Doctrine of Russian food security: experts’ valuation

In Russia in the beginning of 2010 Doctrine of food security was accepted. Few people know about it. Even fewer know about the content of the document, its main ideas and context of its formation. For educated Russian citizen deteriorated attitude toward innovations of the authorities is considered to be a good manner. But the Doctrine forms the space of opportunities, in which specific market players – producers of raw materials, processors, exporters, and importers - will build their strategies. Our goal is to understand how agricultural policy of the country is changing (and does it change?) after the acceptance of the Doctrine. With this goal we asked the experts – businessmen, agricultural politicians and scientists.

1. The history of the question

First discussions about food security of the country started in the beginning of the 90s. Their initiators were communists, who paid a lot of attention to negative processes in agriculture, which strongly degraded in that period. Discussion of the 90s stimulated legislation, and appeared documents which pretended to be approved by the State Duma in a status of the federal law. However, being too “left-wing” in composition of deputies, the State Duma decided not to adopt the law. But during the discussion it was made clear that central conception – food security – doesn’t have well-defined interpretation. Two versions about what to consider being the food security of the country crashed. Однако, будучи достаточно «левой» по составу депутатов, ГД не стала принимать этот закон.

According to the first version, security is an abundance of own production, which guarantees the independence from imported products. This approach was forming the image of a precipitated state, which needs to obtain food independence from hostile external surrounding. In this case security was an antithesis of the dependence from the West. It is obvious that such interpretation was in line with the interests of domestic food producers, who appealed to the help of authorities.

Second interpretation of the conception “security” referred to the consumers’ interests. Security was being interpreted in terms of pricing availability of products, of what, as it was underlined, social stability of the country depends. That is why import was receiving justification by reason of pricing availability. Dumping prices on imported products were killing domestic producers, but were making them up with the consumers’ reforms. Such a position corresponded with the interests of importers and ruling elite, which was afraid of people’s dissatisfactions. Such a point of view was defended by the “right-wing” political flow, being supported by the experts from the international organizations (FAO – Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank). Their argumentation came to the belief, based on principles, in the progress of the free-trade and retrogression of the protectionism. To the same camp belonged the measures of both capitals, which openly supported import because of fear of the price increase as the main factor of instability.

Discussion resulted in nothing. Nor under presidency of B.N. Eltzin, nor under presidency of V. Putin, the idea of food security was not accepted and legalized. Last attempt was made in summer of 2008, when faction of KPRF proposed the bill “About state policy in the sphere of food security of the Russian Federation” (Look at: Russian food security. Moscow: ANO the newspaper “Pravda”, 2008”). This attempt was knowlingly lost, but the questions of attracting the attention to the problem and positioning of the communist faction as patriotic orianted in contrast to the government, being devoid of these feelings, were solving. It was a discussion just for discussion, but with the imitation of the belief in the possibility of legislative victory.

Due to this a lot of people were surprised that in the beginning of February 2010 “Doctrine of food security of the Russian Federation” was ratified by the edict of the President (http://state.kremlin.ru/security_council/6752).

What made it happen?

First of all, the doctrine accepted in 2010 differed significantly from the first versions of the documents, which were proposed in the middle of the 90s. There was no opposition of political forces in the latest version, and the text of the document stylistically became ideologically neutral and exaggeratedly business (the question is about stylistics, and not about the context, whereof a little bit later).

Moreover, the situation in agriculture changed. During the last ten years gross output of the agriculture has been growing. Even in the crisis year of 2009 there was an increase in the agricultural production (1,2%). And only drought of 2010 knocked the growth of figures: the decline in agricultural production was about 10 % in 2010. In the years of 2000 not only gross indicators were growing, but also per capita production (Table 1) (See: Yshachev I.G., Serkov A.F. State of food security of the country and problems of its maintenance// Materials of All-Russian research institute of agricultural economy; http://www.vniiesh.ru/publications/Stat/4949.html).

