FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ECONOMIC AND FOOD SECURITY OF THE AGRI-FOOD SECTOR

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to systematise and characterise the factors influencing the economic and food security of the agri-food sector under modern globalisation, military, socio-economic, demographic and climate-related challenges. The research methodology is based on the use of systemic, factor, structural-logical and cause-and-effect analysis. This methodological approach made it possible to consider food security not as the result of the influence of isolated determinants, but as a complex outcome of the interaction of basic, derivative and integrated factors. The study identifies institutional and regulatory, technological and digital, ecological and climatic, production and resource, economic, socio-demographic, infrastructure and logistics, military-security and global factors. It is substantiated that institutional and regulatory factors form the general rules of functioning of the agri-food system, while technological and digital factors act as catalysts for increasing its efficiency, transparency and adaptability. Ecological and climatic factors determine the natural resource basis of agricultural production; production and resource factors transform this basis into specific volumes of agricultural output; economic and social factors influence the affordability and structure of food consumption; and infrastructure and logistics factors ensure the physical availability of food for the population. Particular attention is paid to military-security factors, which have a destructive multiplier effect on production, logistics, labour resources and food prices, as well as to global factors that shape the external environment of the Ukrainian agri-food sector. The results of the study made it possible to identify integrated second-level factors, including food availability, stability of the agri-food system, efficiency of agricultural production, sustainability, food self-sufficiency, price stability, innovation capacity, food quality and safety, and adaptability. The practical significance of the results lies in the possibility of using the proposed systematisation as an analytical basis for assessing the state of economic and food security, identifying the most vulnerable components of the agri-food system and substantiating managerial decisions aimed at strengthening its resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of current and future challenges