by an increase in the prosperity and size of the middle class in countries such as China and India.
Reducing your meat consumption also has other benefits besides feeding you. more people.
Well-balanced diets rich in grains and other plant-based foods are considered healthier than those containing a high proportion of meat and dairy products. But breaking current trends and switching to plant-based diets in the medium term is impossible. The command-driven and centralized approaches that can be used to change diets, even if they work in individual countries, cannot be implemented on a global scale. Only with the help of long-term cultural transformations is it possible to achieve a “reverse dietary transition” from higher-calorie, predominantly animal-based diets to plant-based diets. It is absolutely clear that the process of such a transition will take more than one generation, of course, if we do not take into account unpredictable events today that can significantly accelerate the transition, for example, the possible emergence of an epidemic and pandemic of livestock diseases, such as rabies.
Method 5. Expansion of aquaculture
Fish, aquatic molluscs and crustaceans play an important role in the food system, providing approximately 15% of the animal protein consumed by humans. Peter Drucker, one of the founders of management, in his book The Age of Disruption, suggested that industries related to the world's oceans, in particular fisheries, will be the basis human activity in the 21st century.
Today we can already say that, at least with fishing, Drucker was wrong.
Since 1990, approximately a quarter of wild fisheries have been seriously overfished. Some of the fish were completely exhausted. A typical example is that last year a bluefin tuna carcass was sold at auction in Japan for $730,000, and the cost of one roll of this fish was more than $100. Of course, some people may say that it is “very high status” to eat such expensive products. We can say the cost of one fish has become this way because there are no more bluefin tuna left in the ocean.
It is due to overfishing and depletion of wild fish resources that the world will switch to aquaculture in the future. Aquaculture is now growing rapidly in Southeast Asia, where labor is cheap and favorable climate contribute to this growth rate. Replicating this growth in regions such as Africa would likely make a big difference in tackling hunger.
In the future, aquaculture could achieve even greater productivity through improved selection of products grown, larger production scales, open water and large inland aquaculture, and the cultivation of a wider range of species.
More wide choose conditions for production (tolerance of temperature and salinity fluctuations, disease resistance) and cheaper feed (for example, plant materials with increased nutritional value) may become available using GM technologies, but problems associated with the long-term impact of GM technologies on the fish body will need to be resolved , humans and the environment in general. Aquaculture can be harmful environment, firstly, due to the release of organic waste or medicinal chemicals into water bodies, and secondly, as a source of diseases or genetic contamination of wild species.
New technologies may be a dead end
Despite the wide range of technological horizons, new technologies from the point of view of energy costs most likely turn out to be a dead-end branch of agricultural development. If we systematically consider the process of creation, development, implementation and use of new technologies from a cost point of view, then today much more energy is spent on food production than we receive in return. This was not always the case, and it is obvious that “traditional” agriculture is much more advantageous from this point of view.
It is easier to explain this statement using the example of oil production. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was necessary to spend 1 barrel of oil to produce 100 barrels of oil. The EROI (Energy Return on Investments) ratio was 1:100. Today it is about 1:15, and shale gas production technologies will reduce it to 1:2-3. Similar trends are developing in agriculture. If traditional agriculture used 1 kilocalorie of energy to produce 5 to 10 kilocalories of energy contained in a food product, today it takes 10 or more (up to 500) kilocalories of energy to produce 1 kilocalorie of food (see diagram).
Regarding non-renewable resources, it is clear that when an easily accessible resource is depleted, the costs of extracting a less accessible resource increase, and the EROI coefficient, in turn, decreases. In the case of agriculture, with a growing population and growing demand, any departure from natural, and therefore “free” resources (natural supply fresh water, soil productivity, biodiversity), significantly reduces EROI and similar coefficients.
Let's take aquaculture for example. In the case of natural marine fisheries for wild species, the main costs are aimed at catching fish, and there are no costs for feeding the fish, since the fish feed in the open ocean. Today, aquaculture needs to be grown, fed, and treated. This requires labor, territory, equipment and much, much more. This accordingly increases resource costs, and the grown fish, in principle, has less energy value.
Now let's take latest projects construction of super-efficient vertical farms in megacities. It is obvious that these projects have exorbitant resource and energy efficiency coefficients; approximately more than 500 kilocalories are spent in these projects to obtain one kilocalorie.
Separately, it is worth noting the important economic consequences of the development of such trends. In traditional economics, the cost of a product never included the “cost of a resource.” There is no such thing as “resource cost” at all. For example, the cost of a barrel of oil is determined only by the costs of production, labor, transportation, rental of offices, tanks and other similar costs. The very volume of oil contained in the rock has always been and is considered free. But today, when we no longer have enough traditional resources, a “resource replacement cost” appears. The emergence of a replacement cost makes new technologies, when compared with traditional technologies based on a free resource, economically unprofitable.
Accordingly, humanity is switching to more costly and less effective ways obtaining energy and food.
