Estimation of Agricultural Support in the Far Eastern Federal District

Abstract

What is the current level of support for agricultural producers in the Far Eastern Federal District? How did it change in 2014–2020, quantitatively and qualitatively? To answer these questions, the paper attempts to adapt to the subnational level the methodology for estimating agricultural support developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which made it possible to obtain estimates of indicators of support for agricultural producers in the macroregion. The results obtained allow us to conclude that during the period under study, the main changes were associated not with the dynamics of support volumes, but with the dynamics of its structure. Fluctuations in indicators were insignificant, and by 2020 their values had almost returned to the level of 2014. At the same time, budget transfers have become the dominant tool for supporting agricultural producers, although previously this place was occupied by support for market prices. The benefits from the implementation of the state agricultural policy were disproportionately distributed between animal husbandry and crop production in the Far Eastern Federal District. The values of absolute indicators of support for market prices for crop products were small, and for soybeans and cereals they were even negative. Unlike crop production, producers of all livestock products in the macroregion were protected by foreign trade policy measures and received significant support through the market price support mechanism. In turn, the difference in the level of support for producers in animal husbandry and crop production largely led to the differentiation of the level of support for agricultural producers in the Far Eastern regions