TYPICAL ECONOMIC AND MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF LOW-CARBON TRANSFORMATION OF AGRIFOOD SYSTEMS AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL AND ITS APPLICATION TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SUCH STRATEGIES

Abstract

In connection with the adoption of the Strategy for the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation with low greenhouse gas emissions until 2050, the agricultural sector requires a low-carbon transformation of production systems, which is a transitional dynamic process during which targeted changes occur in the structure of land use on agricultural lands, production structure and technological basis. The article proposes a standard economic and mathematical model of low-carbon transformation of regional agri-food systems as the basis for a methodology for designing efficient and sustainable systems. The study includes definitions of the basic concepts involved in model designs, the functional structure of a typical model and its mathematical description. The presented standard model has a block structure and consists of two interacting modules: a dynamic model of low-carbon transformation and a static model for optimizing the sectoral structure of crop production. The standard model allows solving various options for setting tasks for decarbonization of the functioning processes of the agri-food system: assessing the potential for maximum decarbonization; finding the maximum decarbonization subject to ensuring a minimum gross income; maximizing gross income while limiting greenhouse gas emissions at a given level; maximizing current gross revenue payback values for greenhouse gas emissions; finding the parameters of a strategy that realizes the possibility of an expert choice of a combination of different values of gross income and carbon emissions on a Pareto-optimal set when the condition of self-sufficiency of the region’s population with food is met. The article presents and analyzes interesting results from testing a standard model of low-carbon transformation using data from the Kostroma region, and also presents possible prospects for using such a model. The results of the conducted studies showed that model assessments of the various features of agri-food systems adapting to climate dynamics are an effective tool for strategic planning in this area, both for commodity producers and for agricultural management bodies.