Socio-Economic Transformations in Ukraine towards the Sustainable Development of Agriculture

Olha Kravchenko,Maria Hełdak,Joanna Wysmułek,Lesia Kucher,Anatolii Kucher

doi:10.3390/su12135441

Abstract

The social and economic conditions of all market participants are incentives and constraining factors influencing the levels of food, social, economic and ecologic security. The purpose of the article lies in the presentation of the author’s concept of the social and economic conditions where the transformation of economic relations between agrofood market participants is happening—in particular, the livestock products market of Ukraine—and the assessment of the state of food security of the country, as well as a comparison, by the same criteria, of the conditions of agrofood market participants in Ukraine and in four European countries: Germany, France, Italy, and Poland. This research was based on the application of empirical knowledge methods: observation, comparison, description, measurement, statistic methods, etc. So far, the participant functioning conditions in the agricultural market in Ukraine are unfavorable for the sustainable development of agriculture, especially the livestock industry. The debt burden of external creditors is growing, the amount of direct investments from the countries of the world decreases, and the growth of capital investment in terms of calculation per one employee is slowing down. The food security of Ukraine is unstable. The “market” itself is not capable of remedying all the negative phenomena. Therefore, it is necessary to apply the weighted power of the state.

Highlights

The speed and abruptness of changes in the market conditions of all markets’ economic agents results in discord in the development of both economic relations between their members and the whole social and economic system of each country
The analysis of the existing economic environment of Ukraine in the context of the agrofood market development will help substantiate the mechanisms of the harmonization of relations between agents of the same market—in particular, their interests, which are often contradictory
Over nine years (2010–2018) and comparing the last year with the year 2010, we can see the following changes (Table 1): the resident population of Ukraine has been decreasing annually by 400 thousand people on average to 42 million; the size of the gross domestic product (GDP) in per capita terms makes 84.2 thousand hryvnias, which has been increased by 3.4 times for the period of research; the size of the purchasing power parity GDP per capita, as a measure to manufacture the products in US dollars of the constant purchasing power and level out the influence of inflation processes, has been somewhat increased, but the rate of growth makes it 20%, to the level of 9287 USD per person

Summary

Introduction

The speed and abruptness of changes (transformations, metamorphoses) in the market conditions of all markets’ economic agents results in discord in the development of both economic relations between their members and the whole social and economic system of each country. This is related to the development of the agrofood market—in particular, the livestock products market; the participants of economic relations, of which are agricultural products producers (households of all the categories); food processing enterprises (meat and milk); the representatives of wholesale and retail trade; population (as an end consumer, as an agrofood sector employee, and as a rural community); and the state (as a guarantor of food, social, economic, and ecologic security). Change in the indicated environment is guided by economic processes and transforms economic relations that, in turn, impact change in the economic space

Methods

Results

Conclusion