Digital agriculture in improving spatial economic development of rural municipalities in Russia

Abstract

Digitalization of economy taking place in the Russian Federation poses new challenges to smaller and less developed municipalities, such as municipal districts, a type of rural municipalities in the Russian system of municipal division. Having fewer resources than larger urbanized municipalities they should be more cautious in making decisions about the involvement of new digital technologies in their spatial economic development. This paper aims to test the hypothesis whether and how introduction of technologies and practices of digital agriculture can help improving spatial economic development of municipal districts. The findings of the research indicate that agricultural production plays a substantial role in municipal districts' economies even in regions with industrial specialization. Spatial economic characteristics of this type of municipality favour the development of agriculture. At the same time, spatial economic development of municipal districts can be substantially enhanced by introducing practices of digital agriculture, because it increases economically significant results, improves land exploitation, maintains or increases area under crops through effective distribution of resources (labour, equipment, etc.) and land management, and makes information flows between economic agents (including agricultural producers) more compact.