Analysis of land reforms that have occurred in the world during the last century, leads to an important conclusion: land relations in the agricultural sector are not seen as a self-sufficient economic and legal category, but as a foundation for the whole agricultural policy. The international science and practice recognize, as the main analytical tool and method for the development of agricultural policies worldwide, the concept of agricultural multifunctionality. The multiple (economic, social and environmental) purpose of agriculture is ensured by adequate principles of land relations. The second "foundation" of the land reforms are the features of the agricultural land as a basis of agrobiocenosis, which is a complex natural and economic system, whose efficient management can be performed professionally trained people who have a direct relationship with the object of management.
The above mentioned arguments together necessitate a specific approach to the distribution and use of agricultural land and selection of the type of economic management that would meet the purpose and characteristics of agricultural land. In the international legislative practice, such approaches include: the legal codification of the right to purchase (lease) of an agricultural plot areas for individuals residing in the territory where the plot is located; the obligation to work directly on the farm; qualification requirements for buyers (tenants) of land; prohibition or restriction to purchase (lease) land for the foreigners; codification of the minimum and maximum sizes of farms; preferential loans for the purchase of land by farmers; introduction of incentives for creating associations of small land owners (tenants) for joint cultivation of land; regulation of pricing and defining the sizes of the rent payment and so on.
In Ukraine the land reform has virtually exhausted itself with the distribution of and privatization of land plots (shares). The reformers are unwilling to recognize either the multi-purpose character of the agriculture and land as its basic element, or the importance of individual (family, cooperative) type of agrarian management, which as proven by the international practice, is the most suitable for agriculture. Such an actitud, together with the absence of the rules of the turnover of agricultural land and other regulations in land use, has caused a series of economic, social and environmental issues that are becoming moreincreasingly dangerous for our society.
Lack of restrictions on land use caused a rapid formation of two opposite and equally harmful to the village land use models: the latifundy-oligarchic and the parcel ones. Concentration hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in the agri-industrial-financial companies, their transition to monocrop production crowded out about 2 million people from the agriculture. Abandonement of crop rotation, use of surface technologies, lack of substitution of the nutrients taken from the soil with the harvest (in order to increase profits) all have caused a degradation of soils and their reduced fertility. The soil scientists confirm that the agroecological situation in Ukraine is in a pre-crisis state.
Against that background, shady deals with land, and raiding are thriving.
Small farms have become neglected by the state as unpromising and can hardly provide, in the competitive environment, an efficient land-use and effective employment of their members.
The situation requires, before the expiration of the moratorium on sale of agricultural land, to institutionalize the rules for their turnover and use based on international, especially Western experience, in order to overcome the above mentioned and other negative phenomena that have become deeply rooted in the "fab-ric" of land relations in the domestic agricultural sector.

Keywords: land reform, strategic goals, the land specifics, multifunctionality of agriculture, land use pat-terns, land degradation, turnover of agricultural land, socio-ecological orientation of the land market

Analysis of land reforms that have occurred in the world during the last century, leads to an important conclusion: land relations in the agricultural sector are not seen as a self-sufficient economic and legal category, but as a foundation for the whole agricultural policy. The international science and practice recognize, as the main analytical tool and method for the development of agricultural policies worldwide, the concept of agricultural multifunctionality. The multiple (economic, social and environmental) purpose of agriculture is ensured by adequate principles of land relations. The second "foundation" of the land reforms are the features of the agricultural land as a basis of agrobiocenosis, which is a complex natural and economic system, whose efficient management can be performed professionally trained people who have a direct relationship with the object of management.
The above mentioned arguments together necessitate a specific approach to the distribution and use of agricultural land and selection of the type of economic management that would meet the purpose and characteristics of agricultural land. In the international legislative practice, such approaches include: the legal codification of the right to purchase (lease) of an agricultural plot areas for individuals residing in the territory where the plot is located; the obligation to work directly on the farm; qualification requirements for buyers (tenants) of land; prohibition or restriction to purchase (lease) land for the foreigners; codification of the minimum and maximum sizes of farms; preferential loans for the purchase of land by farmers; introduction of incentives for creating associations of small land owners (tenants) for joint cultivation of land; regulation of pricing and defining the sizes of the rent payment and so on.
In Ukraine the land reform has virtually exhausted itself with the distribution of and privatization of land plots (shares). The reformers are unwilling to recognize either the multi-purpose character of the agriculture and land as its basic element, or the importance of individual (family, cooperative) type of agrarian management, which as proven by the international practice, is the most suitable for agriculture. Such an actitud, together with the absence of the rules of the turnover of agricultural land and other regulations in land use, has caused a series of economic, social and environmental issues that are becoming moreincreasingly dangerous for our society.
Lack of restrictions on land use caused a rapid formation of two opposite and equally harmful to the village land use models: the latifundy-oligarchic and the parcel ones. Concentration hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in the agri-industrial-financial companies, their transition to monocrop production crowded out about 2 million people from the agriculture. Abandonement of crop rotation, use of surface technologies, lack of substitution of the nutrients taken from the soil with the harvest (in order to increase profits) all have caused a degradation of soils and their reduced fertility. The soil scientists confirm that the agroecological situation in Ukraine is in a pre-crisis state.
Against that background, shady deals with land, and raiding are thriving.
Small farms have become neglected by the state as unpromising and can hardly provide, in the competitive environment, an efficient land-use and effective employment of their members.
The situation requires, before the expiration of the moratorium on sale of agricultural land, to institutionalize the rules for their turnover and use based on international, especially Western experience, in order to overcome the above mentioned and other negative phenomena that have become deeply rooted in the "fab-ric" of land relations in the domestic agricultural sector.

