The article considers the basic aspects of food safety assessment in Kazakhstan. By way of example, the authors describe a set of criterial indicators for assessing the national food security, divided into two groups - strategic and tactical monitoring indicators. Summarizing the theoretical and methodological aspects of food security assessment, the authors propose to expand the list of criteria by adding such indicators as the integrated coefficient of food independence and the complex coefficient of food dependence. According to the authors, such indicators are highly relevant in the CIS countries, since the import expansion in the context of foreign trade liberalization has resulted in displacement of domestic producers from the national market, both in Kazakhstan and in Russia, as well as in Kyrgyzstan and other CIS countries.

The article presents the theoretical foundations and summarizes scientific and methodological provisions on the problems of food security, market development, competi-tion, formation of competitiveness of products, production, and producers in market conditions of management, taking into account domestic and foreign experience. The structure of the country's food potential and elements of increasing its competitiveness are described. The article notes the importance of developing and strengthening the country's agro-industrial complex as the basis for its food supply. The problem of food security in the modern world is primarily related to the prob-lem of hunger and malnutrition of the population, the protection of state interests, including en-suring and maintaining socio-economic stability in the country, and meeting the vital need for food. The article describes the theoretical and methodological foundations of the development of agriculture.

The purpose of the work is to study the factors and key areas of modernization of the agro-industrial complex of Kazakhstan. In the investigated problematic, the key issues are determining the factors and mechanisms that can affect both the current functioning of the agro-industrial complex and its modernization. The research methodology is based on the application of an institutional approach to substantiating the mechanisms of modernization of the agro-industrial complex. The information base of the study was the legislative and regulatory legal acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan.The research is aimed at analytical generalization and systematization of multifaceted theoretical, methodological, applied research and scientific understanding of the factors and key areas of modernization of the agro-industrial complex. The strengths and weaknesses of the management systems of the agro-industrial complex of Kazakhstan are determined, taking into account the influence of external factors. The conceptual aspects of modeling the organizational and economic mechanism of functioning of the agro-industrial complex in Kazakhstan at the macro- and micro-levels are substantiated with an emphasis on the administrative (managerial), financial and economic and material and technical groups of factors. The study made it possible to identify the most significant factors in the modernization of the agro-industrial complex of Kazakhstan at the republican and regional levels. On the basis of the identified factors, the key directions of modernization of the agro-industrial complex are proposed and substantiated.The conclusions of the study may be of interest to government authorities in the field of the agro-industrial complex in the process of developing the agro-industrial policy of Kazakhstan, preparing program documents for the development of the agro-industrial complex of the republic; as well as for scientists, doctoral students and undergraduates engaged in research on the topic.