of ecological and economic efficiency of agricultural lands preservation”

The article substantiates the necessity to define and generalize the criteria for assessing the ecological and economic efficiency of using agricultural lands. Due to the transition of the agro-industrial complex to private forms of management, the problems of forming a strategy of rational, ecologically safe and sustainable development of land use in Ukrainian agriculture became of paramount importance. Therefore, systematic studies on the assessment of the ecological and economic efficiency of the agricultural land use need to be conducted. Harmonization of ecological and economic interests is of particular importance in the context of ensuring the conservation, resource-saving and reproductive nature of the agricultural land exploitation. A scientific study found that in Ukraine, the agrarian sector of the economy provides about 47% of GDP, but the question arises: At what price are these achievements given to us? Agricultural land development exceeds environmentally sound standards. Excessive cultivation of the territory leads to an annual increase of eroded lands by 80-90 thousand hectares. Land use is recognized as environmentally unstable, and there is a steady tendency to deteriorate the quality of soil. Each second hectare of cultivated land is erosion-hazardous, that is, these soils are subject to water and wind erosion. In this regard, it is recommended to introduce the world-wide experience of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), which provides an opportunity to provide food security to the country and to limit the negative impact of the environment, based on the introduction of organic production. It is proved that regardless of the size of farms and forms of management using resource-saving no-till technologies, enterprises received low cost of grown products, providing profitable activities. Ecological compatibility of the technology provides energy savings of at least 30% in comparison with traditional farming systems, the accumulation of not less than 30-40% of plant residues on the soil surface after harvesting of the predecessor, provides protection of the soil from wind and water erosion by minimizing the amount and depth of technological operations. It is confirmed that the most widespread evaluation of the agricultural lands use is the evaluation of the results of their use through volumes of gross and commodity products, income, and production profitability. The criteria for the environmental effectiveness of agricultural land use be: the degree of functional of land resources, ecological the level of anthropogenic loading, the degree of erosional feature of land, etc. According to the study results, it was established that one of the main areas of agriculture is the application of minimal tillage in crop rotation, i.e. resource-saving no-till technology. The economic feasibility of technologies based on the use of different soil tillage systems has been confirmed.


Introduction 4 
Intensive development of agrarian production negatively affects the natural environment. The ecological situation has deteriorated in recent years, and the economic status of economic entities depends on it. One of the most important components of Ukraine's economic security is the provision of the ecological and economic This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license, which permits re-use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the materials aren't used for commercial purposes and the original work is properly cited. component in the agrarian sector of the domestic economy.
The comprehensive state program of agriculture reforming and development in Ukraine stipulates that agriculture should develop on the basis of ecological technologies that ensure the soil fertility restoration, the recycling of organic waste, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and compounds polluting the atmosphere. The principle of ecological safety management should minimize the negative effects of agricultural production and promote the reproduction of the natural potential of agroecosystems.
Modern agricultural technologies must combine the latest achievements of science and best practices and at the same time ensure high return on costs. For the successful development of agricultural production in Ukraine it is necessary to know the economic feasibility of technologies based on the use of different systems of basic soil cultivation. Only calculations of economic and environmental efficiency are the basis for these technologies introduction into agricultural production. Ecological and economic assessment as a result of s c i e n t i f i c r e s e a r c h i s t h e f i n a l f o r m o f t h e i r consequences reflection.
1. Economic development and environmental situation of SEA SEA historical and general background. SEA is prominently one of the largest economies leading the changes within the 21 st century. With over 4,506,597 square kilometers, compared to the entire Asia region of 44,580,000 square kilometers, it has ten countries that are diverse and play an integral yet distinct role within the economies of SEA. The earliest history within the SEA is that it was dominated by Proto-Asiatic inhabitants over 63,000 years ago (Wayman, 2012). Fig. 1 shows the map of SEA geography that displays the 10 countries of the SEA region. The overall geography within the SEA region is surrounded with open waters, providing easy access to ports. Due to the ease of establishing ports around the coasts of SEA, the arrival of much more developed countries such as the Netherlands, Portugal, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom has provided links to the outside world.