The reason is clear: to develop and replicate new technologies, it is necessary to expend a huge amount of effort, time and energy. Personnel costs, new construction and other activities significantly increase energy costs. Accordingly, the risks of declining and negative ratios similar to EROI must be financed by someone. In the case of agriculture, they are funded by governments that subsidize the industry and international organizations that provide financial assistance to those in need. This leads to a situation where humanity spends and will continue to spend money on maintaining an absolutely inefficient production system and agriculture in particular.
That is why, with the depletion of non-renewable resources and the use of renewable resources beyond natural balances, the world is entering “dangerous territory”, which at the beginning, at a minimum, will be characterized by an increase in the price of all types of resources, and ultimately can lead to catastrophic situations.
For sustainable food production, in a strategic perspective, agriculture, as an industry that operates on natural renewable resources and geochemical cycles (soil, nitrogen, fresh water, carbon, phosphorus) will have to return to using resources at a level no greater than what is possible in the natural cycle . Otherwise, we will have, and in fact we already have, production that is absolutely ineffective in terms of resource and energy consumption, since we spend more than we receive. In the long term, this strategy does not work.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, it doesn't exist simple solutions on the issue of sustainable food supply for 9 billion people, especially with the overall increase in prosperity and the transition of a large part of the population to the mode of consumption characteristic of rich countries. Growing food production will be really important, but it will be more limited than ever by the finite resources of the land, oceans and atmosphere, and will also need to take into account climate change, increasing pollution, growing populations and changing diets and the impact of food on human health.
It is obvious that changes in agriculture in the 21st century will be no less, but rather more radical, than the changes that occurred during the Green Revolution in the 20th century.
Setting goals and developing these changes will be one of the main tasks of science in the 21st century. But hopes for future scientific and technological innovations in food supply cannot be an excuse for postponing difficult decisions that are needed today, and any optimism must be tempered by the enormity of the challenges.
With a billion hungry people in the world, it is necessary to think outside the box.
In preparing the article, materials from Science, The Solutions, books and articles by Vaclav Smil, “Limits to Growth” were used. 30 years later”, reports FAO, The International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), Water Resource Group, UN Water.
Recently, in a number of regions of the globe, the food situation has been constantly worsening. The reasons for this are mainly not natural, arising from the quality of the land, but social and political. Famine in many developing countries is a concentrated result of their socio-economic development under conditions of prolonged imperialist colonial and neo-colonial exploitation.
Providing food to an ever-growing population represented one of the main global problems of humanity in the 80s. The world food problem is one of the long-term and most complex problems of the world economy and politics.
World agriculture is based on a huge area of arable land and pastures, occupying about 4 billion hectares.
One of the greatest challenges facing agriculture today is increasing food production to meet the needs of a growing population; According to current estimates, 2/3 of the world's population lives in countries where there is a constant shortage of food. In addition, it is expected that by 2000 there will be only about 0.2 hectares of cultivated land per inhabitant of the Earth, although back in 1950 this figure was 0.5 hectares.
The growth of world food supplies is ensured, on the one hand, by the expansion of the cultivated area, and on the other, by an increase in production on the existing area. Until about 1950, the main way to increase agricultural production was to expand the area of arable land, and in a later period - mainly to increase crop yields. Currently, about 90% of the annual increase in world food production is ensured by the intensification of agriculture.
The development of productive forces, population growth, and widespread urban construction lead to the occupation of large areas by non-agricultural objects and the destruction of the fertile soil layer. All this for a number of countries does not leave the possibility of choosing any other path other than directing ever-new efforts to increase the productivity of available cultivable lands.
Food production in developing countries began to lag behind population growth in the first half of the 1960s. For most of them, the most important economic problem today is the need to provide the population with its own food. It is difficult to solve this problem in a short time, since the agriculture of these countries, as a rule, is the most backward sector of their economy, which does not have the necessary material and technical base, and therefore, despite the high level of employment, remains ineffective.
Certain approaches to the development of the agricultural sector in developing countries are contained in the “National Food Strategy” proposed by the World Food Council. The main emphasis of this document is on the need to mobilize the domestic resources of developing countries in order to increase food production.
When discussing this document, representatives of developing countries agreed on the need to prioritize the development of their own agricultural production in the presence of international assistance provided through world and regional banks. It was noted that this assistance should not only be expressed in direct supplies of food, but also help facilitate the access of developing countries to new equipment and technology, i.e., ultimately lead to progressive socio-economic transformations in their agriculture.
Representatives of the socialist countries proposed a broad program to increase agricultural production through the development of unused lands, the widespread development of irrigation, the use mineral fertilizers, breeding new breeds of livestock in accordance with local conditions. It was emphasized that assistance provided to developing countries in implementing their plans should not replace their own national efforts.
The main factors determining the food situation of individual countries in the world include: the availability and quality of land resources; bioclimatic potential of the territory; share of energy resources used in the agricultural sector; labor resources and the rate of their reproduction; the possibility of using the achievements of scientific and technological progress in food production; state of world trade.
