Organic farms are the fundamental basis for the sustainable foreign economic activities of agrarians in Ukraine

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of organic production development in the agricultural sector of the Ukrainian economy and substantiates that one of the important priorities of agribusiness is organic production, which is mainly export-oriented, and therefore is the fundamental basis for the sustainability of the foreign economic activity of its farmers. An increase in organic production, in particular cattle products, is accompanied by additional methane emissions (but lower than those from nonorganic production), while Ukraine, having joined the Global Methane Pledge initiative to reduce methane emissions, has committed to taking measures to reduce its methane footprint and consequently the decision to invest and/or provide government support for development programs should be based on historical analysis using a decoupling approach. The trends of changes in the average annual livestock population, the livestock production volume and dynamics of methane emissions have been studied for the period of 1990-2019. A decoupling analysis has been carried out of the gap between trends of the economic growth rates of the livestock industry and the rates of anthropogenic pressure on the environment. The study demonstrated that the decoupling effect in cattle breeding has changed abruptly from strongly negative to weak decoupling. The dynamics of the export volume of dairy and meat products were analysed for the agribusiness of Ukraine during 2004-2021 and a forecast of changes in production volumes, as well as a forecast for the export volume of milk and beef were made for the period up to 2030.

Keywords

• agribusiness
• decoupling analysis
• foreign economic activity
• greenhouse gas emissions
• organic production
• organic products