Moreover, SEA has long been a central region for trade involving diverse peoples and sources of income and knowledge from around the world. The Europeans brought financing and investment opportunities that S E A n e v e r h a d . C u r r e n t l y , the ten countries that occupy SEA are as follows: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Each country has become a major economic player in the global market. Table 1 describes the descriptive statistics for various indicators for the overall picture of the SEA within the 21 st century. The largest country in the area within the SEA is Indonesia, while the smallest is Singapore. Countries in SEA are also home to numerous manufacturing factories that host many international brands outside SEA. This, coupled with overflowing resources of labor that are unmatched outside SEA, has provided the perfect stage for stable economic development.
The most interesting part of this dataset is how developing countries have begun to emerge within SEA in the 21 st century. As shown in Table 1, countries that have the highest growth rate regarding economic development are Laos and Myanmar, while that with the lowest economic growth rate is Singapore. Similar performance occurs for GDP per capita. The highlight of this income difference is that countries within SEA have a high level of disparity. The 21 st century has been quite kind to Laos and Myanmar. Laos for example has been able to restructure its economic infrastructure by enhancing the energy sector, which in turn has provided power for most of its significant economic development. Myanmar has also withdrawn its military from sensitive, important industries, thus allowing the economy to flourish. Furthermore, it is important to note that every country in SEA has positive economic development except Brunei.  Xie and Johns (1995), and Griffin (1990).
The purpose of the article is to consider problems connected with the interconnection and interdependence of natural resource potential of rural territories and resource provision of agrarian production. System researches on the assessment of the ecological and economic efficiency of the agricultural lands use require further study, because the coordination of ecological and economic interests is of particular importance in the context of ensuring the environmental, resource-saving and reproductive nature of the agricultural land exploitation.

Research methodology
The article uses economic-statistical methods of research, in particular monographic, comparison, table and graphic.

Key research findings
Since the beginning of the current marketing year, as of January 1, 2018, Ukraine has exported more than 21.36 million tons of grain crops, in particular wheat -11.2 million tons, barley -3.7 million tons, and corn -5.8 million tons (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 2018). In 2017, the gross grain harvest in Ukraine was 63 million tons, of which 40 million tons or 63% of the total production will be exported. Ukraine has always been the breadbasket of Europe and the bread supplier on world markets. But today the question arises: At what price are these achievements given to us?
More than 70% of land in Ukraine is agricultural land, of which 78.9% is arable land. This is the main part of the soil on which agriculture is managed, that is, it is cultivated and exploited to the fullest. On the one hand, this is good, because about 47% of the GDP is provided by the agrarian sector. The largest share in Ukrainian exports during the 10 months of 2017 belongs to agricultural products and food industry -41.3% (Matsehora, 2018).
Under such conditions, the growth of agricultural production, which, on the one hand, is perceived as a positive phenomenon, due to an increase in food security and an increase in foreign exchange earnings, and, on the other hand, it poses a threat to the social and environmental spheres, which can ultimately largely neutralize the economic outcomes of such growth.
Ukraine has one of the highest indicators of agricultural development of territories (70.8%) and arable agricultural land (53.9%). Land use is considered to be environmentally unstable; there is an established tendency to deteriorate the qualitative state of soils: their acidification, destructuring, and dehumidification (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, 2017).