According to Soviet experts, the new aggravation of the world food problem is the result of the combined action the following reasons: firstly, excessive load on the natural potential of agriculture and fisheries, preventing its natural restoration; secondly, insufficient rates of scientific and technological progress in agriculture in developing countries, which do not compensate for the declining scale of natural renewal of resources; thirdly, the instability that emerged in the early 1970s and has been increasing in global trade in food, feed and fertilizers.
Currently, in developed capitalist countries, many concepts of food policy are in circulation, which differ from each other in assessments of the prospects for the world food situation, the scope of the problem, the proposed methods and means of solving it, etc. Among them are the so-called “humanistic”, “institutional” ", "technical", "diplomatic" and other concepts. However, if we take a deeper look at the essence of each of them, then everywhere it comes down to artificially restraining scientific and technological progress in agriculture, maintaining high food prices, and none of them practically takes into account the need for socio-economic transformations in developing countries. Even V.I. Lenin noted that “no loans, no land reclamation, no “help” to the peasant, no... measures of “assistance” will give any serious results as long as the oppression of feudal latifundia, traditions, and economic systems remains” (Lenin V.I. . Poly. sobr., vol. 17, p.
As for the food aid provided to the peoples of developing countries by large capitalist states, it has little effectiveness in solving national food problems and is often used by the latter as an instrument of political or socio-economic pressure.
In conditions of high rates of natural population growth in developing countries (2.5%) and a sharp deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, bourgeois ideologists - representatives of modern Malthusianism (G. Boutul, V. and P. Paddock, F. Hauser, etc.) are pessimistic about the possibilities rational use natural resources and put forward reactionary theories about hunger as a product of “natural” factors. They confine social disasters to the tropics and subtropics and tendentiously interpret the fact that high rates of population growth coincide with low living standards in developing countries, turning a blind eye to the extremely low level of agricultural production as a direct result of capitalist management and the centuries-long plunder of former colonies and semi-colonies. These futurists do not want to see new trends in food production in many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that have entered the new way its development, where the growth rate of gross food production in 1952-1962. were 3.1% versus 2.5% in developed capitalist countries, and in 1962-1972. - 2.7% versus 2.4%.
Marxism-Leninism, without denying in this situation important role sound demographic policy, based on socio-economic conditions and the role of social production, and not on the primacy of biological factors in the development of society. Only scientific and technological progress and an increase in the production of high-quality agricultural products, including food crops, based on it, will help in the future (until 2000) to double food production. Considering the need to increase existing level food production needs to be tripled and for developing countries to quadruple. Further intensification of agricultural production, as well as expansion of productive lands, are real ways to solve this problem.
Calculations made by V. A. Kovda show that doubling and tripling the harvest in the future is a difficult task, but quite solvable. This is evidenced by the experience of many industrialized countries, as well as the successful solution of the food issue in the USSR and other socialist countries, carried out on the basis of revolutionary socio-economic transformations in the interests of the people. And the further main direction of development of the agrarian-industrial complex of the socialist countries is associated with the industrialization of agriculture, deepening specialization and concentration of production on the basis of its inter-farm cooperation and agro-industrial integration.
At the same time, the territorial possibilities of land resources for agriculture are far from exhausted. If we do not take into account the clearly problematic prospects for agricultural development of 9.33 billion hectares, i.e. 70% of the land surface, and “grandiose” projects to increase food production from the ocean, as well as a very optimistic quantitative assessment of the biological productivity of land, then more or the hypothesis of doubling the cultivated areas may be considered less realistic.
Vast areas of the Earth's surface are not cultivated, but they are suitable for cultivation; this requires only labor resources and capital investment. However, the expansion of arable areas is hampered by unfavorable physical and geographical conditions in many regions of the planet.
For example, more than half of the territory of the Soviet Union - the largest country in the world, occupying almost a sixth of the entire landmass on the planet - belongs to cold regions where it is impossible to cultivate crops in open ground with the current level of agricultural technology. Almost a third of the territory of our country is occupied by mountains, and there are significant areas of deserts. Only 25% of the total land fund is suitable for agricultural needs, and arable land occupies approximately 10% of the country's territory.
Providing food is, in the physical sense, ensuring its life activity, then food security is the dominant object of analysis by economists. The theoretical problem arises of determining a strategy for ensuring food security - through internal or external mechanisms.
Food security is a situation in which all people, at any given time, have physical and economic access to quantitatively sufficient, safe food needed to function actively and healthy life or it is a certain state of the economy in which the state has food in sufficient quantities and the population has the opportunity to purchase it. The Rome Declaration on World Food Security states the responsibility of every state to ensure the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the right to freedom from hunger.
