Small forms of farming and agricultural organizations in the Ural Federal District: comparative assessment of their contribution to production and market sales of agricultural products

The relevance of the study is determined by the growing structural heterogeneity of agricultural production in Russian regions, where agricultural organizations, peasant farms, individual entrepreneurs and household farms perform different economic functions. This problem is especially significant for the Ural Federal District, since one macroregion combines industrially developed territories with a large livestock sector, grain-producing areas, zones of risky farming and territories where small forms of farming play an important role in maintaining rural employment and food self-sufficiency. The purpose of the study is to conduct a comparative assessment of the contribution of small forms of farming and agricultural organizations to the production and market sales of agricultural products in the regions of the Ural Federal District in 2022–2025. The methodological basis includes comparative, dynamic, structural and index analysis, calculation of regional shares in total output, assessment of changes in the production structure by categories of farms, comparison of value and physical indicators, and calculation of the intensity of state support relative to gross output. The scientific novelty lies in the transition from a simple comparison of output volumes to the assessment of a two-contour model of the agricultural economy: the production contour, where the contribution of farms to output creation is measured, and the market contour, where the ability of different categories of farms to transform production into organized sales is assessed. The results show that Chelyabinsk Oblast retains leadership in total agricultural output, Sverdlovsk Oblast demonstrates the most stable structural strengthening, Tyumen Oblast is characterized by a gap between value growth and a decline in physical volumes of meat and milk, while Kurgan Oblast remains the most dependent on small forms of farming. The study concludes that small forms of farming should not be considered a residual sector: in certain product segments they perform a system-forming function, although their market involvement is limited by weak cooperation and lower access to storage, processing and sales infrastructure.