Perspective directions of seed growing development in Russia as a factor of food security

The seed-farming system in Russia changed much during its development. This fact allowed it to function under different organizational and economic conditions. So since 1924, the national network of a crop variety testing was formed, approbation of high-quality crops was carried out for the first time and the state control of seeds quality was established, the division into districts of elite selection and local varieties was used. Due to the introduction of new crops the areas of high-quality crops were increased as well as their crop productivity. By the end of the 80-ies of the last century the national crop selection policy and the measures in the field of crops selection provided the formation of the crops seed multiplication system. However, the collapse of the USSR in the 90-ies of the 20-th century had negative influence on the domestic seed farming development. The consequences of this process were the dilapidation of material and technical resources, loss of qualified staff, deregulation of the new crops introduction mechanism and lack of state financing. The domestic selection and seed farming reached the crisis position, yielded its position to foreign crops, which were better in comparison with domestic crops, and made them uncompetitive on the Russian crop market. In spite of the taken governmental actions, up to the present time there is a number of unsolved problems which make it impossible to carry out the full-scale import substitution with domestic crops and to provide Russian agricultural producers with qualitative and various seed grain. Now the Russian agro-industrial complex depends on import seeds, first of all on corn, sugar beet, sunflower, green crops. However the Russian potential will provide the creation of an effective seed-multiplication system even under the conditions of the high-quality crop competition, which will allow not only to solve the problem of import substitution of foreign seeds, but also to lead Russian seeds to the world export markets.