№ 7/2023

Ekon Ukr. 2023 (7): 72–94https://doi.org/10.15407/economyukr.2023.07.072

QUESTIONS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AIC

УДК 33.330

JEL: Q130

MOLDAVAN Lyubov¹

¹Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the NAS of Ukraine
OrcID ID : https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5347-2699

SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF UKRAINE’S AGRI-FOOD SPECIALIZATION: CAUSES AND WAYS TO ELIMINATE THEM

International organizations and the world scientific community note a growth of environmental processes associated with agricultural activities. In particular, it is recognized that agricultural sector with deeply specialized (monoculture) production, which intensifies land degradation, has negative impact on environment and natural resources. Losses from soil fatigue, a companion to monoculture, amount to almost 25% of the world harvest. The UN documents mention not only environmental, but also social losses from monoculture production: a decrease in rural population employment, an increase in poverty, inadequate nutrition, etc.
The processes of the formation in Ukraine of deeply specialized agriculture with features of monoculture farming, the zonal aspect of which allows to identify its negative environmental and social consequences, are analyzed. In the Steppe zone, the transition to the cultivation of soil-depleting and humus-absorbing cereals and sunflower, which occupied over 93% of the sown areas, displacing fallows and perennial grasses, led to increased erosion, which currently affects 60–80% of agricultural land, dehumusing of soils (humus deficit reaches 600 kg/ha), a significant reduction in animal husbandry, a decline in milk and milk products consumption by the population, a decrease in the caloric content of average daily diet, the elimination of jobs in agricultural production, etc. These processes are characteristic of the eastern regions of the Forest Steppe and, although to a lesser extent, other regions of the country. In Ukraine as a whole, the quality of food is decreasing, import dependence is increasing for certain types of food commodities that have been driven out of production as a result of deep specialization. It is substantiated that in order to prevent the further development of these and other negative processes, there is no alternative to the transition from deeply specialized monoculture agriculture to agroecological crop rotation-based one in symbiosis with animal husbandry. The mechanisms of transition to this type of agriculture are proposed, taking into account the theoretical foundations of the problem and the experience of its solution in Western European and other countries, which will allow to stop the degradation and ensure the growth of agricultural land productivity, to preserve the food sovereignty of the country and its rural labor potential.

Keywords:deep specialization; monoculture; environmental consequences; social losses; agroecology; crop rotation agriculture

Article original in Ukrainian (pp. 72 - 94)

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The article was received by the Editorial staff on April 28 , 2023

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