The article concentrates on the problems of the formation and development of agriculture in Russia in the event of a crisis caused by the pandemic, and provides brief characteristics of the core business activities in this direction. The features of the agrarian crisis, as one of the forms of economic recession, which are provoked by economic crises, and are also associated with business cycle fluctuations, are revealed. Furthermore, the main threats to the agricultural sector, the level of development of Russian agriculture at the present time are considered. A SWOT analysis of the environment-related activities of agricultural producers is presented, and the prospects for the development of the agro-industrial complex in a shifting trajectory from subsidized financing and debt restructuring of the agricultural sector to high technologies are considered. The authors state that modern society is developing in a cyclical spiral, in search of new models and new approaches to the managerial economics in agricultural production. The need for strategic anti-crisis intervention in the agro-industrial complex is determined by predicted patterns inherent in critical phases in the evolution of the system.