Methodological Aspects of Assessing of the Farms’ Competitiveness

The article is devoted to theoretical and methodological aspects of the study of competitiveness of Ukrainian farms. The urgency is due to the growth of social and economic value of national farming as part of agricultural entrepreneurship, and encouraging development of rural areas. The article points to the need to find new methodological approaches to the estimation of productivity of functioning of commodity farms of family-labor type. The aim of the study is to optimize the theoretical-methodological support of the evaluation of the competitiveness of farms. To solve this problem, the author has used the following methods of cognition: abstract-logical - when generalizing scientific approaches to the evaluation of competitiveness of farms, monographic - in the study of the views of scientists on problems of development of domestic farming. The author developed the algorithm of the study of competitiveness of family-labor farms, which is a clear and justifiable sequence of General scientific and special methods of processing information material. Suggested sequence of techniques involves the active application of methods based on expert evaluation of results of economic activities, in particular the SWOT - analysis, cognitive modeling, interviewing, and studying the degree of integration of farming into the system of formal and informal socio-economic relations in the scale of rural territories (stakeholder analysis). The algorithm includes several stages of processing of the information material on the functioning of farms. In the first stage it is necessary to clearly define and differentiate between real and declaratory positions of state institutions to promote competitive development of farming. The second stage involves the study of the state of development of the agricultural sector, actual and potential positions of the organizational-legal structures, which are able to compete with farms for other industries. At the last stage of the study the level of competitiveness of farms, assessment of the prospects for implementation of the designed activities is assumed. The scientific novelty of the proposed algorithm is due to the combination in the research process, aspects of the historical development of the national farming scale a specific region, analysis of utilization of resource potential and particular significance of the investigation methods based on the use of expert opinion.