The volumes of mineral fertilizers use decreased from 148 kg/ha of active substance in 1986-1990 to 76˗96 kg/ha in 2011-2016 (Table 1). For one hectare of arable land, only 0.5 tons of manure is applied instead of 9.4 tons applied in 1985 ( Figure  1). Because of this, in agroecosystems, a stable negative balance of humus, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium was formed (Table 2)  Organic fertilizers applied, t/ha High yields of agricultural crops are currently being achieved mainly due to natural soil fertility, which may decrease significantly in 5-10 years, as the average level of humus content in soils of Ukraine decreased from 3.64% in 1961 to 3.16% in recent years (Table 3). Another problem is that every second hectare of cultivated land is erosion-hazardous, that is, these soils are subject to water and wind erosion. Almost 15 million hectares were influenced by water and wind erosion, which is 35% of agricultural land. In recent years, the humus content has declined by an average of 20%, which negatively affects the productivity of each hectare of farmland. The process of soil formation of the fertile black humus earth has taken millions of years, so that in order not to lose it today, the main task of agriculture is to adhere to the following principles: yield must be adequate to the biological potential of crops, environmentally and economically justified, and the resulting products must be high-quality and environmentally safe, and certainly all this should contribute to the reproduction of soil fertility.
A serious threat to the environment is the violation of optimal standards for the introduction of mineral fertilizers, plant protection means, as well as the accumulation of hazardous waste and the limited financial resources of agrarian enterprises, unable to ensure the safe management of these wastes (Shkuratov, 2016, p. 75).
In this regard, let's elaborate a system of agricultural management such as CSA (Climate˗ Smart Agriculture), which was formed in response to the most powerful modern challenges for global agricultural production, namely the need to provide food security for increasing population, adaptation to climate change and limiting the negative environmental impact (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2018). At the heart of the CSA is the implementation of agricultural activities through methods that not only make it possible to achieve the desired agricultural production growth outcomes but also ensure its adaptation to climate change, as well as contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (World Bank, n.d.).
One of the most common areas of CSA is organic production. Council Regulation (EU) No. 834/2007 on organic production and labeling of organic products defines such production as an "integrated system of food business management, which combines best practices in terms of environmental protection, the level of biological diversity, conservation of natural resources, the use of high standards of proper maintenance of animals and a production method that meets certain requirements for products manufactured using substances and processes of natural origin" (Council Regulation, 2007). Organic agriculture, along with unquestionable benefits for the environment, also contributes to the development of the countryside social sphere, since, according to the United Nations, an average of 30% labor is used more in this kind of production than in traditional agriculture.
In Ukraine, the area of certified agricultural land involved in the cultivation of various organic products is 411 thousand hectares, and Ukraine holds the honorable twentieth place of the world leaders of the organic movement. The share of certified organic areas among the total agricultural land in Ukraine is about 1%. At the same time, Ukraine occupies the first place in the Eastern European region regarding the certified area of organic arable land, specializing mainly in the production of cereals (wheat, barley, corn) -197 thousand hectares, oilseeds (sunflower and rape) - . But the resource potential of Ukraine is able not only to supply organic products to its own population, but also to produce them in significant volumes for export.
Given the experience of research and analysis of land use indicators, it is known that the environmental and economic assessment of the agricultural land use should be based on the assessment of the scale and intensity of the economic activity impact on the state of land resources. Indeed, at the present stage, the desire of the agricultural producers to obtain maximum profit leads to adverse environmental consequences (Palianychko, 2011, p. 19).
Let's consider the criteria for assessing the economic efficiency of agricultural land use. One of the most common areas for assessing land use is the evaluation of their use results, in particular through volumes of gross products, commodity products, income, profitability of production, etc.
However, if the calculation of income and profitability of production in specific enterprises gives a certain idea of the effective land use, then at national and regional levels it is impossible to accurately estimate the land use effectiveness through these indicators, which is due to a number of reasons (Tretiak, 2013, p. 136):  firstly, efficiency is often considered as savings, that is, in reality, the pursuit of efficiency turns into a desire to reduce costs, not to improvement;  secondly, socially necessary costs are more difficult to determine than economic costs; often, in practice, external factors of influence on the efficiency of agricultural land use are not taken into account; and  thirdly, the economic benefits are easier to detect than social ones, and when attempting to artificially increase efficiency, one substitutes one criterion, which is easier to calculate.
