This study examines the impact of agribusiness corporations (large-scale agricultural enterprises) and family farms on the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas in Ukraine, and considers implications for SDG-aligned agri-food value chains that rely on stable access to sustainably produced raw materials. The research applies a multi-criteria decision analysis framework integrating economic, environmental and social indicators at the regional level. Using min–max normalisation, scoring and ranking methods, composite indices of economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and sustainable rural development were constructed for 20 selected Ukrainian regions, and an integral sustainability index was calculated. Spearman’s rank correlation was applied to identify relationships between sustainability indicators and the structural characteristics of agricultural production. The results reveal pronounced interregional differentiation and an overall predominance of economic over environmental sustainability. Regions with a higher share of family farming demonstrate stronger environmental sustainability and more balanced development patterns, whereas dominance of large-scale enterprises is associated with adverse environmental effects. At the same time, relationships between farm structure and sustainable rural development are weak and not statistically significant, suggesting that social sustainability outcomes depend on more complex and context-dependent mechanisms beyond production scale alone. The findings highlight structural trade-offs between economic efficiency and environmental sustainability and underline the importance of regionally differentiated policy instruments. Strengthening support for family farms is identified as a promising mechanism for improving environmental performance and enhancing upstream conditions for sustainability-oriented sourcing and agri-food value chains.
Zolotnytska et al. (2026) studied this question.