Structural disproportion of agricultural production in the steppe: internal factors of its formation

Abstract

The largest sown area and the most fertile soils, among all natural and climatic zones, create conditions for dynamic growth in the Steppe's agricultural production. At the same time, the structural disproportion between crop and livestock branches gained over the past thirty years, with a significant decrease in the livestock branch share, is one of the factors that hinder the Steppe zone`s agricultural sector development. Therefore, the issue of detecting deepening structural (branch) disproportion internal factors and measuring their impact on changes in the volume of gross agricultural crop and livestock production in the Steppe zone becomes actual.

The study objective is to detect the main internal factors and measure their impact on the formation of the Steppe zone`s agricultural production branch structure in 2019-2023, as well as to model gross production and the optimal branch structure of the zone until 2050.

While researching it was used methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, historicism, methods of comparative analysis and coefficients as well as regression analysis and dynamic series.

The article is devoted to main internal factors detection that underlie branch disproportion deepening and measuring their impact on changes in the volume of gross agricultural crop and livestock production in the Steppe zone of Ukraine. For this purpose, on the one hand, the formed agricultural production branch structure in Ukraine`s Steppe zone, its crop and livestock product structure were analysed and products that experienced the largest average annual increase/decrease in production were identified. On the other hand, the dynamics of sown (harvested) areas and crop yields, livestock and poultry population and their productivity were studied and analytical calculations were performed to measure internal factors` influence on changes in the volume of the zone`s gross agricultural production.

From a practical point of view, the study results can become the basis for creating programs by state and regional authorities aimed to burst agricultural production in the Steppe zone of Ukraine, directed at eliminating its branch disproportion and providing agricultural production in the Steppe with positive development dynamics.

From the point of view of further exploration prospects in this direction, the materials of the conducted research are the basis for the development and theoretical substantiation of a strategy and action program to achieve a balanced branch structure both at the level of an exact natural and climatic zone and the country as a whole.