Statistical Evaluation of Households Activities in the Agricultural Sector: Contradictions and Ways to Overcome Them

Abstract

The role and importance of the households’ participation in the agricultural sector in Ukraine are analyzed by use of retrospective time series. Effects of agrarian and land reforms on the development of agricultural sector in Ukraine are assessed. It is shown that due to the households’ participation in agricultural production, the domestic agricultural sector could maintain and even increase the gross agricultural output. Households engaged in the agricultural sector in the Carpathian macro-region (Western Ukraine) now provide more than 80-90% of the output of vegetables, potatoes, fruit, dairy products, wool etc. Special attention is paid to the participation of the households in transformation-specific events in the agricultural sector, like denationalization, privatization and sharing the land fund of former agricultural enterprises. The study confirms that the theoretical and methodological background used for denationalization, land sharing and privatization was and remains imperfect.

Free distribution of agricultural lands to almost everyone who wished was not favorable to the establishment of advanced land management in small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises and households. Moreover, the land plots were given into possession of the peasants who were incapable to ensure their proper use, improvement, conservation and protection. Results of the analysis give the author grounds to propose grouping of household farms (into three groups) for statistical evaluation purposes.

The first and the second group should cover the farms that are actually or potentially capable to organize reproduction of privatized land by implementing advanced technologies, have sufficient financial and human resources, can ensure a high level of marketability of agricultural products. The third group should include household farms that are totally incapable of providing adequate use and protection of land in the near future. The author’s recommendations are as follows: general inventorying of the land fund owned and exploited by households; when land owners or users were not or would not be capable to properly use and protect the land plots, the latter should be withdrawn from them and given to the households capable to do this. The possibility of cultivation, maintenance, improvement and protection of land in accordance with the requirements for organization of advanced land and market oriented economy should be the background of the land use including privatized one.