Assessing governmental policy aimed at promoting innovation activity in agribusiness as a factor in achieving the sustainable development goals

In the context of new global challenges and fulfillment of commitments to implement the Sustainable Development Agenda for the period up to 2030, it becomes especially relevant to assess the effectiveness of the current innovation policy pursued by the Russian Federation and its compliance with the priorities of sustainable development adopted by the international community. The purpose of the study is to assess the results of state policy aimed at enhancing innovation in the agricultural sector and to determine the extent to which the targets of programs and strategies for the development of agribusiness in the innovation sector comply with the priorities of Agenda 2030. Applying the system approach to the study of the concept for sustainable development and using our own integrated methodology, we have found that there are no significant results regarding the implementation of innovation policy; we have also revealed an extremely low degree of consistency of federal and regional sectoral programs with the priorities of the Sustainable Development Goals. We have determined that at present it is difficult to conduct a quantitative assessment of the results of innovation policy implementation at the level of a particular region, industry or company; the available indicators do not help to assess their contribution to the achievement of innovation-oriented Sustainable Development Goals. In this regard, we propose to include the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals in state, sectoral and regional programs for scientific and technological development and to develop a system of their indicators, consistent with the targets of the documents on strategic development of agribusiness in the innovation sector, for monitoring purposes. Thus, the scientific novelty of the research lies in the development and implementation of our own approach to identifying the degree of compliance of the targets of current programs for development of the agricultural sector with the priorities of innovation-oriented Sustainable Development Goals. The results of this study can be used by executive authorities in the development and substantiation of correcting measures aimed at improving state policy in the field of promotion of innovation in the agricultural sector and, as a result, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.