Книги

Представлена статья из книги « Агропродовольственный рынок России: опыт исследования ».

Статья из книги « Агропродовольственный рынок России: опыт исследования ».

This paper is focused on the changes in the food marketing chain in Russia in the first period of the transition progress. Significant market imperfections resulting from macroeconomic imbalances related to the transition period led to the emergence of new elements in the food marketing system specific to the transition period. On the one hand, it is characterized by new market-oriented actors such as household-type and/or commercial firms and, on the other hand, by the slow transformation of traditional players in the existing food marketing chain. The trading arrangements specific to Russia’s agro-food markets in transition, such as ‘barter’ and ‘give-and-take’ operations with their economic implications for the emerging market structure are discussed. Some potential implications of the recent financial crisis for Russia’s food marketing system are also mentioned.

The paper analyzes some empirical aspects of competition in the Russian food market. The forms of competition in the economy under transition are discussed and empirical studies summarize the results of a survey carried out on the Russian food industry covering 61 firms. The survey focused on current marketing strategies and marketing problems of Russian food companies and their assessment concerning the nature of competition and its effects on the economic environment. The survey also addressed the issue of how government activities impact the competitive environment for agro-food firms. Some changes in the situation of agro-food industries after the financial crisis in August 1998 are also examined.

В книге анализируется современная ситуация на рынке пшеницы, основные страны экспортёры и импортёры, даётся прогноз развития международного рынка. Авторы уделяют внимание таким странам, как Россия и Китай, чья роль на мировом рынке пшеницы значительно изменилась за последнее время. Анализируются и стратегии традиционных экспортёров пшеницы на мировом рынке - США, ЕС, Канады, Аргентины и Австралии. Поведение и развитие рынка пшеницы рассматривается через призму международных торговых соглашений. Под редакцией Д.Антл и В.Смит.

Regional grain production in the Russian Federation has developed in a number of different ways over the last years. The same is true for grain marketing. Not only the prices on local markets but also those in the nation-wide grain trade seem to be at least strongly influenced by regional authorities.

However, it is very likely that only a small part of the grain trade is exchanged interregionally. The growing independence of the Russian Federation’s political subjects seems to be primarily responsible for regional differences concerning grain production and marketing. The 1998 economic crisis is likely to obstruct the development of an efficient domestic grain market further.

This paper examines the extent of interregional integration of Russian food markets from different perspectives. Though food price levels in Russia are converging after the period of hyperinflation, remote regions like the Far East seem to be on a different price path. With regard to the interregional commodity flows, it could be shown that interregional transportation of grain is unlikely to have decreased significantly, if the figures are corrected for imports and feed use. But a cross-sectional regression analysis using differences between regional production and consumption revealed that regional surpluses as well as deficits for all products tend to diminish, which means that the Russian regions increasingly rely on their regional production and not on interregional trade.

The paper discusses the general need for institutional innovation in the Russian Federation. An attempt to establish a Market Information System for the agro-food sector in Tula Oblast is taken as an example illustrating specific implementation problems. From the experience gained in this case, the authors derive some recommendations for improving institutional change in the process of transition. Important issues here are the adoption of a more general approach towards human resource development, the scheduling of longer time horizons in support projects, and improved vertical and horizontal co-ordination within the institutional network.

In order to understand the future of food supply and demand and food security, it is essential to focus on the long-term, fundamental drivers, such as income and population growth, and technological change in agriculture as influenced by investments in agricultural research, irrigation, and other factors.

In the remainder of this paper we take a new look into the future role of agricultural research and technology development in world food markets based on alternative scenario simulations with IFPRI’s IMPACT model. The paper starts out by very briefly describing the model, and then presents and discusses alternative scenarios with a focus on the role of technological change.