	2000	2007	2008	2008 in % to 2000
Corn	451	576	762	169
Potatoes	200	191	204	102
Vegetables	74	81	92	125
Meat in slaughter weight	30	40	44	147
Milk	222	226	228	103
Eggs, pcs.	234	267	266	114
Sugar (from sugar beet)	10,8	22,5	24,5	227
Vegetable oil	9,4	19,3	17,4	186

But in general the situation with food consumption in the country will remain tense. It is difficult to believe in it, but it is a fact: volume production of milk in 2008 matched the same level of 1958, meat in general – of 1970, eggs – of 1977. And cattle population is the same as after the collectivization in the period of 1933-1934 (see: Interview with the RAАS academician I.G Yshachev in the journal “Agrocredit”, 2009: http://www.vniiesh.ru/publications/Stat/4945.html). Russians exceed rational nutrition norms only in consumption of potatoes and bread. Average consumption per capita of meat and meat products totals 61% from the norm, fish – 56%, vegetables – 76%, milk and dairy products – 88%. Of course, high-income group of people consumes more. But in general, in 2008 80% of population of the country consumed milk and dairy products below the rational standard, as for meat and meat products, fish – 50-60%, fruits – 70%, sugar – 30%, bread and bread products – 20%. But even this consumption level is reached with the help of import.

In order to understand how serious the problem is, it is enough to compare the consumption of some Russian products with the products of other developed countries (Table 2; According to data of the Russian union of enterprises of the dairy industry).

Countries	Liquid milk	Butter	Cheese
Russia	69	2,5	5,9
Australia	116	3,8	12,0
USA	81	2,3	14,9
Canada	83	2,8	12,1
Uruguay	73	1,5	6,0

We can note that food expenditures in the structure of expenditures for final consumption in 2008 were 34,5%. In developed countries this indicator vary within 6-12%. And these are average figures. It is obvious that the situation is considerably worse in low-income groups of people. In 2008 in a low decile group (10% of population with least disposable income) 54,9% went for food.

But the problem is not limited with consumption scarcity. What bothers most is the situation with quality. According to data of Federal State Statistics Service, in the first semester of 2009 among domestic food products the share of products of bad quality or dangerous products was: meat and poultry – 10,7%, fish products – 12,4%, cheese and dairy product – 5,5-5,9%, corn – 7,6%, canned fruits and vegetables – 6,3%. Imports in terms of quantitative indicators resulted to be below domestic products.

In general, we import about 34-35% of agricultural products and food. As for meat the share of imports is a little bit higher (about 40%), milk and dairy products – lower (about 20%). This situation disharmonize with countrie’s possibilities, its land and water resources. But previously against the background of catastrophic decline in agroindustrial complex opposition politicians principally have been talking about this. In response they were acused in inability to enjoy the benefits of labor division (we sell oil and gas, buy meat and butter). Now against the background of the outlined positive shift in agroindustrial complex attraction of attention to the food market started to bring political dividends to the ruling elite. Simple opinion that grass meadows are the same natural resources as oil and gas, is as previously being th true attribute of retrogration as now patriotism.

At last, in anticipation of presidential elections D.A. Medvedev tried to expand the list of important decisions, being connected with his government. Food security, which concerns all Russians, is promised to be a successful component of the political image.

2. The Content of the Doctrine: what is new?

Actually the “Doctrine of food security” stands on three semantic whales: the share of domestic production of the main types of food, quality of this food and its availability for the population. Depolitization is gained by the shift in focus of the problem from the idea of external expansion, from which we should defend with the growth of domestic production, to the internal problems – it is not easy to produce enough for gaining food independence, but also to pay attention to the quality of the products and their availability. In its turn, availability subdivides for economic and physical, that is territorial. In other words, if to produce a lot of foodstuffs, it is not considered to be the guarantee of food security, although the question of independence is solving by this. If the food price and imperfection of trade area make them unavailable for some population groups, this will be the situation “Homeland in food danger”. From food independence, which comes down to import substitution, we moved to the concept of security with an accent on quality and availability of domestic food.

