INNOVATIVE MEASUREMENT OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL LAND USE: THE EU’S EXPERIENCE FOR UKRAINE

Abstract

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a challenge to food security globally and nationally. In the face of growing climate and environmental challenges, ensuring the sustainability of the food system, which is the basis of the European Green Deal, the European Union's sustainable and inclusive growth strategies, depends on the efficiency and effectiveness of the sustainable agricultural land use system. The aim of the study is to examine the European Union's experience in transforming the system of sustainable agricultural land use on an innovative basis to ensure its sustainability and security in the face of current challenges and threats (both faced and far-looking). The study uses a mixed approach, including factorial analysis and descriptive statistics, using a sample of 27 European Union’s economies and Ukraine’s economy. Ukraine's place on the European Union’s land map is determined, the dynamics of change in the structure of Ukraine's land area is analyzed, priority directions of innovative development of sustainable land use are determined, prospects of common agricultural policy and innovation policy to ensure the transition of the European Union and Ukraine to the sustainable, resilient and competitive economy are outlined. To ensure the sustainability and resilience of the agricultural land use and consequently the food system as a whole, the need to intensify research and introduce innovations has been identified. Innovations are to be aimed at the following goals: 1) protection and restoration of natural ecosystems; 2) preservation and improvement of natural capital and public health; 3) sustainable use of resources, including land, energy; 4) developing resilient food system; 5) accelerating the achievement of zero pollution, 6) development of sustainable and intelligent mobility. Building a system of sustainable agricultural land use requires, firstly, the formation of a new system of knowledge based on the latest research and development, the introduction of which will act in advance to overcome existing risks and threats in agriculture and sustainable rural development, and secondly, development of the system of its institutional support, which is revealed through the action of the consistent organizational and economic mechanism. Future studies are suggested to build an innovative model for the development of the national system of sustainable land use, taking into account the institutional potential of the land management system.