The role and importance is growing fast in the world for international trade, technology transfer, interstate financial cooperation, cooperative and integration, interdisciplinary, regional and international cooperation, including the one in agriculture and food security fields. At the same time, the cases of food insecurity due to situation changes in foreign markets for agricultural raw materials and prepared food are becoming frequent. Access to food becomes a lever of foreign policy influence, and the weight of food expenditures in the structure of consumer spending takes a decisive role in ensuring food security. In this regard, the problem of hunger and malnutrition is still relevant in many regions due lack or deficiency of population income. The paper presents a comprehensive research of modern aspects for ensuring food security at global and national levels, including the current state of agricultural production and its development prospects, international assessment of food security level in countries and regions of the world, global trends in world agricultural trade of raw materials and prepared food, assessment of physical and economic affordability of foodstuff, nutrition level, welfare and public health. The results of assessing the environmental sustainability of agricultural production are presented. The level of public awareness in the field of food security is analyzed. It was determined that in general, there are prospects for Belarus for more efficient food security gaining due to qualitative parameters, for instance, increasing efficiency of resource potential, growth of consumer purchasing power, expansion of domestic market by increasing the proportion of safe functional nutrition for specific population categories according to occupation, age, health status, etc.

Food security largely determines stability of the entire economic system. Belarus is one of the states with self-sufficient production of food resources, and has also arranged a significant export potential in agri-food sector of economy. Experts from various international organizations, as well as thematic divisions of media companies, analyze the global food situation, including the one in Belarus. In this regard, third parties’ views on the Belarusian model of food security, its position in global rating, identification of strengths and weaknesses, comparison with the most successful states are of particular interest, which determined the study relevance. The article presents systematic analysis of the main international food safety ratings. A range of international assessments of efficiency of ensuring food security in the Republic of Belarus, as well as its structural elements are analyzed. Results and findings of foreign experts are compared with own techniques and methodological approaches to assessing the national food security of the Republic of Belarus. It has been determined that the Republic of Belarus was in the 36th place in the world or 20th place in the European region according to the GFSI index. At the same time, over the past two years, the country’s global position has increased by 12 points due to a significant improvement in terms of physical availability of food, as well as high indicators previously achieved in terms of economic accessibility, quality and safety of agricultural raw materials and finished foodstuffs. It has been noted that approaches to ensuring food security of the Republic of Belarus were highly appreciated by foreign experts. Use of the proposed results and proposals in practice will determine the prospects for increasing efficiency of ensuring the country’s food security, in particular, via improvement of economic and physical accessibility, as well as achieving the goal of the Doctrine of National Food Security of the Republic of Belarus until 2030. Acknowledgments. The research was carried out as part of the state program of scientific research “Quality and Efficiency of Agroindustrial Production” for 2016-2020, subprogram 1 “AIC Economy”, as well as in accordance with the provisions, criteria and parameters of the Doctrine of National Food Security of the Republic of Belarus until 2030, approved by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus dated December 15, 2017 No. 962.

Traditionally, researchers have suggested that social capital is a stable characteristics of the population that is slowly changing under the influence of strong cultural and historical shocks. At present, for successful transformation, reformation and modernization of society, without improvement of which other political processes are impossible, new approaches to the concept of "subject", for the sake of which all these changes are taking place, are necessary. In modern sociological literature there are various characteristics of the qualities of specialists in the field of social protection management, education, which they must possess today in order to successfully implement modernization transformations, ranging from intelligence, competence, initiative, creativity, and ending with the concept of "socialized man." For example, one of the characteristics of an industrial society is that human needs objectively outpace the capabilities of society. The emerged technocratic culture, the culture of material consumption, becomes an inertial force supporting the structure of an industrial society even when the basic material needs of people are satisfied and there is an opportunity for the development of information and spiritual needs. The state policy of social protection is considered as an integral part of social policy, which is included in the subject area of sociological science. In recent years, in our country there has been a tendency of a significant increase in socially unprotected citizens among the population. The state of health, family, financial wellbeing of people is an objective prerequisite for their social activity in the formation of an effective social structure. The position of people in the system of inequality, through socio-cultural and socioeconomic factors, affects the behavior of people and, consequently, the resources of society in the field of social protection. Access to such social values, such as the quality of life, health, in society is not the same for different groups and segments of the population. It is determined by the position of individuals and groups in the social structure of society. For example, age, health, large families serve as one of the bases for identifying and self-identifying people in a system of social inequality and, therefore, a prerequisite for their social interactions, social integration (cohesion) or disintegration, as well as a significant factor in the socio-psychological climate of social groups and society as a whole.

There is analyzes the structure of exports and imports of agricultural raw materials and foodstuffs of the Republic of Belarus in the context of import substitution in the agro-industrial complex in the article. As part of the study, a number of commodity items have been identified, due to which it is possible to reduce the total cost of imports of agro-food products, and also identified the main directions of development of domestic industries to optimize import flows in the agro-industrial complex of the Republic of Belarus.

The article defines the purpose and tasks of clustering the agrofood sector in the context of realizing the export potential of the agroindustrial complex. The main prerequisites for creating clusters are systematized, taking into account the priority of foreign trade relations of the participants in the cluster process. Theoretical and methodological approaches of effective cluster formation in the foreign trade sphere have been developed. The main advantages of internationalization of the cluster process in the context of the subjects of cluster organizations are revealed. The basic steps of internationalization of cluster structures are presented.