The main criteria for the ecological efficiency of agricultural land use should be the degree of functional use of land resources, ecological stability, the level of anthropogenic loading, the degree of erosional feature of lands, etc.
So, let's consider a number of factors that not only ensure high yields, profitability of production, but also maintain the agricultural land fertility, improve environmental ecology. To that end, take the Cherkasy region for a model.
In the late 60s of the last century, Cherkasy region initiated an intensive chemization of agricultural production. Annually 180 kg of nutrient elements from mineral fertilizers and 10 tons of manure were applied, and also chalking was carried out on the area of 120 thousand hectares at the expense of the state. As a result, in two decades, the content of nutrients increased in the soil of the region and stabilized the content of organic matter, which provided for the cultivation of some of the highest crop yields in Ukraine.
Extensive agricultural management has sharply worsened the balance indicators of nutrients and humus in the land resources of the region (Table 4). Applying less than one ton of organic fertilizers (manure) per hectare of arable land, the burning of a large quantity of non-market products have led to a steady negative balance of organic matter in the agriculture of the region. After all, the annual loss of about 0.5 tons of humus per hectare leads not only to the loss of nitrogen from the soil, but also to the deterioration of the physical properties of soils, which determine their fertility. Since 2007, there has been a tendency in the number of fertilizers applied. But the removal of nutrients by the harvest outstrips this increase, so the negative balance of nutrition in the agriculture region continues. The average weighted index of humus content in the soils of Cherkasy region is 3.05%, or decreased by 0.03% compared to the previous round of the survey. In all areas surveyed, there is a decrease in humus content from ˗0.06% in the Chyhyryn district to ˗0.21% in the Smila district. The greatest losses were detected in areas where light mechanical soils are prevalent. In particular, farms in Zolotonosha, Chernobai, and Cherkasy districts lost 400 to 600 kilograms of humus per hectare.
The modern system of farming is based on the principle of obtaining the net profit of crop production with its minimum material and monetary costs (economic approach). However, such an approach contradicts the modern understanding of agriculture, which is based on the exploitation of soils, which does not allow reducing its fertility. Therefore, in addition to the economic criterion, it is also necessary to apply an ecological one, namely the calculation of the balance of nutrients and humus.
Humus is the material carrier of fertility, so all its conservation measures should be aimed at reducing unproductive losses of humus and soil replenishment with organic matter.
An important source of replenishment of organic matter (humus) and soil nitrogen, increasing its fertility is the use of seed crops as organic fertilizers (Table 5).  Green fertilizers should also be considered as a means of reducing the processes of water and wind erosion.
In the conditions of the Cherkasy region more effective green manures were cruciferae family cultures (mustard, oil radish, spring and winter turnip, etc.). If sown at the end of July -in the first decade of August, they quickly increase the green mass and after 40-60 days of vegetation produce a yield of 200-350 centner/ha. It is expedient to plant them out as green fertilizer under the spring cultures in the first half of October.
The annual expenditures on green manures will be UAH 103,387 ths or 10.7% in the structure of the cost for the main measures to preserve the soil fertility in the region.
In Ukraine, over the past 20-30 years, zonal differentiated soil tillage systems have been developed based on the use of traditional polygonal and nonpolygonal methods of cultivation with different depth, number of operations and a set of tools.
Under intensive agriculture, the use of minimal soil cultivation in crop rotation, that is, resource-saving notill technology (or direct sowing technology), is decisive.
Analysis of the conference proceedings on the experience exchange of the no-till technology use, which took place in Ukraine in 2004-2009 involving the practicing expert consultants, farmers, researchers from more than 20 countries from five continents in the world, indicates the following: 1. Examples of successful long-term experience of using no-till technology exist everywhere in the world, where crop farming is practiced regardless of climatic conditions (rainfall, temperature regime), type of soils, kind of cultivated grains, leguminous crops.
