Improving state support for small businesses in the agriculture of the Orel region

In the context of a pandemic, state support for small businesses in agriculture becomes even more important than in a stable period of the economic development. Small business in the current conditions was the most affected segment of the economy. Its turnover, reserves, and financial capabilities are not as large as those of large organizations, so the slightest change in the economy leads to a lightning reaction, both positive and negative ones.In this regard, it is the state that should become a financial guarantor of the functioning and subsequent development of small businesses. The main purpose of the study is to consider theoretical and methodological state support for small and medium-sized businesses. The information base of the study was made up of: annual financial statements of small enterprises in the Orel region, statistical collections of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and its territorial body in the Orel region, scientific publications on the topic of the research, normative and reference literature. In the course of the study, we used economic-statistical, abstract-logical, comparative methods of the analysis. The article presents an algorithm for developing a mechanism for state support for the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the agricultural sector. The types of state support effectiveness for small businesses are studied, and the possibilities of access of small and medium-sized enterprises (including start-UPS) to sources of financial resources are evaluated. In General, it is proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of state support at different stages of the life cycle of small and medium-sized businesses, in order to develop it effectively.