It was worth studying the history of question by mentioning the discussion of the 90s. During that time basic concept “food security” was rent by two logics: security as independence and security as pricing availability for consumers. The current Doctrine tried to combine these logics, by appealing to the independence and availability as equivalent tasks. Changed situation in agroindustrial complex smoothed the alternativeness of these tasks in the years of 2000 in comparison with the 90s. Although, looking ahead, we should note that the idea of gaining the threshold levels of self-sufficiency by some types of food dominates in the control target indicators; quality and availability are less operationalized and, therefore, controlled.

By the way, Russian Doctrine, by accenting on quality and availability, reminds a lot the “Conception of national food security of Belarus”, which was accepted in March of 2004. (See: Decree of the Council of Ministers of Belorussia Republic from March 10, 2004 № 252; http://spravka-jurist.com/base/part-jq/tx_esxgxa/page-5.htm), although the level of specification and Belarusian methodological transparency is incomparably higher.

We should specify that legislative formalization of the idea of food security is a widely spread phenomenon in the world. USA, France, Sweden, Germany, China and other developed countries have such legislation. However they have another focus of the problem. For example, in Germany “Act about food security” (from 20.08.1990) is focused on food provision during the food crisis, when this threat cannot be eliminated with measures of market regulation. In fact, this represents the regulation of food problem in an emergency. In Russia (as in Belorussia) this document was thought as an element of daily agricultural policy.

Experts’ opinions about this document differ significantly: from lyrically approving to severely critical. One experts see in Doctrine ideological and instrumental base for further development of agroindustrial complex, others – populism, economic provocation, which doesn’t give any new opportunities for the industry.

However, even critics recognize the positive aspect of this decision, namely:

- any state document, which attracts attention to the agricultural sphere, contributes to its development. By criticizing the content of the Doctrine, agricultural lobbyists emphasized the importance of the discussion of the food sector within the framework of the problem of the country’s security. They understood that business is not tempted to the production of beef not because it doesn’t know, as it turns out very important from the point of view of the food security of the country but in view of low profitability of the industry. But they hoped that the Doctrine would be followed by measures of the agricultural economic policy, including donations, subsidies of the budget, guarantees of “long” money, tax deductions, etc.

- development of the agricultural sphere was given the status of strategic direction. The fact of the discussion of the Doctrine by security Council tells us that agricultural sphere moved from province to center of strategic planning, becoming one of the problems of the national security. Doctrine was fixing the understanding that the question is not about the problem of the certain industry, but about the state problem, not having narrow departmental localization. Such an approach, as it was assumed, should change the confrontation of the number of departments to cooperation. Especially it refers to the position of the Ministry of Finance, which traditionally defended itself from asking for money agrarians.

- within the framework of social defense of the population and availability of the main types of food the idea of targeted assistance to low-income consumers was declared. Behind this standed pretty revolutionary idea that government should react to price increases on food not only by finding those who are guilty in the chain “producer-processor-seller”, but also with absolutely different method – by directly subsidizing the consumer, which abruptly distinguish the food market from all other markets. But the idea of targeted assistance was not developed with further documents, in particular with action plans of realization of the Doctrine, and it didn’t become the real direction of the social policy. However, the fact of mentioning the targeted assistance in the document of such a level was valued extremely positively by agrarian lobbyists, who were not leaving any hope for further development of this topic.

3. Criticism of the Doctrine by expert Community

Here the positive reaction to the document ends. Claims to the Doctrine come to its declarativity, absence of prescribed mechanisms of realization, inappreciable influence on the development of the agroindustrial complex. There was a hope for action plans of realization of the Doctrine, which were accepted several months later. But this document disappointed even more, being the example of rule-making in the tradition of right spells. All plans came down to the distribution of assignments to various departments, which consisted of the development of proposals directed to “mechanisms’ improvement”, “increase in efficiency”, etc. Many proposals, according to their appointed preparation time, have been submitted in the form of a report to the government of the Russian Federation. Their content has not become the subject of extensive discussion in the society, moreover, this topic abruptly ceased to bother media. It has two possible explanations: whether these proposals were “empty”, that is the subject of the discussion was missing, or whether the Doctrine was all-sufficient informational signal about caring nature of Russian authorities, and the details and further development of the topic could just weaken the effect of the main informational message.

