Human factor of agroecological transition: global guidelines for Ukraine
The increasing demand from society for high-quality and healthy food, the reduction of negative environmental impacts, the ensuring of sustainable agricultural and rural development, and the fulfillment of European integration obligations all highlight the urgency of finding ways to transform modern food systems while considering socio-economic consequences. One of the directions for achieving these defined goals is the agroecological transition – a multi-stakeholder transformation occurring both within agricultural production itself and in the system of knowledge generation and dissemination, the formation of new socio-economic relations, and the construction of the institutional framework for this transition. The subject of the study is a person in the system of social relations that are built in the process of agroecological transition. The purpose of the publication is to determine the role of the human factor in agroecological transformations and to outline the directions of increasing its importance in the period of post-war reconstruction and European integration of Ukraine. The method of bibliographic analysis and the system-structural approach were used to summarise the foreign experience of transforming social relations in the process of agroecological transition. The methods of grouping and component analysis were used to assess the range of people who use agroecological practices in agricultural production. Finally, the methods of induction and deduction were used to substantiate the directions of strengthening the human factor to scale up transformations. The findings of the study presented in the article, such as the emphasis on the socio-humanitarian nature of the agroecological transition and the identification of their human component, an attempt to determine the number of people involved in organic production and the implementation of other agroecological practices, are characterized by scientific novelty. The societal significance of agroecological transformations is also emphasised, since new relations express the interests not only of consumers and producers of environmentally friendly products, but also of the whole society, which is able to enjoy the positive impact of agroecology on various spheres of its functioning, in particular the formation of sustainable and inclusive agri-food systems. The authors identify key directions for scaling up the agroecological transition: changes in agricultural production technologies, the formation of a favorable institutional environment for conducting scientific research and disseminating agroecological knowledge, the introduction of economic incentives, the promotion of socio-economic relations in the ‘producer-consumer’ system, and changes in the socio-humanitarian environment of the agroecological transition. These elements, as a system of worldview and value culture for producers and consumers, are key to achieving the economic, social, and ecological goals of sustainable development.
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