Food Security Indicators Classification and Assessment of Their Importance for the Policy of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The article explores food security indicators and provides a critical review of the Food Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation of 2020. The study had two objectives: to propose a new system of food security indicators and to form a recommended group of indicators for the Russian Federation. In the work, a set of 17 indicators of food security were investigated by cluster analysis. The analysis was carried out in the SPSS program, the method of factorsselection is the method of the main components, the rotation is varimax with Kaiser normalization. Five clusters explaining 75% of the dispersion were obtained. The first two clusters were named "Well-being, availability of basic services" and "Consumption of animal food". The other three clusters are difficult to interpret. The result of the study concludes that average dietary energy supply adequacy should have not only minimum thresholds, but also upper limits, as it is related to obesity. The quality of nutrition, in particular the average supply of protein of animal origin, which reduces the prevalence of anaemia, should be a priority among indicators of availability. With regard to food independence, it has been established that many of the goals set out in the Food Security Doctrine 2020 have already been achieved. Economic availability of food in Russia exceeds consumption in upper-middle income countries, the same can be said about the quality and safety of food products. The notion of access set out in the Doctrine is inconsistent with the international approach. The following set of 9 indicators for monitoring food security of the Russian Federation is proposed: 1. food independence (self-sufficiency thresholds for beef and veal, butter and cheese; value of food imports over total merchandise exports); 2. availability (fish consumption; average supply of protein of animal origin; average dietary energy supplywith the upper limit; national dietary recommendations; national healthy nutrition strategy); 3. access (percentage of arable land equipped for irrigation); 4. quality and safety (people using safely managed sanitation services).