The impact of the food embargo on the strengthening of agricultural specialization in the regions of the CFD

The deterioration of the foreign policy situation, the violation of foreign trade relations and the introduction of a food embargo created a shortage of food in the domestic market, in connection with which it became important to actively build up the domestic food potential, primarily through the development of agriculture and the agro-industrial complex, aimed at increasing the level of self-sufficiency of the country on key types of food and development of export potential. In the course of the work, an assessment was made of the impact of agricultural specialization on the level of socio-economic development of the regions of the Central Federal District before and after the introduction of the food embargo based on a comparative analysis and grouping of subjects of the Central Federal District according to a number of indicators, the emerging trends and their causes were identified. In the course of the study, 2 groups of regions were formed depending on the degree of their agricultural specialization and the rate of change in the share of agriculture in the structure of the economy. It has been established that during the years of the food embargo there has been an increase in specialization in these regions and the share of agriculture in the structure of GRP is steadily growing. At the same time, the leader in terms of the share of the agricultural sector in the structure of the economy is the Tambov region, where the figure was 32.4% in 2020. A comparison of the main socio-economic indicators in the context of the formed groups of regions showed that agricultural specialization is one of the factors for a more dynamic development of regions.