Food Security Doctrine (Russia)

The first draft of a comprehensive national food security policy was created by the Russian Ministry of Agriculture in the 1990s, which however met strong resistance from other economic ministries and was vetoed by then president Boris Yeltsin due to budgetary limitations.^[2] In 2006, Russia adopted the Federal Law on the Development of Agriculture (Russian: ФЕДЕРАЛЬНЫЙ ЗАКОН 29 декабря 2006 г. N 264-ФЗ "О развитии сельского хозяйства") which was the first legal document that provided basis for supporting agricultural production.^[3]

On January 21, 2010, then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed Russia's first Food Security Doctrine, which is a non-legislative framework document that outlines the agricultural production goals in order to achieve domestic food self-sufficiency.^[4][5] The doctrine is referred to by the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020.^[6]

The doctrine also justifies governmental actions in response to foreign dumping or export subsidy that are deemed as detrimental to the Russian market.^[4] The doctrine has also established the following domestic production goals as the share of domestic production in the total food supplies:^[7]

• grain - 95 percent
• sugar - 80 percent
• vegetable oil – 80 percent
• meat and meat products (on meat basis) – 85 percent
• milk and dairy products (on milk basis) – 90 percent
• fish product - 80 percent

However, there is no specific instructions on the timeframe, enforcer or funding for meeting the targets.^[4] According to USDA, the doctrine fails to specify any concrete measures to reach the targets which severely limits its effectiveness.^[7]

In 2019, then Russian Prime Minister Medvedev stated that most of the goals outlined by the doctrine had been met in the past decade.^[8]