Ukrainian agriculture in times of war: Analysis of support programmes

Agriculture is a leading sector in the Ukrainian economy, providing a significant share of export revenues and guaranteeing the food security of other countries. However, the war with Russia has profoundly challenged the sector, which now faces the following problems: insufficient financial resources to ensure the production of agricultural products; reduced fertiliser use; crisis in animal husbandry sectors; labour shortage; destruction of the infrastructure for production, processing and storage of products; environmental threats; and insufficient attention on the part of the EU to the environmental component in support programmes. Different support programmes have been created to ease the challenges above, and these are analysed by the paper. In light of the country’s prospective EU membership, the paper proposes the following solutions to ensure safe and high-quality production of Ukrainian food: budget financing, effective taxation, a fair price policy, soft loans (in particular for organic farming), grant support, and new subsidy programmes.