Под руководством директора по аграрной политике НИУ ВШЭ Евгении Серовой вышел второй спецвыпуск журнала Russian Journal of Economics

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Новый выпуск Sustainability in agriculture журнала Russian Journal of Economics посвящен некоторым ключевым направлениям устойчивого развития сельского хозяйства в мире и в России. Спецвыпуск призван продемонстрировать различные аспекты устойчивости производства продовольствия и представить мнения международных и российских экспертов. Во второй раз выпускающим редактором стала Евгения Викторовна Серова, директор по аграрной политике НИУ ВШЭ.

В специальный выпуск про устойчивость вошли статьи зарубежных и отечественных экспертов как:

Алишера Мирзабаева и Йоахима фон Брауна - “True cost of food and land degradation”

Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals critically depends on well-functioning food systems which can provide sufficient and healthy food for all in an environmentally sustainable, economically viable and socially equitable manner. However, current food systems are failing on all of these dimensions. In fact, food systems are generating substantial amounts of environmental, health-related, social, and economic externalities negatively affecting the well-being of present and future generations of people, particularly that of the poorest and most vulnerable. True cost accounting approaches, a research frontier in sustainability sciences, seek to comprehensively measure these so far unaccounted externalities from food systems to propose solutions for addressing their negative social welfare effects. Contributing to discussions on true costs of food, this paper traces the environmental costs of ecosystems degradation due to cropland expansion during the period of 2001 to 2009 at the global level. The results show that cropland expansion caused by growing food demands has led to the degradation of 511 million hectares of higher value forest, woodland, shrubland and grassland ecosystems globally, with the total economic costs equaling 435 billion U.S. dollars. This means that each year the global community is incurring 54 billion U.S. dollars of externality costs from food systems because of cropland expansion alone. Addressing this problem requires a flexible government regulation combining incentive mechanisms such as payments for ecosystem services and carbon pricing, with legislative deterrents, e. g., environmentally friendly cadastral planning, fines, and taxes. Current research on true cost accounting is primarily focused on identifying the extent of externalities from food systems. However, knowledge does not always automatically translate into action. The key impetus for future actions for true pricing of food would come from closing knowledge gaps on transaction costs for the implementation of true pricing and the development of innovative solutions for reducing them.

Маргарет Зейглер и Энн Стинсленд - “Participatory farmer research and exploring the phytobiome: Next steps for agricultural productivity growth”

Agriculture and food systems must provide nutrition and agricultural products for nearly 10 billion people by 2050. Agriculture is a powerful economic driver, and by prioritizing agricultural productivity and innovation, food systems can become more resilient and improve the wider economy while generating employment. Yet, powerful solutions and approaches are needed that must move beyond “low-hanging fruit” when investing in low-income country agriculture systems. As part of the solution, we discuss innovations such as participatory research models from the International Potato Center (CIP) as well as how to unlock and harness existing plant genetics through the phytobiome.

Надежды Орловой и Дмитрия Николаева - “Russian agricultural innovations prospects in the context of global challenges: Agriculture 4.0”

For the last 10–15 years, Russia has become the key player in the world agricultural market. Increasing export volume up to $45 billion by 2025 is the ambitious plan of the Russian Government. Windows of opportunity that create fundamentally new prospects for increasing competitiveness are opened mainly during the period of changing technological patterns, such as the current transition of the world’s agriculture towards Agriculture 4.0 paradigm. This is crucial for further economic growth. Information for this article was prepared based on “desk research” methods and then all data and hypotheses obtained were tested by conducting detailed in-depth interviews with key industry decision makers. According to the results of research there has been a huge interest on the part of business to implement innovative solutions in agriculture. Yet significant institutional constraints, problems in the legislative and regulatory sectors, the absence of a system of transfer or commercialization of technology from research center to the final manufacturer are still present. At the same time, all the instruments of state support are currently configured only for conventional, as opposed to innovative agriculture.

Марины Петуховой - "Innovative development of the Russian grain sector"

The innovative development of the grain sector develops in a wave-like manner, with alternating periods of growth and decline in the yield indicator. The innovation activity of agricultural organizations is currently increasing. The analysis shows the industry’s transition to a new technological stage. The priority directions of scientific and technological development are the technologies of grain yield increase, such as biotechnologies of effective accelerated breeding and intensive technologies in seed production; precision farming; biological and organic farming, as well as advanced technologies’ phytomelioration.

Антона Строкова и Владимира Поташникова - "Environmental tradeoffs of agricultural growth in Russian regions and possible sustainable pathways for 2030"

The paper analyses the current ecological consequences of agricultural growth in Russia’s main regions ( oblast  level) during 2011–2019. Our main hypothesis was that local environ­mental risks, like waste concentration, would be closely related to global climate risks such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the production of crops, meat, milk, eggs, and from land use change (LUC) activities leading to a larger carbon footprint. We first analyze official data for agricultural waste and find that 30% of it is concentrated in just two regions (Belgorod and Kursk), while they produce only 10% of agricultural value of Russia. Next, we find that manure nutrients have a high concentration in regions where the livestock production is not balanced with appropriate nutrient use on croplands (Dagestan, Astrakhan, Leningrad, and Pskov regions) which might lead to the pollution of soils and local waters. Next, we test the GLOBIOM partial equilibrium model to evaluate proper agricultural protein production quantities in Russian regions and respective GHG emissions from crop, livestock and land use change activities. We find that 21% of the GHG emission in 2019 came from the conversion of former abandoned agricultural land into cropland (starting from 2011). While some regions such as Krasnodar, Rostov, and Stavropol increase productivity with low carbon footprint, others, like Amur and Bryansk, increase production by cropland expansion without respective productivity growth which leads to higher carbon footprint. Our results for livestock operations show that the main hypothesis did not hold up because regions which increase meat production, like Belgorod, Kursk, Pskov, and Leningrad, have a lower carbon footprint due to the production of pork meat and poultry which have lower GHG emissions due to specific digestion. On the other hand, these regions experience a higher environmental footprint due to the large concentration of waste which could be harmful for local eco­systems. Finally, we use the model to project possible future development up to 2030. Our results show the possible growth of crop and livestock products in most of the regions driven by external demand for food. The extensive scenario shows additional GHG emissions from cropland expansion, while the intensive scenario reveals a larger growth rate accompanied by productivity growth and lower carbon footprint, which is essential in harmonizing the current agricultural and climate policy of Russia.

Екатерины Галактионовой, Мелани Кок и Хильке Бос-Брауэрс - "Ways to monitor FLW: Review and recommendations on data collection and reporting for the Russian context"

In 2015, all 193 UN member countries agreed to halve global food loss and waste by the year 2030. At national level, the first step is usually to measure the extent of the problem and set targets. Countries that initiate the inventory of their national food loss and waste (FLW), frequently find out that first, the amount of FLW is bigger than was initially anticipated, and second, that there are massive data gaps, including quality, granularity, representativeness, collaboration and prioritization etc. Russia is no exception. In this article, we will make an overview of what is already happening in Russia regarding the FLW issue and what can be learned from international examples—mainly, the Netherlands. Despite many existing methodologies and practices being limited in their scope, reach, accuracy etc., it is more important to select what is appropriate and/or feasible now than wait for an invention of a perfect quantification methodology in an unforeseeable future.

Выпуск Sustainability in agriculture доступен по ссылке.