Petrina E.A., Mudrenko A.A., Yurchenko K.A.

Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University, Ukraine

ECONOMIC AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURE IN UKRAINE

Agriculture is one of the main branches of industry that is essential to supply food for the population and raw materials for the industry.

The structure of agriculture includes two main areas – crop and livestock. The output ratio between these sectors changes depending on the socio-economic conditions and the level of agriculture development [4, p.20-28].

In contrast to the industry the process of agricultural production involves not three but four resources – basic and working capital, living labor and land, land is the main means of production for agriculture, while in other areas (excluding mining), it is only a spatial basis. As the primary means of production land requires its reproduction on an extended basis, generating a number of specific issues related to preserving and increasing soil fertility [1, p.43-44].

As the sector of economy, agriculture has the following main features [3, p.10-16]:

- economic reproduction process is intertwined with the natural process of growth and advance of living organisms that develop on the basis of biological laws;

- cyclical process of natural growth and development of plants and animals lead to the seasonality of agricultural labor;

- unlike industry, the production process in agriculture is closely connected with nature, and the land acts as the main means of production.

Agricultural production develops based on the same economic laws that determine the development and distribution of the national economy. At the same time, there are some marked and specific conditions of the branch related to the natural features of agricultural production.

Livestock breeding is one of the most important parts of the country's economic system. Nevertheless, in recent years there has been a significant decline in livestock breeding, and therefore, the decline in the output of animal products of all kinds (except poultry, its quantity in 2010 compared to 2001 increased by 67 , 7 million head in 2010 compared to 2001). The strategic direction of work to improve productivity and increase the output is genetic improvement of breeding and pedigree qualities of animals of the domestic and foreign breeding farms of different ownership.

Grain farming is the most strategic and significant sector of the economy. The country`s nature and climate conditions, soil fertility encourage cultivation of all crops and thus, high quality food grains are produced. For example, in 2010 the output of cereals and pulses was 39,271 tons, a positive trend of production grows has been observed since 2008. In addition, the area under grain crops and leguminous plants has grown, since 2006. The area under cultivation of sunflower increased to a substantial rate , so in 2010 the figure almost doubled compared to 2001. In addition, the production of fruits and berries in 2010 increased by 641 thousand tons compared to 2001.

Analysis of the regions by major figures such as gross output of animal products and plants showed that the regions may be divided into three categories: with high, medium and low production volume. Thus, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Kyiv are the areas with the greatest amount of crop production, and together with the six other regions (such as Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk and so on) are the areas of the largest livestock production.

The enterprises of the country export their products to 137 countries. The largest volume of foreign trade goes to Europe (29.6% of the total foreign trade turnover), Asia(28.4%), CIS (25.6%). Ukraine has a very high level of competitiveness in the global market, but the reduction in output has adversely affected the country's position globally in recent years. Strengthening the competitive position through the transition to an innovative type of development will create conditions for long-term food security, sustainable and dynamic development of agricultural production, the successful and consistent solving of social problems in rural areas mainly by their own resources [5].

Recently in Ukraine the output instability and a decline in agricultural production economic efficiency have been observed, as well as low income of producers, inadequacy of agricultural markets regulation mechanisms, the deformation of the agricultural production structure. Problems of the branch, in their turn, are exacerbated due to the internal and external crises that happen periodically. Tackling these problems requires further improvements of the agricultural production regulation which consists of both market and state regulation mechanisms. The role and place of the latter increases significantly when critical processes occur. First of all, it depends not only on political and economic factors but also on the time factor, the efficiency of various mechanisms of the institutional system [2, p. 101-105].

Literature:

1. Andreychuk V.G. Economics of agricultural enterprises: Tutorial. – 2nd ed., Ext. and processed / V.G. Andreychuk. – K.: MBK, 2002. – 624 p.

2. Mel B.V. Improvement of cost accounting in crop / B.V. Mel // Economy APC. – 2009. – № 3. – S. 101–103.

3. Onishchenko O.V. Yurchyshyn Rural Development: the basics of methodology and organization //Economy of Ukraine. – 2008. – № 10. – 196 p.

4. Chekotovskyy E.V. Basics agricultural statistics: Teach. user. – K.: MBK, 2001. – 432 p.

5. Strubenhoff Kh.V. The world market for grain crops and maslychnыh – Review of 2009 / Kh.V. Strubenhoff. – Mode of access: www.ier.kiev.ua – Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.