The FAO Office for Communication with the Russian Federation and the FAO Depository Library in Russia – the Central Scientific Agricultural Library (TSNSHB) We held a presentation of the latest flagship publications of FAO in Russian. These works were presented by FAO experts from the Rome headquarters, the FAO regional office in Budapest and the FAO Moscow Office.
Oleg Kobyakov, Director In his introductory remarks, he noted the importance of the Russian language for FAO, which is the working language of the Organization: “The most important FAO documents have always been published in Russian, and every year the volume of these Russian-language information products is growing. It is in great demand, and not only in the Russian Federation.”
Further, the head of the FAO Moscow Bureau gave a brief overview of the flagship publications: “Summing up the results of this year, we would like to present to your attention three large analytical reviews that were prepared by FAO independently or jointly with its partners. This is, first of all, the publication “The state of affairs in the field of food security and nutrition in the world – 2023” (SOPHIE-2023). It was first unveiled on June 13 on the first opening day of the High-level Forum on Sustainable Development in New York at the UN headquarters. The publication presents data analysis, conclusions and recommendations compiled jointly with partners – the World Bank, the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The second publication is the “Regional Review of the state of food security and Nutrition in Europe and Central Asia for 2023. Statistics and trends”. Russia belongs to the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region – according to the geography of FAO, although in fact the Russian Federation is also a member of the Asia-Pacific structures in FAO. This report has been released not so long ago. Methodological approaches and the use of up-to-date statistics for the previous year make it a very useful practical tool for checking clocks and adjusting the policies of countries in the region in the field of agricultural sector development.
Finally, in my opinion, the most interesting and in–depth report on the consideration of the real costs and expenses of the functioning of agri–food systems is the “State of affairs in the field of food and agriculture – 2023″ (SOFA-2023). These reports will be presented by representatives of FAO and co-speakers from the Russian side – scientists and our long-time partners. I think this is the best option for a fruitful discussion,” concluded Oleg Kobyakov.
Aghasi Harutyunyan, Deputy Head of the FAO Moscow Bureau, presented the “Regional Review of the state of Food Security and Nutrition in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) for 2023. Statistics and trends”, prepared by Tamara Nanitashvili, Senior Economist at the FAO Regional Office in Budapest.
The section of the report on malnutrition and food insecurity contains the following information:
• In 2022, the prevalence of malnutrition remained below 2.5% for more than a decade in all ECA subregions, with the exception of Central Asia, where it was 3%. For comparison, in the same year, 735.1 million people worldwide suffered from malnutrition (prevalence – 9.2%).
• In 2022, 111.1 million people in the ECA region, or 11.9% of the population, experienced moderate or acute food shortages, which is 4.7 million less than in 2021. For comparison, 2 billion 357 million people in the world suffered from moderate or acute food shortages (prevalence – 29.6%).
• According to FAO estimates, in 2022, the highest prevalence of moderate or acute food shortages was observed in Georgia (36.5%), followed by Albania (30.2%) and Ukraine (28.2%).
The conclusions, according to FAO experts, boil down to the following theses:
• The regional prevalence of malnutrition and moderate or severe food shortages in the ECA region is below the global average.
• Children under the age of 5 have lower malnutrition (stunting and exhaustion) than worldwide rates, but overweight is higher;
• The prevalence of anemia among women aged 15-49 years is lower than global indicators;
• In 2021, 25.7 million people in the ECA region were economically inaccessible to a healthy diet, which is 2.7 million less than in 2020.
The factors contributing to the aggravation of these problems include: wars and conflicts, slowing economic growth and economic downturns, rising food prices, natural (climatic, market) shocks.
“There is no doubt about the quality and scale of such FAO research,” said Professor Evgenia Serova, Director of Agricultural Policy, Head of the Institute of Agricultural Research at the Higher School of Economics, “but I have doubts about the concept. The world has changed dramatically. We live in a different world. The basic definition of food security was formed in the early 70s, and it boils down to the physical and economic accessibility of food for all, to the quality and safety of nutrition, as well as the stability of these indicators.
