Researchers of the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPC RAS), based on a survey of farmers over three regions in the Northwestern Federal District, established the relationship between the sustainability of the development of organic agriculture in these territories and the terms of economic activity in the agricultural sector. The results of the study are available in the proceedings of the International Conference on Agriculture Digitalization and Organic Production(ADOP).
Last July, a Strategy for the development of organic production in the Russian Federation up to 2030 was adopted. Its main goal is to increase the volume of production and consumption of organic products in the country. Moreover, the document assumes that the growth rate of organic production will be higher than in the agriculture as a whole.
However, for the successful development of this sphere, a system of measures should be formed to solve the existing problems hindering the growth of organic production in various regions of Russia.
Based on the current methodological approaches, including SWOT analysis of the possibilities and constraints of organic production, clustering of the Northwestern Federal District regions depending on the availability and application level of the available resource potential, as well as ranking a set of factors, the SPC RAS researchers have identified the main strategic objectives in the activities of economic entities aimed at reducing the costs of organic products, ensuring the growth of its consumption by wider segments of the population and increasing export supplies.
“Implementation of innovative technologies will further reduce, first of all, the volume of manual labor as a source of increased labor costs for business entities of organic specialization,” explains Natalia Nikonova, researcher at SPC RAS, Candidate of Economic Sciences, Leader of the research theme.
She also added that the relevance of this factor in competitiveness of organic products at the market was confirmed by practice. We are talking about the activities of the first and so far the only one certified organic farm in the Leningrad region – the peasant (farmer) farm "Organic Farm" “Vesi”. In particular, the farm implements a strategy of active use of labor volunteering, including the use of a barter program. It consists in the "exchange of products for labor", i.e. remuneration of volunteers engaged in the harvest and all assistants receiving a certificate for the purchase of vegetables for every hour of their work at the farm.
“Within our project, a research is being done that concerns the prospects for increasing the volume of organic production in the conditions the North-West regions, as the most important factor in realizing the development potential of their rural territories. In the above regard, we completed a questionnaire survey of the farms’ heads in the Leningrad, Novgorod and Pskov regions,” tells Natalia Nikonova.