The article is devoted to the research and development of quality evaluation methods of agro-industrial enterprises activity in the regional economy with the use of the ecological approach. The hypothesis of the study is that the activity of the economic entities (as well as of agribusiness) must be assessed not only in the context of economic efficiency and effectiveness, but also in the context of environmental ethics and environmental aggression. As the initial data, we have used the indicators of economic statistics of Russian agrarian-oriented regions, as well as the data received from management reporting on the sample of enterprises of three regions (the Belgorod and Moscow regions, Krasnodar Territory). The article offers the economic and mathematical approach for measuring the level of the environmental responsibility of agro-industrial enterprises on the basic formula of the Mandelbrot set and statistical indicator of Hurst. Our scientific contribution is the development of a modified methodology for assessing the quality of the activity of agro-industrial enterprises using the parameter characterizing the level of environmental ethics and environmental aggression of these entities. The main result of the study is the approbation of the method, which has shown its practical applicability and relative coherence with certain indicators of regional ecological statistics. The proposed method is characterized by the integration of the different mathematical approaches and as an adaptive assessment tool that can be used to assess the quality of the activity of both agro-industrial enterprises and enterprises of other industries and fields of the economy. In the further works, the authors plan to develop methodological approaches to the assessment of the quality of agro-industrial products. At the same time, the main attention will be paid to the ecological and social component of the quality

The transition to new business conditions in the agro-industrial sector puts forward new requirements for staffing. High qualification of workers in agribusiness is one of the main conditions for creating a platform for the transition from industrialization to environmentally responsible economic growth. However, few existing training and retraining programs for the agro-industrial sector allow to provide the labour market by specialists whose professional competencies include an environmentally responsible context. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the opportunities and prospects for reforming educational programs to train highly qualified specialists for the Russian agro-industrial complex. This article is based on a content analysis of research, economic and statistical data that reliably characterize trends and tendencies in the development of the Russian agro-industry at the present time. One of the most rational approaches to provide the Russian agro-industrial sector with highly qualified human resources, which possess competences in environmentally responsible organization of activities can be based on the Triple Helix Model. The information presented in the article has allowed to make the following main conclusions. Firstly, the environmentally responsible development of the economy as a whole, as well as of its separate sectors, spheres, as well as of the social sector, is the basic condition for the physical survival of modern civilization. Secondly, in the Russian system of training personnel for the agro-industrial sector, the concept of environmentally responsible and innovative-oriented education has not been systematically implemented. Therefore, in practice, the agrarian regions of Russia urgently need skilled personnel with the appropriate level of professional competence in resource-efficient nature management. These conclusions can be used as at the macroeconomic level for the elaboration of development programs of the Russian agro-industry, and at the microeconomic level for the improvement of ways and approaches to corporate training. Within this article, we did not specify the modern techniques of the personnel training and the development of personnel capacity in agro-industriy. This aspect will become a subject-mater for our further research.

In the conditions of continuing foreign policy instability, the problem of ensuring economic security at the national and régional levels is steadily increasing. The existing methodologies for assessing the security status of regional economies are static. Furthermore, they include a scattered list of indicators that are difficult to consistently interpret when conducting an analysis. Therefore, the authors proposed an indicative dynamic method for assessing changes in the security situation of the regional economy. As the initial data we have used indicators of the development of the Sverdlovsk region for the period from 2010 to 2017 inclusive. We have achieved the following results. Firstly, we have suggested the set of the indicators, which result in changes in the level of economic security of the region. Moreover, we have structured the main factors that have a formative and destructive impact on the economy of the region. Secondly, the conducted analysis has shown that the economic development of the Sverdlovsk region can be divided into two main phases: upward (2014) and downward (from 2014 to the present). This is a consequence of the instability of the regional economy to external shocks due to weak diversification as well as low entrepreneurial activity. Thirdly, the growing threats to the economy of the Sverdlovsk region lead to a decrease in the welfare of the population. In 2015, the level of wages in Moscow was 2 times higher than in the Sverdlovsk region, however, by the end of 2017, the level of wages in Moscow was already 2,2 times higher than in the Sverdlovsk region. At the same time, in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tyumen, the growth rate of income of the population was about 10-11 % for 2017, while, in the Sverdlovsk region the income growth for the same period was only 5 %. The obtained results can contribute to the development of the Sverdlovsk region strategic programs aimed at ensuring the sustainable socio-economic development of the region. The findings concerning the level of economic security in the Sverdlovsk region are not final. This means the need for further development of economic and mathematical models that will logically complement the methods proposed in this article for assessing the economic security of Russian regions.