TRENDS OF CHANGES AND THE POTENTIAL FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRODUCTION OF THE MAIN FIELDS CROPS IN UKRAINE

Abstract

Agriculture has been historically one of the main sectors of the Ukrainian economy. Considered for centuries as a “bread basket of Europe”. In recent years Ukraine’s agriculture has been consistently improving and has been the only part of the country’s economy to buck the recession, but Ukraine is still a country with relatively large untapped agricultural potentials. The study concerns the production of the main crops in Ukraine in the years 1992-2020 witch a short-term prediction until 2027. The analysis covered the following variables: area harvested, share in arable land, yield and production. The analysis showed that plant production in Ukraine in 1992-2020 was characterized by a significant growth dynamics. This was especially true for yields of wheat and potato and cultivation area, yields and production of grain maize, rape, sunflower and soybean. On the other hand, the cultivation area and production of sugar beet, barley, buckwheat, rye and oats were decreased. Moreover, the tendencies of changes taking place in the discussed years allowed us to conclude that the importance of Ukraine in this respect will increase. However, the war in this country will reduce the production of the species in question.