Importance of global food problem for Ukraine

Abstract

Today, at the global level, special importance is given to the food problem. It is the interweaving of the interests of individual, social groups, society and the world community as a whole in terms of meeting the needs of people in food. Food safety is one of the UN’s global goals for sustainable development and needs to be studied in details.The purpose of the article is the description of the nature of the global food problem, the identification of its impact on food safety, the study of Ukraine’s ranking on the food safety index, the comparative analysis of the values of food safety sub-indices of Ukraine with the average world values, and the establishment of ways to adapt to the new and constantly changing conditions of the global environment.Methodology. The general scientific and special research methods, the method of theoretical generalization, in particular, are used to clarify certain concepts such as «global food problem» and «food safety»; the method of statistical analysis is used to assess the dynamics of Ukraine’s ranking in the Global Food Safety Index (GFSI); the method of comparative analysis of the values of Ukraine’s food safety sub-indices with average world values is applied.Results of the survey shows the existing approaches to the usage of categories «global food problem» and «food security". The assessment of food safety in Ukraine is confirmed on the values of the Global Food Security Index. It is based on the data published annually by The Economist Intelligence.In the analysis of the food, the safety level of the countries on the global index GFSI was found, it shows that in 2018 Ukraine ranked 63rd place out of 113 countries. In terms of food, the safety sub-indices got high scores and they are fixed at tariffs on agricultural imports and the level of urbanization. The average value of the country was obtained by means of social programs of food support of the population, the safety of food supply; the breadth of the product range, the content of nutrients. Ukraine shows constant GDP per capita, access to financial resources for farms, agricultural infrastructure, volatility of agricultural production, food standards.At the same time, the country has low rates in terms of political stability and level of corruption. Based on the comparative analysis of the values of Ukraine’s food safety sub-indices with the average world values, the author determines the possible ways of adaptation to the new and constantly changing conditions of the global environment in order to protect its leading positions in the world market of agricultural products and foodstuffs.Conclusions. The agrarian sector and food industry of Ukraine are able to meet the needs of both in the domestic market and provide leading positions in the world market of agricultural products and food, make a significant contribution to solving the global food problem.At the same time, the admission of Ukraine into the world economic space, the consolidation of globalization processes, trade liberalization need to be adapted to new and constantly changing conditions with further improvement of food standards, the development of agricultural infrastructure, access to financial resources for farms, etc.