Assessment Of The Environmental Component Of Sunflower Production In Agricultural Enterprises

Introduction. The article highlights the fact that over the past twenty years, sunflower production in Ukraine has increased significantly as a result of the expansion of cultivated areas and an increase in yields. In 2019, the gross harvest of sunflower exceeded 15 million tons, which was an all-time record. At the same time, the authors draw attention to the fact that the rapid spread of sunflowers in the structure of cultivated areas creates significant problems related to the maintenance of soil fertility. The purpose of this article is to assess the level of environmental factor of sunflower production in agricultural enterprises of Kharkiv region. Results. The paper proposes its own methodical approach to assess the environmental factor of production. This approach takes into account the level of actual application of mineral fertilizers according to their various components, as well as organic fertilizers, summarized by the coefficients of mineral and organic fertilizer application rates. Given the level of variability, they form a total fertilizer application rate. It is also proposed to consider the compliance of the actual share of sunflower in the structure of cultivated areas with the normative value through the calculation of the coefficient of the normative area of sunflower. Ultimately, all indicators of the level of environmental factor of sunflower production are combined into one, called the coefficient of environmental friendliness of sunflower production. Approbation of this methodical approach on the example of agricultural enterprises of Kharkiv region according to the data of 2019 allowed the authors to establish the fact that the value of the factor of the environmental factor of sunflower production in the vast majority of enterprises was at 0.11-0.2 (181 enterprises) and 0.21-0.3 146 enterprises). The article notes that compliance with regulatory requirements for planted acreage was slightly better than regulatory requirements for fertilizer application. The authors found a correlation between the coefficient of the environmental factor of sunflower production and the share of the cultivated areas occupied by sunflowers in their total value. Conclusions. Studying the environmental factor of sunflower production, the authors proposed a methodical approach to determine the eco-factor of sunflower production. It allows an objective assessment of the problems associated with compliance with existing requirements for the recovery of nutrients in the soil and crop areas.