An Economic Model of Sustainable Development in the Russian Arctic: The Idea of Building Vertical Farms

Abstract

The main aim of the article is to find out the key factors of sustainable development of the Russian Arctic, which is strategically significant for Russia. The academic literature was reviewed to find out the time dynamics of the references to the economic models suitable for achieving the goals of sustainable development, and there has been hyperbolic growth in the attention paid to similar problems all around the world. The article compares three relatively new economic models in order to understand which of them is the most applicable to the promotion of sustainable development in the Russian Arctic: (a) bioeconomy, (b) green economy and (c) circular economy. The analysis of the relevant sources shows that the model of the circular economy is preferable for the Russian Arctic. Most of the article is dedicated to understanding the sources and mechanisms of the circular economy. The schematic description of vertical greenhouses and possibility of using vertical farms are presented in the paper as an example of organization of local food production according to the principles of the circular economy. The article considers a modeled project of creating a vertical farm in the Russian Arctic and a simulated indicator—profit of the vertical farm.

The Circular Economy as an Axis of Agricultural and Rural Development: The Case of the Municipality of Almócita (Almería, Spain)

“…Therefore, a first step to overcoming the aforementioned barriers would be the creation of a policy to foster regulatory, economic and market instruments, volunteers, knowledge, supply and finance. These policies will need to go further and will require changes in the functioning and proposals of the institutions themselves, rendering the discourse and actions more useful, as there is a large gap between the policy statements on needs and the current reality [92].…”

“…However, it is not only in the scientific arena in which dissemination techniques must be suitable and able to reach the population in order to teach it the virtues of the correct application of the CE [92]. At the same time, it is necessary to analyse and understand the behaviour of the population as consumers within this new type of economic system.…”

Vertical farm: prospects for achieving sustainable development goals

“…When we used the descriptors vertical farm and SDGs we found only 2 articles (Didenko et al, 2021 andAres et al, 2021) that addressed the subject. Despite this limitation, we included references that addressed the vertical farm and those that addressed the SDGs, as our objective was to describe the feasibility or not of vertical farms in some SDGs of the UN Agenda 2030.…”

“…Vertical farm and greenhouse models can collaborate in arctic areas, collaborating in the economy, since cultivation in open areas generates poor quality and high cost products. In this way, vertical agriculture would be a solution to these problems (Didenko et al, 2021).…”

Post-Soviet Transformations in Russian Rural Areas: The Role of Institutions

“…It should be noted that the research of rural areas and territories is not limited only to zones favorable for agriculture, therefore we considered the results of other studies. The possibilities of building vertical farms in the Russian Arctic and new economic models of sustainable development are described in [31]; the peculiarities of nutrition and health status of residents of the northern regions of the world and Russia are considered in [32]; the problems of food security in the Russian Arctic are discussed in [33]. In the related food products topic, the advantages and limitations of environmental efficiency measures are evaluated on the example of the Polish food industry [34].…”