Strategic directions for the development of consumer cooperation in rural areas (on the example of the south- and north-eastern regions of the Republic of Bashkortostan)

Abstract

The revival and sustainable development of consumer cooperation in rural areas is currently one of the strategic directions of modern agricultural policy. Based on the advanced foreign and domestic experience, this is most relevant in relation to depressed rural areas, where cooperation can be a kind of driver in improving the quality of socio-economic development. Due to the development of consumer cooperatives of various forms and areas of activity, not only the problems of production, processing and marketing of agricultural products are effectively solved, but also the emergence of new non-agricultural sectors of the rural economy, its wide diversification is initiated, which contributes to the creation of new jobs, an increase in income and the quality of life of the population. Republic of Bashkortostan at the end of 2018–2019 is the leader among the subjects of the Russian Federation in terms of the number of agricultural consumer cooperatives created annually. However, the problem of their sustainability in the long term is currently acute. In addition, it is important to preserve the system of the Bashkir Union of Consumer Societies that has existed since the beginning of the 20th century and to revive it on a new market basis. Therefore, within the framework of this article, using the example of the southeastern and north-eastern regions of the Republic of Bashkortostan, the need to develop and implement, in addition to regional, municipal and intermunicipal strategies for the development of agricultural consumer cooperatives, including the second and third levels, for the organization of sustainable regional cooperative systems is actualized. and lifting depressed rural areas out of the crisis