The Vologda oblast agriculture performance: results of a questionnaire study

Agriculture is one of the leading strategically important economic sectors providing food and economic security, as well as demographic, labor and settlement potential of the country’s territories. Reduced attention to the development of agriculture in the first decade of market transformation in Russia has led to significant public losses, and only in recent years, the issues of agricultural development were considered prior by the authorities at all levels. However, agricultural development still constrains a number of systemic problems, the solution of which must be based on objective information and analytical framework. It should be noted that on the basis of official statistical data it is possible to identify the existing trends and problems of the industry’s development, but it is impossible to “fix” qualitative changes and individual processes in the modern dynamically changing conditions by means of statistical accounting. In this regard, a questionnaire study of managers of agricultural enterprises in the Vologda Oblast has been conducted in the framework of a monitoring research aimed at studying the changes in the estimates of the state of production and labor potential; investment and innovation activity; interaction with various market institutions; functioning in the current political environment (food embargo, retaliatory sanctions, WTO conditions, etc.). According to the results of the 2016 survey of managers of agricultural enterprises of the region, under modern conditions of management, the strategy of development of agricultural enterprises, in the opinion of the interviewed managers, must be expressed in cost optimization of an organization without compromising the volume of agricultural production (80%) or in the increase in production output without expanding production - intensification (61%). None of the interviewed managers plan a temporary cessation of their agricultural enterprise’s operation. Moreover, over the part years there have developed positive trends in the industry’s functioning (an increase in the volume of agricultural production, a stable level of profitability and productivity, a stable number of employees and their average monthly wages, increase in innovation activity of agricultural enterprises, increased product supply to other regions of Russia, etc.). However, problems such as insufficient budget support for agricultural producers (88%), exacerbation of disparity of prices of manufactured agricultural products (70%), high taxation (64%), increase in depreciation of fixed assets, difϔiculties with agricultural products sales, etc.).