Improvement of the effectiveness of organic farming in Ukraine

  • Received July 20, 2017;
    Accepted August 29, 2017;
    Published September 19, 2017
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.15(3).2017.06
  • Article Info
    Volume 15 2017, Issue #3, pp. 64-75
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To improve the efficiency of organic farming, it is important to improve the management of agricultural enterprises (agrarian management). The research was based on the hypothesis that adequate provision with and the use of fixed assets, as well as the concentration of production, play a decisive role in improving the efficiency of organic farming. This makes it possible to minimize the cost of conducting environmentally safe agro-technical and biocenotic measures, as well as reducing specific production costs.
To identify the reasons that hinder the development of organic farming in Ukraine we conducted a survey of managers of 80 agrarian enterprises from different regions specializing in the growing and export of grain (including organic). 65% of the surveyed managers indicated that the reason for non-implementation of organic production was an expected increase in production costs and a decrease in profitability compared to the traditional production methods. The respondents mentioned the lack of logistics infrastructure as the second obstacle according to the intensity of its impact – 25.9% of responses.
It has been established that in Ukraine, in comparison with other countries, there is a negative tendency for companies to save money on expanded reproduction and improvement of production technologies. The analysis shows that in most countries organic farming is conducted mainly by small farms, while in Ukraine big farms are certified. In the conditions of the shortage of credit resources necessary for updating the material and technical base, monopolization of the market of organic seeds and systematic growth of prices on resources, big farms are the ones to increase the concentration of organic farming and the means to achieve the necessary efficiency of production.

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    • Figure 1. Restraints to the development of organic farming in Ukraine
    • Figure 2. Dynamics of the area of agriculturall and occupied by organic farming calculated peroneenterprise in Ukraine, 2000–2015
    • Table 1. The dynamics of the area of agricultural land, the number of producers and the volume of retail trade in organic products in Ukraine and in the countries of the world
    • Table 2. Results of the survey of heads of agrarian enterprises in Ukraine regarding the main obstaclest of the realization of the principles of organic farming, 2017
    • Table 3. The costs of growing 1 ton of winter wheat in organic and traditional agriculture in the US, Poland and Ukraine in 2015, US dollars
    • Table 4. The area of agricultural land occupied by organic agriculture, calculated for one certificated enterprise in the world, 2015, ha
    • Table 5. Dynamics of certified agriculturall and sand farms growing organic products in Ukraine, 2002–2015
    • Table 6. Dependence of the profitability of growing of organic wheat on the efficiency of use of the main production factors, 2010–2015, US dollars