The Vologda Region agricultural potential in farmers’ estimates

Agriculture is one of the critically important sectors of the economy. This is directly and indirectly evidenced by the provisions of strategic planning documents of the Russian Federation and foreign countries, international organizations, and the results of research by domestic and foreign scientists. However, ensuring the sustainable and intensive development of domestic agriculture is hindered by a complex of problems, some of which have already become systemic (chronic). Among them, the issue of providing agricultural organizations with labor resources in quantitative and qualitative terms is particularly acute. The aim of the study is to assess the state and identify problems of effective realization of the labor potential of agriculture in the Vologda Region through the prism of the opinion of farmers. To achieve this aim, both general scientific research methods (analysis, synthesis, generalization, analogy, etc.) and special methods of social sciences (expert survey, economic and mathematical methods of data processing), tabular data visualization techniques are used. In the course of the study, based on official statistics, data from a survey of heads of agricultural organizations and heads of peasant (farmer) farms in the Vologda Region, an assessment was made of the state of the labor potential of agriculture in the region, including the availability of personnel to enterprises, the dynamics of changes in labor productivity, and the qualifications of employees. It is determined that one of the key problems at the present stage is the lack of labor resources, especially working specialties. It has been established that staffing and increasing the prestige of work in the industry over the five-year period 2020–2024 is among the most important areas of state agrarian policy for agricultural organizations in the Vologda Region. The results of the work contribute to the development of ideas about the state of the labor potential of agriculture in the Vologda Region and can be used by state and local government authorities in improving agricultural and agro-industrial development policies, as well as by researchers, teachers, and students of higher educational institutions when conducting research on similar topics.