Keywords: land reform, strategic goals, the land specifics, multifunctionality of agriculture, land use pat-terns, land degradation, turnover of agricultural land, socio-ecological orientation of the land market

Assimilation of regularities of the development of cooperative movement becomes particularly relevant in the conditions of the globalization of economic processes, and concentration of economic power in the hands of large capitalist companies, which compete with small and medium-sized commodity producers only due to their unification on cooperative principles. In the world of practice, there are about 750 thousand cooperative structures, whose members and users of the services are more than 800 million people. Most of them account for Asia (63%), the EU - 22%, and North and South America - 13%.
Cooperatives occupy a significant part of the product markets of milk and finished dairy products, livestock and meat, grain, fruit and vegetable and other types of agricultural products. In China, 60% of all agricultural products are sold through cooperatives on domestic and foreign markets. A significant place is occupied by cooperatives in the markets of material, technical, financial resources, and technological, information and other services.
Stability and longevity of cooperatives are due to their peculiarities: they provide the agricultural producers with cheaper, compared with commercial structures, services, which increases their competitiveness; the principles of the cooperatives' operation open to their members the same conditions for access to goods and services and the same benefits, which is one of the most important social aspects; the presence on the market of nonprofit cooperatives prevents the monopolistic rise in prices for goods by large capitalist trading companies, which broadens the access to consumer goods for low-income population and confirms the socio-humanistic nature of cooperatives.
The multi-functional importance of cooperatives for small and medium-sized businesses is recog-nized by the international community. In Ukraine, such units produce from 65 to 95% of labor-intensive types of food, ensuring the formation of almost 2/3 of the nomenclature of the consumer food basket. However, the development of agricultural co-operation has not become an integral part in the reform program of the agrarian sector. There is no strategy for the development of cooperatives and their associations. Only over half of the registered more than a thousand cooperatives are really functioning. And even these figures are not quite accurate, since official statistics do not keep a record of service cooperatives and their activities.
The constraining factors for the development of cooperatives are the imperfect cooperative legis-lation, which greatly complicates, and in many cases makes it impossible to form agricultural cooperative units; the lack of economic mechanisms for their support at the stage of formation and in the process of functioning, such as the transfer of realty facilities from state and communal property to cooperatives on the principles of preferential rent with further buy-out or free-of-charge, which is common practice in many countries; granting cooperatives the right to participate in preferential lending programs; re-orientation of NJSC "Ukragroleasing" to servicing cooperatives and their mem-bers; and promoting the development of the national network of rural credit unions and cooperative agricultural cooperatives.
In order to provide the rural population and specialists with knowledge, the organization of coop-erative universal education is necessary, and the system of agricultural education should include programs for the transfer of systemic cooperative knowledge to specialists. Research on the development of agricultural servicing cooperatives in the context of globalization processes should be expanded. The bodies of state administration of agriculture need to include units that would deal with the development of agricultural co-operation.
Thus Ukraine needs to implement a large scientific and methodological, legislative, organization-al and managerial work to implement the world practice of promoting the development of agricultural co-operation in the context of growing competitive challenges for small and medium-sized agricultural producers as a factor in their preservation and successful functioning in the context of deepening globalization.

Keywords: cooperative, globalization, economic self-defense, social development, humanism in economic relations, state support

The article presents a brief retrospective of the origin and development of the idea of multifunctionality of agriculture in the EU countries and the world practice, granting this idea (by the UN and European Union documents) the official institutional status of a tool for formulating a policy of sustainable agricultural development and using this tool in the practice of the EU member states. The author determines the legal, financial, institutional and intellectual means of implementing the sustainable agricultural development policies developed on the basis of the multifunctional purpose of the industry. Using the example of France, analyzed the algorithm of institutionalization of the concept of multifunctionality of the agriculture as a basis for the functioning of the agricultural system. Highlighted the practice of concluding agreements between farmers and the state, which contain the obligations of the parties to promote economic, social, and environmentally-oriented agricultural development.
The author argues the significance of the introduction of the European algorithm for transforming the concept of multifunctional agriculture into a tool for the development of domestic agricultural policy, taking into account the proliferation of destructive processes in the industry, generated by its focus on output growth and profit maximization without considering social losses and ecological price of this growth (land degradation, monocropping, broken crop rotation and agrolandscapes, reduction of certain labor-intensive industries, emergence of the threat of food dependence in certain types of food, rising unemployment and desolated villages). This is a consequence of the non-recognition by domestic scientific and governmental structures of the multifunctionality status of agriculture, implemented by Western European countries in the legal field, and, accordingly, the absence of any state influence towards the transition to a model of sustainable agricultural development.
In this context, the article formulates various tasks in the field of science and practice that need to be implemented to bring the structure and content of domestic agricultural policy in line with the economic and socio-ecological guidelines of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, which follows from the obligations stipulated by the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union.

Keywords:multifunctionality, sustainable development, institutional framework, agrarian policy, farm contract