2. Practitioners unanimously note the following positive effects from the no-till technology use:  fuel economy (reduction of energy intensity);  increase of moisture content in soil, improvement of water availability;  reduction of soil erosion;  increase in the crop production stability;  growth of profit in farms of any size (including small ones);  net profit growth.
3. no-till technology reduces the need for physical labor, but needs much more intellectual and mental activity and appropriate level of professional knowledge and skills. 4. The technology has no objective contraindications to use. Obstacles can only be reluctance (fear) to change habitual methods of work (lack of motivation) or low level of professional training of agricultural producers.
In the world, there are examples at the country level indicating the possibility of a significant increase in yield in the transition to no-till technology. For example, due to the introduction of no-till technology in the western state of Austria, the total revenue growth amounted to USD 2.1 billion (Crabtree, 2010).
In the Uman district of Cherkasy region, most agricultural enterprises refused to cultivate land with a plow. LLC "Tekucha" initiated surface cultivation of land after sunflower, corn, winter and spring grains. Having created a joint Ukrainian-German enterprise in 1994, the company had enough adequate equipment for surface soil cultivation and agricultural cropping. Then, LLC "Dubova", LLC "Berestivets" and others did the same. More than 7 years ago APC "Cherpovody" introduced no-till. The company acquired a seeding-machine SF9412-20 to sow crops without the traditional land cultivation: winter wheat, barley, corn, and sunflower. The consumption of diesel fuel by the company has decreased by half. If before the transition to no-till, the enterprise spent 200 tons of diesel fuel, then it was 100 tons to be spent, saving of UAH 1,500 thousand took place in only for diesel fuel. The cost of human labor and cultivation of land have decreased significantly. Under usual technology after winter wheat, the following operations were carried out: discarding, plowing, moisture closing, cultivation, sowing, rolling; in contrast, with no-till all these technological operations are not carried out -at a time they sow and receive young crops. This kind of cultivation gives particularly good effect in arid years.
Let's consider the economic efficiency of crop production at the enterprises that grow products by mini-till, no-till and traditional technologies ( Table 6). Given the economic efficiency of the crop rotation of the investigated enterprises (the calculation is made in grain units), the data confirm that the no-till technology has a basis for existence, while not taking the ecological-preserving factor into account (Table 7). Table 7. Economic efficiency of crop rotation at the enterprises investigated In modern soil protection systems of agriculture, zero tillage of soil should provide:  energy saving not less than 30-45% compared to traditional farming systems;  protection of soil from wind and water erosion by minimizing the amount and depth of technological operations;  accumulation of at least 30-40% of plant residues on the soil surface after harvesting of the predecessor. In all soil-climatic zones of Ukraine, all agricultural systems have common constituents that reflect the two main features of their formation: the way of using the land and the way to improve soil fertility.
Each system of agriculture must be economically justified and set up taking local natural (soil, climatic) and economic conditions into account.

Conclusion
It was established that the main instrument of the state land use strategy should be the ecological and economic mechanism of rational land use. To do this, it is proposed to stimulate enterprises to widely introduce soil-protecting technology of farming based on zero soil cultivation. The introduction of protective agriculture has clear economic benefits (economic calculation of the APC "Cherpovody", Uman district and other agricultural enterprises operating on the basis of conventional technology).
Consequently, the ecological and economic mechanism for preserving the fertility of agricultural land should have the following components:  introduction of organic agriculture, zero technology of soil cultivation, scientifically grounded correlation of lands;  preservation, reproduction and increase of soil fertility;  ecologization of land use on the basis of sustainable development. However, all modern agrotechnologies in agriculture must combine the latest achievements of science and best practices and at the same time provide high return on costs. It is necessary to calculate the economic feasibility of technologies that are based on the use of different soil tillage systems. Only calculations of economic and energy efficiency are the basis for the introduction of these technologies into agricultural production.