STRATEGISING THE BUILDING OF AGRICULTURAL SECTOR RESILIENCE POTENTIAL

Abstract

Military hostilities, climate change and turbulent global food markets have made the resilience of Ukraine’s agricultural sector a cross-cutting goal of agricultural policy and post-war recovery. Yet strategic planning documents declare resilience without specifying the directions, mechanisms and institutional conditions for building resilience potential. The article aims to develop methodological foundations for strategising the building of the agricultural sector’s resilience potential, covering strategic directions, implementation mechanisms and directions for overcoming the institutional deficit of resilience. The methodology rests on systemic, evolutionary and institutional approaches, the concepts of adaptive and polycentric governance and scenario foresight. Principles and a recursive algorithm for substantiating strategic directions are formulated. Six mutually consistent directions for building the potential are substantiated, namely diversification and modularity of production and logistics systems, reproduction of natural capital and climate adaptation, risk management and financial resilience, development of rural human and social capital, technological and digital modernisation and early warning, and strengthening of institutional capacity. The potential-building mechanism is described through management regimes (anticipatory, adaptive, anti-crisis), four groups of instruments, an adaptive management cycle with a two-contour indicator system and the distribution of roles among governance levels. The institutional deficit of resilience is defined as a mismatch between institutions and the needs of mobilising and realising the accumulated potential; six of its forms and the corresponding directions for overcoming them are identified. The results can be used in strategic planning of agricultural development, post-war recovery programmes and the alignment of national policy with the requirements of the EU Common Agricultural Policy.