The threats to food security

Abstract

The research object is the Russian Federation fisheries management as the basic source of resource supply to its food market. The research subject is the network of socio-economic relations concerning food security between the entities of fisheries management and the society. The authors examine in detail the Russia's fisheries management influence on national food security within a systemic, multicomponent approach, based on indicators of the fisheries management products availability (production volumes, bioresource potential, anthropogenic threats), fish products affordability and fish products consumption (quality and safety). The research information base includes the official conceptual documents and regulatory legal acts of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Federal Agency for Fisheries of the Russian Federation; the Federal State Statistics Service materials; expert assessments and Russian and foreign scientists calculations published in the scientific literature. Traditional methods of scientific analysis, economic and mathematical statistics, technical, economic and logical analysis, graphic modeling, etc. were used as a methodological background. The authors show a high degree of the country’s self-sufficiency in fish products and independence of food supply from import deliveries. There are three aspects of threats to food security: quantitative (the export orientation of Russian fish producers, the production decline of some fish products, anthropogenic threats to the resource base, low level of fish farming), socio-economic (deterioration in the food affordability conditions for the population due to rising prices and falling real incomes of the population with the simultaneous new consumer habits formation in our society) and qualitative-certification (fish products of questionable quality and counterfeit products penetration to the Russian market). The authors proposed measures to ensure Russia's food security concerning fish and seafood.