The article presents a comparative analysis of the socio-economic situation in 6 agro-industrial centers of the Central Federal District on 3 key components (demography, labor market, standard of living). It has been established that all large agricultural centers of the Central Federal District are significantly lagging behind in terms of the standard of living of the population, which poses a threat to the country's food security. The best indicators among the regions under consideration for all key components (with the exception of contradictory data on the state of the labor market) are characteristic of the Belgorod region. The most difficult socioeconomic situation provoking the outflow of the population has developed in the Bryansk region, in which
the worst values among the agro-industrial centers of the Central Federal District were identified for most of the analyzed indicators.