Food security is one of the main goals of agricultural and economic policy states. In his general view it forms the vector of movement of any national food system towards an ideal state. In this sense, the pursuit of food security is a continuous process. At the same time, to achieve it, there is often a change in development priorities and mechanisms for implementing agricultural policy.
Food security elements:
physical availability of sufficient, safe and nutritious food;
economic accessibility to food of adequate volume and quality for all social groups of the population;
autonomy and economic independence of the national food system (food independence);
reliability, that is, the ability of the national food system to minimize the impact of seasonal, weather and other fluctuations on the food supply to the population of all regions of the country;
sustainability, meaning that the national food system develops in a mode of expanded reproduction.
Food policy is accordingly viewed as a set of measures designed to systematically and effectively solve the problems of development not only of production, foreign trade, storage and processing, but also of fair distribution of basic food products, as well as social development rural areas.
Ensuring food security is a strategically important policy direction, one of the conditions for maintaining economic stability, social sustainability and state sovereignty. If there is not enough food and a third of the population cannot purchase it, then the country or region is declared a disaster zone. There are seven levels of management that provide solutions to food security problems. Each of them has managing subjects with specific functions; they are interconnected and interdependent. Despite the fact that the problem is being solved at all levels, only the state can fully guarantee food security. It forms a balanced food policy and creates conditions for its implementation, primarily through its own food production based on the sustainable functioning of agriculture. The need for its priority development is evidenced by the trends in the formation of world food resources. The shortage of global food supplies projected for the period up to 2030 and the reduction in carryover stocks indicate the possibility of a shift in the market from the commercial to the political sphere. This significantly complicates the solution of the food problem for countries dependent on imports. FAO specialists note in their forecasts that trends in production are not adequate to the growth in demand for products. The number of people on the planet is increasing by approximately 1.4% per year, while food production per capita is increasing by only 0.9%. As a result, the number of hungry and malnourished people in the world (almost a billion people) is not only not decreasing, but, on the contrary, increasing. According to forecasts of international organizations, negative trends in the global market are long-term. In 2030, food consumption per capita, guaranteeing food security in full (3500 kcal per day), is expected only in industrialized countries.
About 24,000 people die every day from hunger and diseases caused by it. Three quarters of them are children under 5 years of age. One in ten children in underdeveloped countries die before the age of 5. Severe harvest failures and wars are the cause of starvation in only 10%. Most deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. Families simply cannot provide enough food for themselves. This in turn is caused by extreme poverty. It is estimated that around 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Often exhausted people need a little money (grain good quality, tools and water) to produce required amount food. In the end, The best way The solution to the problem is to increase the level of education. Educated people It is easier to escape from the grips of poverty and hunger, change your life and help others.
Every third child who dies in the world is a victim of hunger. Africa continues to have the worst child mortality situation. One in three child deaths is due to hunger, the UN has found, and the economic crisis has only worsened the humanitarian situation in the world, where 200 million children are chronically malnourished. Child malnutrition is one of the leading causes of child mortality in the world. 65 children out of a thousand die before reaching the age of five. In Russia, 13 out of a thousand children die in infancy. Last year, 8.8 million children died, and every third child who died was a victim of hunger, said Anne Veneman, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). “People eat to live, not live to eat.”
The main reasons for the current difficult food situation in developing countries.
1. The problem of hunger is closely interconnected with the problem of backwardness of the “third world” countries. Like other sectors of material production, agriculture in most developing countries does not even come close to the scientific and technical level of the world economy at the end of the 20th century. It is carried out without the use of a sufficient number of machines, mineral fertilizers, irrigation, etc. Agriculture, especially its food sector, is still poorly involved in commodity-money relations.
2. Uncontrolled population growth in developing countries has a significant impact on the scale of hunger in the modern world.
3. Former metropolises and transnational corporations bear some of the blame for the current acute food situation in the developing world. It is known that in the former colonies the best arable land was allocated for plantations of export crops, which did not give anything and give little to local residents today. TNCs that own plantations or control the sale of products grown on them do not in any way alleviate the food difficulties of young states.
4. An important role is also played by the fact that the countries of the developing world occupy extremely unfavorable positions within the framework of international economic relations.
5. The food situation in developing countries is most directly affected by high rates of urbanization, leading not only to a simple increase in the need for commercial food, but also to a qualitative change in the diet of the population, placing demand for many products that were not previously produced locally. The urban elite is becoming increasingly dependent on food imports from highly developed countries, for which large amounts of foreign currency are spent.
6. The consequences of environmental crises, especially soil erosion and desertification, which to a large extent determine the scale of underproduction of agricultural products, primarily in Africa, cannot be ignored. Droughts and desertification are currently affecting more than 30 African countries, threatening approximately 150 million people with famine.
