ORGANIC AGRICULTURE IN RUSSIA

Article is devoted to the development of organic agriculture in Russia, where all principles and problems of organic products production conforming to the international requirements to ensure the competitiveness of organic production by domestic agricultural producers will be observed. The concept of organic agriculture is defined. The importance of organic food production as consumption of ecologically safe products for the person is a basis of his activity is proved and helps to be restored to an organism after influence of low-quality food and the environment, and also ensuring food security of the country. Demand for organic production for the population in many countries increases constantly. Nowadays, about 160 countries use organic agriculture. There are some countries where organic agriculture is successfully developed and there is a great demand on organic food – Europe and the USA. It is shown for Germany, what factors promoted high-quality and fast development of organic agriculture. In the Russian theory and practice issues of development of organic agriculture are not compeletely studied. The current draft law, regulatory legal acts and standards for the production of organic products in Russia were studied. The procedure for passing certification for Russian producers of organic products is presented. The study made it possible to assess the current state of development of organic agriculture and the market for organic products in Russia. Factors and conditions that inhibit the development of organic agriculture in Russia are revealed. The aim is to prepare the recommendations for the development and maintaining organic agriculture in Russia, and to increase the competitiveness of domestic agricultural manufacturers of organic production. Methodology. Such methods of scientific research were applied as the study of domestic and foreign scientific literature and the regulatory and legal framework on the research theme, generalization of the received information, economic and statistical analysis, analytical and comparative methods. Results: Proposals and recommendations are formulated that promote the development of organic agriculture in order to increase the competitiveness of domestic organic agricultural products, as well as ensure the food security of our country. Practical implications: the practical importance of a research is the possibility to use the theoretical developments and the author results from other research fields when carrying out similar surveys, during the developing or improvement of standard and legal base by public authorities on agriculture development, including organic agriculture, and also in educational process to train the specialists in the field of maintaining organic agriculture