ENSURING FOOD SECURITY THROUGH TRADE AND ECONOMIC COOPERATION BETWEEN SIBERIA AND THE EURASIAN ECONOMIC UNION

Abstract

The paper focuses on a critical issue of ensuring food security for countries that are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which is especially important given the transformation of the global food market in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research aims (1) to assess the possibility of creating a single food market of the EAEU and (2) to identify the difficulties faced by the Siberian agricultural sector in addressing food security issues and export development. The paper presents the results of the study concerning the development of trade and economic cooperation between the Siberian Federal District (SFD) of the Russian Federation and the EAEU countries with regard to the agricultural market. Based on the statistical analysis of national data, we examined the particular aspects of Siberian agricultural export development. We were able to identify the largest trading partners among the EAEU member states and study the particular aspects of their food imports based on the Russian database indicators. According to the analysis results, we concluded that exports are dominated by food products, namely intermediate and final products, which correspond to the objectives of the Russian Federation National Project International Cooperation and Exports. Market research on the breakdown of imports to the EAEU showed that it imported dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and processed foods. We identified the most promising areas of export development for the SFD based on a review of the scientific studies on economic integration and food security issues. The scientific novelty of this research lies in proving the need to develop exports of finished food products with a high level of processing, which requires the integrated development of the food processing industry in the SFD by means of regional strategic programs for introducing innovative biotechnologies in deep processing of agricultural raw materials. The research findings might be of great interest to members of the academic community and undergraduate and graduate students pursuing similar research agendas.