The method of economic-geographic profiling of agriculture for territories with contrasting indicators of development

Abstract

This work explores spatial differentiation of agriculture and the identification of the existing differentiation in a territory where there are contrasts in economic development as a whole and of the agricultural sector in a particular industry. The method of economic-geographic profiling for the Inter-capital region (along the line of the Minsk-Moscow profile) was used, and dynamics for the last 10 years were investigated. Approaches are proposed for the use of profiling to identify possible growth centers that can become drivers of agricultural development, as well as depressed areas that need to be developed primarily with the help of various instruments of interethnic and regional policy. The most important role in the development of depressed areas can be played by agriculture, which is characterized by short production cycles and the ability to quickly introduce innovations that inevitably arise in cross-border cooperation due to the flow of knowledge and technology, and exchange of experience and cooperation. Because of the profile, two emerging territorial agrarian clusters in Belarus were identified. Also, quantitatively and qualitatively, the gap at the level of agricultural development between the two states was highlighted, which turned out to be more significant than expected (for some product categories by more than an order of magnitude). Profiling for different time periods includes main trends in agricultural development of the Intercapital Region: gravitation of agriculture towards the centers of districts (agropolisation), polarization and the outrunning development of the Russian sector in recent years of the import substitution policy. With this influence of the capitals of the two countries and capacious consumer markets, the formation of high-intensity suburban agriculture is not shown at this stage. The absence of the influence of the inter-capital situation for the peripheral territories of Belarus and Russia is shown.