Rural Population and the Agricultural Economy Sector of Ukraine – Pre-War Assessment

Abstract

Agriculture has always been a leading occupation for the inhabitants of Ukraine. Ukraine's agriculture is an important source of livelihood for about 13 million Ukrainians living in rural areas, as, despite the fact, that about two-thirds of agricultural production is produced by enterprises, rural households produce about 32% of food. Despite the availability of modern and complicated machinery and technologies, inhabitants of the rural settlements are still the main driving force of the agricultural economy sector development. The goals of the research are to work out the recommendations for Ukraine for the post-war rebuilding of its agricultural economy sector, drawing them up from the answers to the following scientific questions: what the dynamics and changes of the definite agricultural economy sector of Ukraine indicators are during 12 pre-war years - from 2010 to 2021 included, whether the rural population size is correlated with the said indicators and, if it is, how strong the correlation is, how the worked out patterns can help rebuild Ukraine in the postwar period. In order to conduct the research, ensuring the most robust results possible, different methods and tools of scientific research were used in it, including empirical, comparative, univariate, statistical, and time series analyses, a correlation research design, as well as textual, tabular and graphical methods of data presentation, etc. According to the research results, the following segments of the Ukrainian agricultural economy sector are correlated, like: rural population  - agricultural products output, rural population  - agro-food exports and agricultural products output - agro-food exports.