Historical analysis of agricultural productivity and food security initiatives

Peter the Great Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University, 195251 St. Petersburg, Russia

^* Corresponding author: bon-box@mail.ru

Abstract

The development and analysis of productivity and sustainability problems of agricultural sectors, such as crop production and livestock, based on actual statistical data, appeared in the late nineteenth – early twentieth century. In the Russian Empire A.E. Lositsky should be considered as the creator of this research direction. He is known as a prominent scientist, a specialist in the field of economic statistics, whose name is practically unknown to the modern science. This work is devoted to the initial stages of consumption statistics for urban and rural populations. The creation of such a research area was closely related to the experience of providing food to the population during the social upheavals of the early twentieth century, when food became a force capable of influencing political decision-making in the country. The population surveys conducted by A.E. Lositsky and his colleagues lead to the creation of databases for sociological and economic analysis in the context of the transition to a planned and distributive economy. The proposed provisions and conclusions draw attention to the compilation of food balances as an analytical tool of the economic policy of the early USSR, as well as a number of modern methods of solving food problems in the world.