Ukraine is abundantly endowed with natural resources suitable for agricultural use. The country has more than 40 million hectares of agricultural area, 80 percent of which is arable land. More than 40 percent of the world's black soils can be found in Ukraine, making agriculture a promising sector of the Ukrainian economy. It is commonly agreed that Ukraine has an enormous agricultural potential
... [Show full abstract] which would allow the country to be a consistent net exporter of farm products under normal condi- tions. However, since the country's independence in the beginning of the nineties, the production of exportable agricultural surpluses has remained rather the exception than the rule. In fact, agricultural supply decreased rapidly since the breakdown of the Soviet Union. The large agricultural companies in particular failed to sustain past production levels, whereas small subsidiary farms run by households with less than two hectares still account for a significant part of the whole agricultural production in Ukraine. Even though Ukraine officially introduced a market economy after independence, the old kolkhozes and sovkhozes remained almost unchanged, while really new agricultural production units rarely emerged. Instead, most of the old managers remained in charge, and regional bureaucrats influ- enced the market as well as decision making on farms, with input delivery and allocation remaining a task of the state. In Ukraine's academic and public debate, however, it is often claimed that the slump in production was a result of worsened terms of trade for farm products within the national economy, the reduction of subsidies, or disrupted market relations with other countries of the former Soviet Un- ion. After the failure of the first reform efforts in the nineties, Ukraine started more substantial farm sector reforms during the government of then Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko in 1999/2000. These re- forms involved a real privatisation of the former state farms, and a withdrawal of the state from eco- nomic micro-management in the farm sector. This paper aims at detecting whether noticeable changes took place after implementation of these reforms. For this purpose a descriptive comparison of re- gional farm data before and after the reforms was conducted. In a first section the situation of agricul-
