Institutional support for the organic farming development – a conceptual framework

Abstract

Realization of agricultural production complying with the sustainable development principles has resulted in a separate direction – organic farming. Its big difference from all other economy sectors is in its dependence on the natural and climatic conditions. Therefore, agricultural production has a dual nature, namely it depends on the environment health on the one hand, and, on the other hand, directly affects this health through the use of technologies that can both improve and substantially worsen the environmental situation. The institutional support for the organic farming is of great importance. This issue is relevant for scientists from countries, where organic farming is actively developing. In Ukraine, this is also a topical issue. The paper presents a conceptual framework of institutional support for the organic farming development, which includes elements such as state regulation, self-regulation, objects and subjects of organic farming, as well as an organic product market. Legal, informational, infrastructure and financial directions of ensuring the development of organic farming are also defined. The essence of each element is revealed. The main indicators of the organic farming development in Ukraine are analyzed, i.e. the organic farming areas, their proportion in agricultural lands, the number of producers, the volume of the organic market, the volume of organic consumption per capita, as well as the share of domestic organic land in the world's territory. A correlation analysis based on data from the largest world market of the USA made it possible to determine the factors that have the greatest impact on the development of the organic agricultural sector. The number of organic producers is statistically significant, and the share of land in the organic farming does not have a significant impact on the organic product consumption. At the same time, this can be seen from the point of view that the more producers will offer their products, the more saturated the market will be, and therefore the level of the organic products coverage can be greater.