So, the real nutritional situation of the population of underdeveloped countries indicates the incredible complexity of the food problem. One can, of course, talk about the theoretical food potential of the Earth, about doubling and even tripling the cultivated area, about the use of chlorella by humanity for food or the cultivation of plantations on the bottom of the oceans... However, the harsh reality reminds us that everything edible that humanity produces ultimately consumed and yet more than a billion people are chronically undernourished. It is difficult to hope that humanity will eradicate hunger in the foreseeable future if it does not learn to control its numbers and resolve the economic, technical and environmental issues of modernizing agriculture. In this case we are talking about comprehensive solution all tasks.
The article examines the food supply of the population of an industrialized region. Factors influencing food consumption by the population of the Kemerovo region have been identified, among which the monetary income of the population is fundamental. It is noted that the economic availability of food will be limited even if the minimum subsistence level per capita increases, due to increasing social stratification in society in terms of income. To solve the problem of food supply for the population of the region, it is proposed to use a systematic approach. When planning a strategy for the socio-economic development of the region, social standards, gender and age groups and income of the population should be taken into account. At the same time, the efforts of regional authorities and agricultural enterprises need to be focused on: increasing the purchasing power of the population; reducing the tax burden for agricultural producers, which will reduce the costs of agricultural production; balancing the food procurement market; minimizing the disparity in prices for agricultural and industrial products; increasing the level of culture, education, personnel and social security of the village; planning stable government orders for rural producers, providing favorable conditions for the sale of products.
food supply
cash income
economic accessibility of food
systems approach
social standards
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The problem of food supply within the state and its individual regions was before, and remains at present one of the most pressing, as well as the conditions for its achievement, which consists in fully providing the country and regions with food of its own production and importing it only in extreme cases. cases.
Considering the food supply of the population as a set of economic relations in society that arise in the process of providing all members of society with food in accordance with standards of quantity and quality, the state must guarantee the availability, stability and efficiency of food use. Food supply for the region's population is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon that simultaneously combines economic, social and political aspects.
When characterizing the problem of food supply, it is necessary to highlight several forms of actual food consumption, depending on the specific level of an individual’s average daily diet: chronic hunger is an extreme manifestation of a food problem; epidemic famine, causing its outbreaks, resulting from droughts, floods and other unforeseen events; non-compliance of food consumption with nutritional (calorie) standards. Another form of food problem should include the imbalance of the population’s diet in terms of basic vital microelements (proteins, both animal and plant origin, fats and carbohydrates).
Target- study of food supply for the population of an industrial region and development of proposals for its improvement.
Research objective is to study the characteristics of food supply for the population of an industrial region, identifying factors influencing food consumption.
Object of study served as economic and organizational approaches to food supply for the population of the Kemerovo region.
Research methods: comparative and economic analysis, statistical.
State and problems of food supply for the population of the Kemerovo region
Considering the problem of food supply for the population of the region as a whole, we think it is most important to more fully cover all its aspects: the population’s satisfaction with basic food products in accordance with scientifically based nutritional standards for different groups of the population; improving the quality of produced food products; ensuring a balance of supply and demand, eliminating social inequality in food consumption among different segments of the population, etc.
The problem of food supply for the population is especially acute in industrialized regions, where the development of agriculture is influenced by industrial potential. In many rural areas, coal industry enterprises are actively developing, which contributes to the outflow of labor resources from agriculture. As a consequence, the development of coal enterprises and ferrous metallurgy entails the withdrawal of agricultural lands from circulation.
These regions include the Kemerovo region. The area occupied by the region is 9572.5 thousand hectares. In the structure of lands, the largest share is occupied by agricultural lands - 2671.3 thousand hectares; industry, transport and communications - 146.2 thousand hectares (1.5%); settlements - 391.5 thousand hectares (4.08%); forest fund - 5360.8 thousand hectares (56%); specially protected territories and objects - 818.7 thousand hectares (8.5%). The region is one of the regions characterized by high population density, 28.5 people per 1 sq. kilometer. For reference: the average population density in the Siberian Federal District is 3.8, the average in Russia is 8.4 people per 1 sq. kilometer.
Providing the population with food in the region is entrusted to agriculture, which is not sufficiently developed in all regions. In particular, the general socio-economic development of the Kemerovo region, which is a highly developed industrial region, leaves its mark on the development of agriculture.
The share of agriculture in the structure of the region's GRP, in different periods, fluctuates at the level of 3.2-3.8%. In the Siberian Federal District, for example, this figure is 7.4%, in Russia - 4.9%. It should be emphasized that the number of people employed in agricultural production in 2015 was at the level of 3.3% of the economically active population. In 2016, no significant changes in this parameter were observed.
The industrial orientation of the region, climatic features, namely, frequent drought, sometimes long-term heavy rains during the vegetative stage of plant development and during harvesting, significantly increase the risks of the crop growing industry. The consequence of this circumstance is that the agricultural sector of the economy does not significantly affect the economy of the region, at the same time, this sector on which the provision of the population with food depends to a certain extent.
