Institutionalization of the concept of multiple functionality of agriculture: EU experience for Ukraine

The article presents a brief retrospective of the origin and development of the idea of multifunctionality of agriculture in the EU countries and the world practice, granting this idea (by the UN and European Union documents) the official institutional status of a tool for formulating a policy of sustainable agricultural development and using this tool in the practice of the EU member states. The author determines the legal, financial, institutional and intellectual means of implementing the sustainable agricultural development policies developed on the basis of the multifunctional purpose of the industry. Using the example of France, analyzed the algorithm of institutionalization of the concept of multifunctionality of the agriculture as a basis for the functioning of the agricultural system. Highlighted the practice of concluding agreements between farmers and the state, which contain the obligations of the parties to promote economic, social, and environmentally-oriented agricultural development. The author argues the significance of the introduction of the European algorithm for transforming the concept of multifunctional agriculture into a tool for the development of domestic agricultural policy, taking into account the proliferation of destructive processes in the industry, generated by its focus on output growth and profit maximization without considering social losses and ecological price of this growth (land degradation, monocropping, broken crop rotation and agrolandscapes, reduction of certain labor-intensive industries, emergence of the threat of food dependence in certain types of food, rising unemployment and desolated villages). This is a consequence of the non-recognition by domestic scientific and governmental structures of the multifunctionality status of agriculture, implemented by Western European countries in the legal field, and, accordingly, the absence of any state influence towards the transition to a model of sustainable agricultural development. In this context, the article formulates various tasks in the field of science and practice that need to be implemented to bring the structure and content of domestic agricultural policy in line with the economic and socio-ecological guidelines of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, which follows from the obligations stipulated by the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union.