Agricultural cooperation as a basis for ensuring food and environmental security in Ukraine: legal aspects

The article examines the legal aspects of the agricultural cooperation, which is important for the economic and social development of the state, especially in war and post-war times, as the basis for ensuring food and environmental security in Ukraine. The concepts of «sustainable agriculture», «food security» and «environmental security» are considered. It has been established that at the present stage limited attention is paid to the issue of implementing sustainable agriculture as a priority direction for achieving food and environmental security of Ukraine. It was determined that in order to implement sustainable agriculture, it is necessary to harmonize social, ecological and economic factors in the agrarian sector of the economy of Ukraine, especially in the field of agricultural cooperation. It is emphasized that there is an insufficient level of synergy between the environmental and agrarian policies of the state, environmental factors are not sufficiently integrated into the system of agrarian relations, into cooperative legislation, particularly in the context of the agricultural cooperation. In conditions of European integration processes, the specialized Law of Ukraine «On Agricultural Cooperation» is not fully oriented towards ensuring sustainable agriculture: it does not contain the term «sustainable agriculture» or provisions on environmental protection, food and environmental security. The Law of Ukraine «On Cooperation» also does not cover environmental aspects. In the course of the study, it was substantiated that a necessary condition for the proper implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the introduction of sustainable agriculture in Ukraine in the field of the agricultural cooperation is the strengthening of the legal framework, the creation of an appropriate legal field that will reflect the focus of agricultural cooperation on achieving sustainable agriculture, as well as ensuring food and environmental security. In this context proposals for improving the cooperative legislation of Ukraine are made in the article.