Economic access to food in the Russian Federation

This paper addresses the issues of economic access to food in the Russian Federation. Economic access to food is one of the four main dimensions of food security. Resolving the issues of food security is essential both at the global and national levels. These issues are related to the activity of supranational institutions at the international level. One of these international institutions is the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations that elaborated food security indicators aimed at facilitating research on countries with regard to the following aspects: physical availability of food, economic and physical access to food, food utilization and stability of the three dimensions over time). The indicators applied by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for the purpose of the evaluation of economic access to food include the following: - Gross domestic product per capita (in purchasing power equivalent); - Domestic food price level index; - Prevalence of undernourishment; - Share of food expenditure of the poor; - Depth of the food deficit; and - Prevalence of food inadequacy. Due to these indicators, the Russian Federation situation in terms of economic access to food is similar with that of the developed countries. The only indicator that differs is the Domestic Food Price Level Index with the value of 4,25 in 2013 (according to FAO calculations), which is above the indicator values in many developed countries and BRICS countries. These data characterize the group of developing countries. The Russian food security policy defines economic access to food as a capability of purchasing food for the present prices in the quantity and assortment that in accordance with the established rational consumption standards under the conditions of the provision households with sufficient income. For the purpose of studying the Russian households' economic access to food, the following indicators are calculated: - The level of the actual average food consumption per capita compared to the rational standards in rural and urban areas separately; - The Consumption Index, which shows the consumption ratio of a selected group of products by households in rural areas to consumption in urban areas; - The ratio of the value of the actual multipack to the value of a rational foods pack; - The relative share of the actual expenses on food in the households' consumer expenditure; - The relative share of food expenditure under the rational consumption standards. Eventually, our calculations show that in Russia the degree of capability of purchasing the staple products according to the rational consumption standards equals 95,1% in 2013. The data broken down by population groups with various incomes demonstrates that the upper 4 groups out of 10 can afford food consumption within the recommended rational standards. The actual expenses on food in the households' consumer expenditure of the lower group with low income equal 43,8% in 2013, whereas consumption according to the rational standards requires that the share of expenses on food in the household expenditure should be 69,2%.

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