As a result of the reform of the region's agro-industrial complex in the period 1990-2015. Agricultural production volumes have more than halved; support for agriculture from the state and subfederal bodies has significantly decreased; fixed assets in agricultural production decreased by 5 times; the sown area decreased by 160 thousand hectares; the discrepancy between prices for industrial and agricultural products has limited the possibilities for comprehensive socio-economic development of rural areas in the region.
The most important factors influencing the population's consumption of food, underlying the forecasting process, are: the level of monetary income, the purchasing power of the population's per capita monetary income, effective demand for agricultural products, raw materials and food; production potential of agriculture and processing industry in the region; price dynamics for agricultural products, availability of substitute products on the market and assortment.
Analyzing the average per capita consumption of the main food groups of households in the region, the following dynamics were revealed at the end of 2015: the population consumed bakery products and milk less by 9.8% and 6.6%, respectively, than in 2010. At the same time, in the diet of citizens, fruits and vegetables exceed their presence in the diet by 12.3%, consumption of meat products increased by 26.1%, fish and fish products - by 6.7%, eggs - by 6.2% (Table 1).
Table 1
Average per capita consumption by main groups of food products of households in the Kemerovo region, average per consumer, kilogram per year
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Product type |
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Bread products |
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Meat and meat products |
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Fish and fish products |
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Milk, liter |
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Eggs, pieces |
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Vegetable oil and other fats |
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Fruits and berries |
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Vegetables and melons |
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Potato |
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Sugar and confectionery |
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Fundamental here are the monetary incomes of the population. It should be noted that the economic availability of food will be limited even if the minimum subsistence level per capita increases, due to increasing social stratification in society in terms of income. The coefficient of stratification by income of the population is characterized by the ratio of the average income level of the richest 10% of citizens to the average income level of the poorest 10% of the population.
With the increase in per capita income of Kuzbass residents, there is an increase in demand for food, which, despite the measures taken by the regional authorities to stimulate agro-industrial production, is growing slowly and does not satisfy the needs of the population for it. The main source of income for the working population is wages. In 2015, the average monthly nominal accrued wages in the Kemerovo region amounted to 28,205 rubles, an increase by 2014 of 105.3%. However, nominal wages do not reflect the real idea of its change, due to the fact that it does not take into account the level of inflation. This circumstance reduces the real per capita income of the region’s population, which amounted to 21,489 rubles in 2015 (76.2% of the wage level).
Unbalanced, insufficient nutrition can lead to dietary restrictions and the appearance of an imbalance in the diet of Kuzbass residents, a discrepancy between calorie volumes and the vital needs of a person. This can also lead to a discrepancy between the approved standards of the living wage and its actual size. Daily requirement A person’s intake of proteins, fats and carbohydrates depends on the severity of physical labor, gender and age. According to the recommended values of physiological needs for nutrients and energy (1968), the need for proteins varies for mature men (18-60 years old) in the range of 96-108 g, fats - 84-120 g, carbohydrates - 406-440 grams per day .
The actual presence of protein in the population's diet in 2015 was physiologically less acceptable standards by 19.4-31.4, carbohydrates - 86.4-120.4 grams per day.
table 2
Composition of nutrients in consumed food products on average per household member per day, g
Table data 2 show the insufficiency of food consumed by the population of the region, their nutritional value is lower than the recommended values for nutrients and energy, and indicate their lag behind the average statistical data and non-compliance even with physiologically acceptable standards.
According to the Office of Rospotrebnadzor in the Kemerovo region, large families consume more carbohydrate-containing products: bread and bakery products, potatoes, sugar, which leads to imbalanced nutrition and, as a result, insufficient amounts of minerals and vitamins are supplied with food. This kind of trend is the reason high level nutritional diseases not only in the adult population, but also in children for a number of nosological forms of the disease.
A person’s health, life expectancy, and ability to reproduce healthy offspring largely depend on the quality of nutrition. International statistics show that the birth rate and mortality rate of the population depend on the development of health care by only 10%, while nutrition, housing conditions, and employment account for 50%. Epidemiological studies show that direct influence insufficient and unbalanced nutrition in its impact on humans is comparable to factors of genetic and active chemical or infectious nature.
Directions for improving the food supply of the region's population
Solving the problem of food supply in the Kemerovo region can be facilitated by soil resources and climatic conditions that allow the cultivation of a wide range of agricultural crops from grains of high grain standards to vegetables open ground. The use of zoned varieties of agricultural crops and modern agricultural technology for their cultivation can reduce the risk of crop losses from constantly changing weather conditions.
In addition, investment projects are being actively implemented in the region aimed at increasing the production of not only dairy and meat, but also fruits and vegetables.
A modern livestock complex of JSC Vaganovo was built and put into operation, where a closed cycle of raising cattle is used. The design capacity of milk production is 55 tons per day. The complex is fully automated and provides for the creation of a genetic selection center under the auspices of the Center for Cryopreservation and Reproductive Technologies of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The genetic potential of the dairy herd will allow a productivity of 10-12 thousand liters per cow per year. In 2015, the average productivity of cows in the Kemerovo region was 4,500 liters of milk per cow for all categories of farms. Currently, OJSC Vaganovo has the status of a breeding reproducer. This trend continues this year.