Doctrine’s Declarativity. Real innovation of the Doctrine – integration of the quantity, quality and food availability in terms of security – remained the declaration, which doesn’t form new administrative practices.

The quality of food remained the headache of the sanitary Service of the country; availability still is limited to price monitoring, implemented by the Ministry of Economics, with the corresponding search of those who are guilty. Contribution of Russian consumer surveillance to maintenance of the quality bar and boosting of imports substitution are incomparably higher than the contribution of the Doctrine. The stop of imports of American chicken for 8 months (from January to August of 2010) on the grounds of the chlorine use contributed to the development of domestic bird industry much more heavily than declarative clauses of the Doctrine. And claims of this department for dairy products from Belorussia created preferential terms for domestic milk producers. If to put on one scale actions of G.Onischenko, and on the other scale – the Doctrine, G.Onischenko obviously outplays the Doctrine from the point of view of the real contribution to the development of the domestic agroindustrial complex.

Business response to the Doctrine is extremely derogative. But here it is important to note: the doctrine was written not for businessmen, but for politicians. They should have translated the clauses of the Doctrine into certain acts. The fact that more original clauses were not developed and everything came down to the list of indicators, which control the proportion of self-sufficiency, thereby converted into new form of market regulation and governors’ competitions, characterizes more not the Doctrine, but the real orientations of political and economic elite.

Food availability for population. Targeted assistance to low-income citizens, which was declared in the Doctrine, was one of the principal innovations of the social policy. Let’s explain: today in Russia social policy is implemented in section of the categories of the population (retirees, large families, etc.) But the position of particular people inside these groups differs a lot. There are large families of oligarchs and they have fathers, who are retired. In the Doctrine new approach was declared – help “pointwise” those whose income is not enough in order to consume certain types of food. That is move from categories to specific people. This idea was not realized at the level of technical measures.

Here we have to note that nothing new was invented. Food coupons for poor people are a normal practice, for example, in USA. These coupons are money equivalents, that is they are traded in simple shops for certain list of products. And no one says that food coupons are a shame of the U.S.

But when in Russia the introduction of such measures is being discussed, disturbance wave rises; - food coupons are considered to be the reference to the past of the country. There is another reason of their rejection – principled unwillingness to recognize that poor people represent not the annoying failure, but the social result immanently inherented in the market. Moreover, creation of the lists for food subsidies is very difficult job, accompanied by corruption. For one reason or another the idea of targeted assistance in the availability of food didn’t find the realization in further normative documents.

Quantitative indicators of self-sufficiency. Declarativity of the Doctrine is retouched by its underlined scrupulousness in establishing the shares of domestic production in the total volume of commodities of the internal market. I think I won’t be mistaken if I say that quantitative indicators of imports substitution for the majority of the population deplete the content of the Doctrine.

I will remind the thresholds of self-sufficiency, set by the Doctrine: corn – 95%, sugar – 80%, vegetable oil – 80%, meat and meat products – 85%, milk and dairy products – 90%, fish – 80%, potatoes – 95%, table salt – 85%. Certainly, Doctrine developers had reason to believe that domestic production of salt should be 85% of the internal market, but this argument was not presented. Doctrine’s authorship belongs to the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Specialists, businessmen, agrarian politicians mark extremely closed work in the preparation of the Doctrine. This closeness especially is clear in comparison with the preparation of the National project “Development of agroindustrial complex”, where experts’ disputes contributed meaningfully to its design and also these disputes were waged quite intensively, if not to say bitterly. Discussion of the Doctrine was extremely backstage.

The list of certain digital objective indicators always gives weight to the document and the appearance of scientific relevance. In this case objective indicators cause the issue. For example, the level of grain self-sufficiency was established at least at 95% of the internal needs of the country. But today we surpass this figure, covering 99% of the internal needs, keeping imports exclusively in a niche of durum wheat. Moreover, Russia is one of the largest exporters of corn, except dry 2010 year, when embargo was laid on the exports. The Doctrine can’t stop natural disasters, and in the normal situation separate performance has been achieved lately.

