Impacts of the global financial and economic crisis upon the agro-food sector of Ukraine’s economy

This paper presents the results of a survey conducted in 2009 on the impacts of the world financial and economic crisis upon the agro-food sector of Ukraine. To identify how the crisis affected the situation and conditions of certain agro-food subsectors, two supply chains were studied: a grain chain that includes supply of material and technical resources to agricultural producers, production of grain (primarily wheat), processing of grain, and trader and retailer activities, and a pig-breeding chain that includes supply of material and technical resources to pig producers (fodder and veterinary products), pork production, pork processing, sale of meat in large lots and in retail trade. The agro-food sector showed some increase in production output and sales even in the critical year of 2009, but the different actors in the supply chain experienced contrasting fortunes. The crisis affected the availability of bank loans, and there was a general trend towards cost-cutting and reduced quality, particularly amongst retail products. We reject the view that protectionist measures could be a solution and put forward a series of recommendations for overcoming the effects of the crisis in Ukraine and for preventing or mitigating the effects of future crises