The region uses the NOUTIL technology for cultivating agricultural crops, which has made it possible to obtain stable yields in all weather conditions. The use of wide-cut sowing units that carry out six technological operations in one pass allows you to save fuel and lubricants, reduce weather risks and, as a consequence, the cost of crop production.
We emphasize that the normal functioning of the food supply system for the population of the region must correspond to the goals laid down as the basis for its development. The immediate and long-term goal should be to achieve a level of food supply that would correspond to scientifically based standards for different groups of the population.
A systematic approach can be applied to solving the identified problem, which involves “the formulation and quantitative expression of specific goals that are set for a given system, and finding the most optimal economic methods for achieving them. The latter is ensured by the development and evaluation various options construction of certain processes.”
The use of a systematic approach to food supply to the population can be used as a basis when planning a strategy for the socio-economic development of regions, taking into account social standards, gender and age groups and income of the population.
Conclusion
To solve the problem of food supply for the population of the region, it is necessary to direct the efforts of regional authorities and agricultural enterprises of all forms of ownership to: increasing the purchasing power of the population; reducing the tax burden for agricultural producers, since high tax rates reduce the possibility of obtaining high profits and developing agricultural production; optimal balancing of the food procurement market; minimizing the disparity in prices for agricultural and industrial products, in which the proceeds from the sale of agricultural products do not cover the costs of their production; increasing the level of culture, education, personnel and social security of the village; planning stable government orders for rural producers, providing favorable conditions for the sale of products.
The implementation of the above will serve not only to improve the food supply of the population, but also as the basis for the formation of an agricultural policy aimed at stabilizing and developing the agro-industrial complex as a whole.
Bibliographic link
Chupryakova A.G., Kosinsky P.D. FOOD SUPPLY OF THE POPULATION OF AN INDUSTRIAL REGION: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS // International Journal of Applied and Fundamental Research. – 2016. – No. 12-1. – P. 109-113;URL: https://applied-research.ru/ru/article/view?id=10784 (access date: 02.26.2020). We bring to your attention magazines published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural Sciences"
THE PROBLEM OF PROVIDING THE POPULATION WITH SAFE FOOD AND THE STATE OF THE FOOD MARKET IN RUSSIA
SHABANOVA T.I.,
The most pressing and socially significant problem of our time is the problem of providing the planet's population with food. It becomes especially acute in the context of the ever-growing population of the Earth.
Nutrition is one of the most important factors determining human health and life expectancy. Nutrition, organized in accordance with the real needs of a person and ensuring an optimal level of metabolism, is called rational.
A complete and regular supply of the body with necessary substances (food components - nutrients) is an important factor in maintaining human health, performance and active longevity. Poor nutrition is one of the risk factors, and in some cases the most important trigger for the development of various diseases non-infectious nature, in addition, it worsens the course of acute and chronic diseases and slows down the healing process.
It has been established that 70% of all diseases are associated with poor nutrition. In modern conditions in the Omsk region, up to 58% of diseases of the circulatory system, such as ischemic disease heart, hypertension, most of anemia, a third of malignant neoplasms of various localizations are caused precisely by violations of the principles of healthy nutrition.
Nutrition modern man has changed significantly and is completely different not only from what it was in the 70-80s of the twentieth century, but even in comparison with the recent 90s. The cataclysms that shook the country in which we were born and live, the spontaneous formation of a market economy in young Russia, the inevitable adherence to global economic trends have led to the fact that a significant part of Russians are currently experiencing a deficiency of complete animal protein, consuming unhealthy animal fats in excess, and not getting enough at the same time, useful plant, dietary fiber, vitamins, microelements, that is, all those substances that are called by the general term - micronutrients.
Nowadays, the issue of quality, safety and availability of food is very tough.
In 2000, the UN announced the need to implement the so-called Millennium Development Goals. One of the main goals is to halve the number of hungry people by 2015. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that today more than 800 million people suffer from malnutrition in developing countries. Of these, more than 200 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, many of them suffering from chronic hunger. In India, a fifth of the population - 221 million - suffers from malnutrition. 142 million Chinese are starving, and 53 million in Latin America. Even in the world's richest country, the United States, 10 million citizens are hungry and another 35 million are food insecure. At the same time, many people (and this is unnatural reverse side hunger) suffer from overweight and obesity. Hunger is also returning to Germany, where a package of laws has been adopted to reform the system of social assistance and assistance to the unemployed.
Hunger kills. Every year, 30 million people die from hunger, of which 6 million are children. In other words, every 5 seconds on Earth one child dies of hunger. However, today there is no food shortage in the world that could explain this disaster. Jean Ziegler, an expert at the UN Human Rights Commission, concluded from these dramatic facts: “The child who died of starvation was in fact killed.”
