ASSESSING THE SHARE OF FOOD EXPENDITURE IN THE STRUCTURE OF CONSUMER EXPENDITURE AS AN INDICATOR OF FOOD SECURITY OF THE TERRITORY

Abstract

The article examines the issues of assessing food security. In the process of research, the need to assess food security from the point of view of economic availability of food for making strategic management decisions is substantiated.

As a result of the study, it was determined that food security can be analyzed from various positions, including physical and economic availability of food for the population, as well as the quality and safety of food products, the level of import substitution in the national food system.

In the process of theoretical analysis, it was revealed that, taking into account the empirical base confirming the effect of Engel's Law in different countries, the share of food expenditure relative to the total volume of population expenditure can serve as an indicator of the economic availability of products and the level of food security of a certain territory. A study of the share of food expenditure in Russia as a whole, as well as in federal districts, showed that this indicator significantly exceeds similar data in most developed countries, which necessitates the development of measures to reduce the share of food expenditure in the overall structure of population expenditure and, as a result, increase the economic availability of food.