Agri-food Complex Development Strategies in Context of Economic and Energy Security

It has been established that the agro-food complex occupies a prominent place in the economy of Ukraine. Here, the number of employees (excluding resources, technological services and trade in food products) is 13.9% of the total. 80% of the country's food needs are formed through its own production. In the commodity structure of national exports, agri-food products account for almost a quarter of the volume (24.3%). A rating list of fuels with the highest priority for individual components of the agri-food complex has been determined. For agriculture, forestry and fisheries, these are diesel fuel and gasoline (84.2% of total amount of fuel). For food production, it is gaseous fuel (natural gas, propane and liquefied butane), the share of which is 76.0%. It has been proved that economic and energy security should be considered as factors of external and internal environment of the agro-food complex. This determines the feasibility of two strategies for the formation of energy security: energy independence strategy and energy saving strategy. Given the overproduction of sugar beets and sugar in Ukraine and the unfavourable market situation on the world markets, it is appropriate to process their surplus into bioethanol and biogas. Since energy saving is a top priority for sugar companies, production of their own biogas will diversify energy sources and optimize energy consumption. Calculations of two versions of design indicators of a biogas plant at a sugar plant have been made (the first one concerns processing of 400 thousand tons of sugar beets annually, the second one has to do with 500 thousand tons). The project analysis has showed that the biogas plant can increase profits 5 times (per 1 ton of processed sugar beets) by producing biogas and converting it into electricity.