This is an energy crisis because there are not enough calories due to food shortages. Food products are becoming increasingly more expensive: from 2004 to 2008, food prices increased by an average of 83%, while the price of wheat increased by 181% and rice by as much as 201%. The World Bank states that this is not a temporary phenomenon, but, on the contrary, a long-term phenomenon. Therefore, more and more people are not provided with basic food products. Recent unrest due to famine in Haiti, West Africa, Egypt, Mexico, Calcutta and the Philippines are so far warnings that have been noted by international organizations. At the World Bank-International Monetary Fund conference in early April 2008, the agenda included not only the global financial crisis, oil depletion and climate change, but also the global nutrition crisis. Both the energy crisis (fossil energy and food) and the financial crisis have interrelated causes.
Over the past 15-17 years, about 40 million hectares of arable land out of approximately 120 million in Russia have been overgrown with weeds and forests. Of the 60 million heads of cattle, less than 15 million survived over the same years, including 21 million cows. - 6 million out of 10 million people employed in Russian agriculture in 1991-
1992, today there are less than 2 million people left. According to the latest census, approximately 50 thousand villages have less than... 10 inhabitants! Of the 25 thousand large farms, the majority are ruined, and these are the farms that have always been the main suppliers of basic food products. The result is that today in Russia the main agricultural products (milk, meat, fish, eggs) are produced two-thirds less than before perestroika.
You may ask: but why then are supermarkets bursting with food? The answer is this. There is only one objective indicator of whether there are many or few products in stores - this is average per capita consumption. During Soviet times, we ranked 5th-6th in the world in the production and consumption of basic food products, France and Great Britain were 11th and 12th. Now, with the external abundance of everything, we have fallen back to 78-80th place! Yes, the stores are full, but at the same time schoolchildren faint from hunger, dystrophic soldiers are drafted into the army.
In addition, most of the agricultural products displayed on store shelves come from abroad. If in 1997-1998 Russia purchased it for $5 billion, now it is for $30 billion. We feed Western farmers, we destroy our peasantry. There is no need to talk about the quality of imported products - it is not for nothing that products that are prohibited for sale in the USA and Europe are often imported to us. The main thing is different - we are turning into a colony of the West. Anything and the flow of “cheap” products will simply be cut off to us.
At the end of August 2008, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that it was necessary to suspend the implementation of Russia's unilateral obligations related to joining the WTO. We are lucky that we have not yet joined the WTO. Although, striving to join the WTO, Russia signed and honestly implements an agreement in 2005, according to which we must increase imports by 5% every year. This is happening to the detriment of their own interests: huge amounts of money that could have gone to developing their own production are flowing to the West. And this despite the fact that the WTO as a global organization practically no longer exists. All summits that have been taking place over the past 8 years have ended in zero. The participating countries are not even able to adopt any kind of common memorandum at the end of these summits.
Previously, everyone perceived the WTO as an elite club like the Big Eight, where it was prestigious to be. In fact, the WTO was created by the United States, and a number of developed countries joined it to capture emerging markets. Talk about some kind of liberalization international trade It's just not necessary. The Americans plan to import any product - down to every pair of shoes. And we have? Who in the Russian Ministry of Economic Development knows how many shoes will be delivered to us in the next 10 years?
The problem of integrating the national economy into the world requires serious scientific study, which makes it possible, despite the objective and subjective difficulties of the transition period, to integrate modern achievements science, primarily in the field of improving food production technologies.
Recently, the definition of food security has become widespread in the world as a state of the economy in which all residents are guaranteed to be provided with food at any time in the quantity necessary for an active and healthy life. Food security can be considered guaranteed if there is a reliable and sufficient supply of basic types of food to the population according to medical standards.
In this regard, the problem of ensuring food security in Russia should become a priority area of economic strategy, because its solution is of exceptional social and political importance.
The current situation in the food supply of the population, along with the aggravation of the global raw materials, demographic, environmental and economic crises, leads to an objective increase in confrontation in society, which creates a real threat to national security.
Because nutrition is the most important factor affecting the viability of any community, then food security can rightfully be considered as a component of the country’s national security.
For Russia, of these crises, the most dangerous and therefore urgent today is the food crisis. The relevance of this crisis is also increasing because “big” crises are always accompanied by “small” ones. And the history of Russia shows that all the revolutions that took place on its territory began with hunger riots, that it was hunger that was the unifying force in all the revolutions that took place on the territory of Russia. In this regard, we must be extremely attentive to issues of food security, both for the country in general and the Omsk region in particular.
Literature:
1. Vybornov R.G. Food security of the population in the 21st century. // Journal of Economic Issues, 9. 2000.
2. Delyagin M.A. Consumer market: opportunities for health improvement. // Free Thought, 2003, 5.
3. Ivanok R.L. The state of the food market in Russia for the first half of 2003 // Newspaper Economics and Life, 10 2003. P. 4.
