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At the plenary session of the annual agricultural exhibition "Golden Autumn", it was stated that greater digitalization of the industry is necessary, first of all, to expand agricultural production and exports. Anticipating the launch of a new industrial national project in 2025, the exhibition moved away from demonstrating traditional agricultural successes and turned into a platform for discussing solutions to the industry's problems. Some of the difficulties are related to the dependence of the agro-industrial complex on imported technologies. The Ministry of Agriculture expects to saturate the market with its own products, including support for scientific and technological projects and the modernization of laboratories in educational institutions. and research institutes. The industry's biggest problem remains the lack of labor. This problem has not yet been solved by high wage growth or increased labor productivity.
The plenary session of the Agro-Industrial Exhibition "Golden Autumn-2024" was devoted to discussing industrial plans until 2030. As the head of government Mikhail Mishustin recalled at the meeting, the key ones are the growth of agricultural production by 25% and the growth of exports by 1.5 times ($55.2 billion) compared to the 2021 target set by the president. Decree No. 309.
According to a report from the Ministry of Agriculture presented at today's plenary session, these targets have already been "broken down" into guidelines for individual product categories. In particular, grain production is expected to increase to 170 million tons per year by 2030.
The 2023 harvest is estimated at 148.4 million tons, and in 2024 it may reach 130 million tons, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev said on Thursday. Due to military actions, harvests have been reduced in the border regions of Ukraine. By 2030, oilseed production is expected to increase to 36.4 million tons (31 million tons in 2023), and vegetable oil production - to 11.5 million tons (9.8 million tons). According to the Ministry of Agriculture, by 2030, grain exports will reach $ 17.5 billion ($ 16.3 billion last year) due to expanded production, exports of oil and fat products will reach $ 10 billion ($ 8.5 billion), and exports of finished products and other products will reach $ 15.8 billion (last year $ 16.3 billion was expected). ($ 11.5 billion), and supplies of fish, meat and milk will also increase slightly.
As the Minister of Agriculture Oksana Lut emphasized, achieving the set goals is associated with greater digitalization of the industry. Let us explain, we are talking about additional replenishment of data from individual companies (including from the implementation of AI, the use of modern software and hardware systems) and system processes, especially from numerous information systems of the industry.
A separate area of work is the digitalization of support measures. In 2026, the Ministry of Agriculture expects to simplify the submission of applications for state aid by collecting all information about it in a single digital service.
Previously, the Ministry of Defense expected to launch a similar mechanism in 2025 (see Kommersant of July 25, 2023). Changes in the deadlines "to the right" may be associated with a discussion of service architecture options, which should take into account: "Specialization" in different regions.
In order to achieve the goals by 2030, the agricultural sector must solve a number of problems. It should be noted that this time, it was the options for solving the problem that became the topic of discussion for the participants of the plenary session. In previous years, the key events of the Golden Autumn were statements about the successes of the industry. . The change in topic and intonation is explained by the preparation of industry national projects, in which the Ministry of Agriculture outlines the contours of further work (see Kommersant, September 12). As Mr. Luth noted, the problem is partly related to the strong dependence of the agro-industrial complex on imported technologies. The mechanisms for solving this problem will be “packaged” into four federal projects on selection, genetics and biotechnology. , veterinary drugs, technologies and equipment. In order to saturate the market with domestic equipment, the authorities plan, among other things, to support scientific and technological projects, subsidize the creation and development of agroparks, and modernize the laboratory base in educational and research institutions.
Dependence on imports partially prevents the solution of the main problem of the industry: the lack of labor. The lack of domestic development in many areas does not allow for a significant increase in labor productivity through the automation of processes and the introduction of advanced agricultural technologies.
Given that the “short-term” methods of attracting workers have already been implemented (wage growth in the industry is still one of the highest in the economy – 16% at the end of 2023 and 10% in the first half of 2024) ), the labor shortage has yet to be seen, but the participants focused on the “infrastructure” approach to attracting talent. Oksana Lut thus outlined the “seamless” trajectory of training workers that the Ministry of Agriculture intends to “draw” from agricultural classes in schools to universities and research institutes. At the moment, this is the main proposed action. The Ministry is working on solving the problem within the framework of the relevant federal project (read more in Kommersant from October 4).