AGROCLUSTERS – INNOVATIVE FORM OF DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL TERRITORIES OF UKRAINE

Abstract

Globalization, European integration, the strengthening of international competition as a result of the rapid pace of scientific and technological progress and the intensification of innovation processes require new approaches to the socio-economic development of our country in general and of individual branches of its economy, in particular, agro-industrial complex.

Clusters in the world have been around for a long time. Cluster strategies have become widespread in developed countries of Europe, Asia, America. The agrarian cluster, which is the organizational and legal form of the enterprise, provides for the creation on a limited territory of the principles of partnership, cooperation and specialization of associations, peer-to-peer agricultural companies, agricultural production cooperatives and other enterprises with the preservation of economic and legal independence, where competition is the driving force behind innovation development.

Compared to the world in Ukraine, clusters are something new. However, Chilean wine, Bavarian cars, the Silicon Valley in the US, and the sugar cane in Brazil are all examples of clusters that have thousands in the world. There are more than 2000 clusters in the EU. In the United States, in the early 2000s, 57 % of the country’s full-time job was employed in clusters, and their share in GDP was 61 %. Cluster development programs have over 75 countries.

The practical component of the cluster's creation in Ukraine is complicated by the legislative framework, or rather, its absence. Despite the fact that local and national authorities constantly support the introduction of a cluster approach, virtually any regulatory regulation of the creation and operation of clusters is lacking, as are the lack of financial instruments for state support to clusters. While in countries where clusters operate successfully, 50–70 % of the cluster budget is filled with funds from local and state cluster development support programs. That is why it is difficult for Ukrainian clusters to get started, hoping only for their own strength and support for international technical assistance programs.