Assessment of Impact of Interregional Differences on Development of the Russian Food Industry

Russia’s food industry is a key element in the country’s agro-industrial complex, processing agricultural raw materials and satisfying the population’s domestic food needs. The author’s proposed approach to assessing interregional differences in food industry development, based on approximating regional specialization coefficient values using a gamma probability density function, revealed a trend toward an increasing role of food industry in the economic performance of most regions. Although food industry is the leading sector in most Russian regions, with a specialization coefficient greater than or equal to one, its contribution to regional economic development varies depending on the actual value of indicator. Regions with a specialization coefficient greater than 2 typically achieve high food industry performance through the accelerated development of one or more sectors. In particular, the leading food industry sector in Kamchatka Krai (K_avg=5.671) and Kaliningrad region (K_avg=4.893) is the fishing and fish processing industry. A coefficient value from 1 to 2 is typical for 24 regions. However, for 37 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the food industry is not a leading one, including, in particular, Tyumen and Irkutsk regions, the Republics of Dagestan and Komi, etc. Moreover, the specialization coefficient demonstrates relatively low variability and relative inertia in dynamics for an individual region. Almost a third of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (36.8%), whose specialization coefficient value is close to the standard, have internal production potential in the food industry sectors sufficient to change the degree of influence of food industry on the local economy. The main reserves for potential growth are identified as an increase in the specific share of food production per capita, cash income of the population and the volume of production in agriculture. Identifying key growth points for individual food industry sectors will facilitate the redistribution of resources within the region, as well as attracting financial resources through both government support for direct food producers and investment in the development of promising industries.