ANALYSIS OF THE FUNCTIONING TRENDS OF THE VEGETABLE MARKET OF UKRAINE IN THE CONDITIONS OF WAR
Authors: NIKISHYNA O.V. , NOSOVA N.I. , TARAKANOV M.L. 
Published: December 2024

Topicality. The market of vegetable crops is one of the strategic agricultural markets of Ukraine, which ensures its food security. In wartime, market functioning trends changed: product consumption and market capacity decreased, import volumes increased significantly, price volatility increased, problems with long-term storage of crops that had not been resolved in peacetime were actualized. The domestic market of vegetable crops has an unrealized natural resource potential for sustainable development, which is gradually being destroyed in modern conditions. Ukraine remains a net importer of vegetables, which is evidence of inefficient use of its own resource potential and the absence of balanced import substitution mechanisms. The relevance and applied significance of scientific research is determined by its compliance with the main goals and objectives of the "Fruit and Vegetable Ukraine" project of the State Recovery Plan. Aim and tasks. The purpose of the article is to determine the trends and structural and dynamic changes in the Ukrainian vegetable market during the war, as an analytical basis for programmatic and strategic documents of market development. The task of the research: to establish the peculiarities of market reproduction processes and security threats; carry out a comprehensive analysis of structural and dynamic changes in export-import supplies of the main types of vegetable crops in peacetime and wartime, the dynamics of the ratio of import to export coverage; conduct an analysis of the basic indicators of vegetable production in Ukraine and the Southern macroregion; justify the influence of military actions on the functioning of the vegetable market. Materials and Methods. The results of the theoretical generalization of scientific works in the direction of monitoring and diagnosis of the vegetable market of Ukraine, official information data of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the State Customs Service of Statistics of Ukraine, the Main Statistics Offices in the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions form the informational and methodical basis of the study. The following methods were used to solve the tasks: generalization, structural-dynamic and comparative analysis, graphic, synthesis and grouping, statistical. Research results. The study analyzed the trends in the functioning of the strategic vegetable market of Ukraine in wartime conditions. The features of the reproduction processes that form the commodity boundaries of the relevant market and affect the dynamics of its development are determined. The main economic parameters of the market - foreign trade, production, price conditions - in peacetime and wartime are considered. Attention is focused on the peculiarities of structural and geographical changes in export-import supplies of various types of crops during the war period. The main factors of changes in the regional structure of vegetable production and price volatility in war conditions have been established. The impact of military operations on the transformation of the relevant market in terms of structure, production, prices, security, foreign trade parameters is substantiated. Based on the obtained results of the analysis, a stable tendency of import over export of vegetable crops was established both in the pre-war and in the war period. In the conditions of the war, the ratio of import coverage by export decreased by three times (from 0.79 to 0.3 units), which indicates the strengthening of import dependence of the domestic vegetable market. The peculiarity of import supplies of vegetables is their seasonality, the increase of imports in the winter period due to the limited number of vegetable storage facilities. Changes in the territorial boundaries of the relevant market and the regional structure of the production of vegetable crops due to the relocation of commodity producers were studied. A trend of decreasing production volumes and planted areas of vegetables in 2022 was established, which changed in the second war year to a positive trend of growth in the basic indicators of vegetable production. Their dynamics in the southern macro-region of Ukraine were studied. It is emphasized that in conditions of uncertainty and security threats, the price volatility of the vegetable market increases, reducing the economic availability of products for the population. Conclusion. The strategic directions of import substitution in the vegetable market in the post-war period are the construction of greenhouse farms with a year-round production process and modern vegetable warehouses with extended product storage periods. The advantages of such greenhouses are the possibility of harvesting crops throughout the year, selling products during the period of the highest consumer prices, and hiring employees on a permanent basis. The scientific novelty of the conducted research consists in determining, based on the results of the analysis, the key trends in the functioning of the vegetable market in wartime conditions, as an analytical basis for the development of programmatic and strategic documents for the development of the market of vegetable crops in the war and post-war economy of Ukraine.