Meat market also causes the issue. In Russia indicators of the production of “red” and “white” meat differ fundamentally. “Red” meat represents beef and pork. Stable growth of pork production coexists with the absence of growth of beef. As for “white” meat of birds, during the last years domestic bird industry has made a huge step ahead, and now we cover about 83% of the internal needs, producing in 2010 2,9 millions of tones under consumption of 3,5 millions of tones. While maintaining the rates of growth a couple of years later there will be a discussion of the exports of chicken. The Doctrine combines all types of meat into one category, inclosing meat products, and setting the bar at 85% by 2020. And this bar on chicken, I repeat, has been almost achieved and unlikely has been achieved for beef, where large investment projects are literally isolated. “Shrewd move” is good for final reports, but shielded with white thread: given strip will likely be achieved on account of production growth of chicken and pork. But involvement of the Doctrine in this growth raises doubts. The Doctrine sets goals, but doesn’t make any efforts toward their fulfillment, taking advantage of the opportunities, which being created by other normative documents. This, to put it mildly, irritates business-society.

In general the Doctrine counts on the most optimistic scenario of the development of the agrarian business of the country. In order to reach the figures of food independence taking into account acceptable share of imports and maintenance of the rational food standards it will be necessary to increase production of milk, meat and vegetables approximately by 2,5 times, and fruits – more than 2 times (Interview with the member of the academy RAAS I.G.Yshachev in journal “Agrocredit”, 2009: http://www.vniiesh.ru/publications/Stat/4945.html). It seems that the developers had some reasons to believe that these tasks were manageable. Unfortunately, there are no explanations and indications on logic calculations in the Doctrine.

Doctrine remains within the frames of defensive strategy. Exports perspectives as the general development plan of the Russian agrarian business are not specified, and this narrows the horizon of goals. Meanwhile, by possessing huge land and water resources, taking into account food condition on the world markets, we can and it is necessary to become world leaders in food production. Revolutionary, but not utopian, could be the goal to cover not the 95% of the internal needs in corn, but 20% of the corn world market. But Doctrine doesn’t have such goals. Although, more often, especially in light of the cataclysms like drought and earthquakes, people say that our world is changing, and the real hierarchy of the countries will be determined by their position on the world food market. Doctrine didn’t reach strategic perspective of food expansion, and current problem-solving of the industry is already busy with other normative documents, all this caused the criticism of the Doctrine from the point of view of its redundancy.

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Let’s summarize. Discussion of food security of the country, which started in the 90s and being initiated by the faction of CPRF ended with the Decree of the President “Doctrine of food security of the Russian Federation” (February 2010). During this discussion the content of central term has been determined. В ходе дискуссии определилось содержание центрального термина. From security as a synonym of independence from imports they came to understanding of security as a combination of three pithy moments: а) thresholds of the share of own production in the total volume of commodities of the internal market, b) food quality, c) food availability for the population (economic and territorial).

Doctrine drew attention to the agrarian area, by giving the agrarian problems not the industrial status, but national. However, correct words don’t generate automatically effective administrative practices. Doctrine is not a federal law. It is rather a channel for future rulemaking. But after a while we have to admit: normative space turned out to be extremely insensitive to the Doctrine’s innovations. Social policy was not supplemented by the algorithm of access of poor people to the main types of products, as well as new mechanisms of food quality control didn’t appear. All the bureaucrats’ activity came to the rush around controlling targeted performance of the Doctrine’s implementation: some people were creating it, others reported on it. Instead of the new practices in business new forms of bureaucrats’ competitive paperwork appeared.

Doctrine of food security of the Russian Federation didn’t harm the agrarian business and consumer market. And this is its advantage. But this Doctrine didn’t become the element of the agrarian policy. And this is its drawback.

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Article has been prepared with financial support of the Russian Foundation for Humanities (RHF) (project №10-02-00403а).