This concept was based on the presumption of the existence of a liberal trading system, which implies the possibility of always purchasing food on the world market at fair, that is, at market balanced prices. This means that it is necessary to produce food where there are natural advantages, i.e. it is not necessary to try to grow bananas in Siberia, and coffee in the Murmansk region.
In 2006-2008, the food crisis broke out, and developed countries began to restrict exports, and developing countries began to massively switch to import substitution.
FAO has since struggled with import substitution as it raises prices and worsens the economic availability of food. After 2014, sanctions are imposed against Russia, which also affect food. Next, a coronavirus pandemic occurs, supply and logistics chains are disrupted, which further stimulates import substitution and forces countries to strive for self-sufficiency. And finally, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has put a bold end to this process.
The agricultural business, faced with limited access to raw materials, chooses the path of creating vertically integrated chains. The consequence is an increase in prices for food products and, of course, a decrease in their economic accessibility to the population.
Professor Natalia Shagaida, Director of the RANEPA Center for Agri-Food Policy under the President of the Russian Federation, reminded the audience that food security, according to the Food Security Doctrine adopted in Russia, will be achieved when: “there is self-sufficiency, everyone’s actual consumption corresponds to a rational diet, and the food itself is safe.”
Professor Shagaida stressed that the FAO methodology is used to assess the situation. “Rosstat conducts surveys on the perception of food insecurity. At the same time, household surveys reveal the economic and physical ability of households to provide a rational set of meals.”
Recent measurements have revealed a paradox, Professor Shagaida drew the attention of the audience: “Formal indicators are deteriorating in terms of economic accessibility of food, and the perception of food insecurity is improving.”
In the last two years in Russia, the expert said, “the city can afford the best set (of food products).” In rural areas, the share of food in consumer spending has increased – and they buy more in supermarkets than they produce themselves (with the exception of vegetables and potatoes), but there are fewer products from their garden in the diet (10 years ago they were 4.6%, now only 2.3%). However, in rural areas, products are cheap, with a lower degree of processing.
On the one hand, in rural regions there is not everywhere access to online department stores (in most settlements there are less than 200 people and there is a problem with high-quality roads). On the other hand, where they produce enough of their own products, there is a higher proportion of those households in which they can afford a full-fledged diet.
The average indicators of rational nutrition in Russia are high, Professor Shagaida concluded. But if we look at population groups, the figures do not reach 100% anywhere. I have never counted how many people in the Russian Federation live on $2 a day. It seemed to me that there were no such people at all. But it turned out that this proportion is high, despite the fact that we have achieved mainly self-sufficiency in food.”
Professor Sergey Kiselyov, Head of the Department of Agroeconomics at the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University, commented on the forecasts for the development of the global agricultural sector and food security for 2024. “Firstly, the situation with growth rates is not very favorable around the world, and this, of course, will affect food security. It will not improve in 2024. Secondly, I hope that the indicator of food security will not slip to the level of the early 2000s, but in the near future it will worsen – uncritically, but it will worsen. Thirdly, all this is predetermined by the fact that armed conflicts are breaking out all over the world, and their number is growing.”
Professor Kiselyov then elaborated on the methodological omissions in the reports. “The report “The state of food security and nutrition in the world – 2023” (SOPHIE-2023) highlights the costs and expenses. The True Cost Accounting (TCA) section should take into account the true costs and benefits (True Cost & Benefits), but there is no enumeration of benefits in the field of agriculture.
Further, Professor Kiselyov continued, “the level of negative costs of developed countries, that is, high-income countries, is underestimated. In the methodology used by FAO experts, there are practically no negative costs associated, for example, with packaging, in particular, with the use of plastics. Answers to questions about food price trends are given diplomatically and evasively. It has not been indicated which areas of statistics need to be further developed in order to continue research in this direction.”
The discussion of experts in the Central Scientific Agricultural Library with an audience of more than 100 specialists (including with their correspondence participation) clearly demonstrated the relevance of a scientific approach, including a critical one, for understanding statistics on such topical issues as global and national food security, criteria for achieving it, changing along with geopolitics- economic realities.
A source: fao.org
