Areas of Activization of Marketing Activity of Small and Medium-Sized Agricultural Enterprises of Ukraine in the Context of Administrative-Territorial Reform

In modern conditions, for small and part of the average Ukrainian agricultural commodity producers, the main and predominantly single component of the marketing complex remains the commodity policy, which is formed under conditions of incomplete retrospective information on the state of the market. The purpose of the article is to assess the possibilities of activation and increase of the efficiency of marketing activity of small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises of Ukraine in the context of administrative-territorial reform. Methodological basis of the research is analysis, system approach, dialectical method of scientific knowledge, fundamental positions of modern economic theory, marketing, concept of strategic management, scientific works of leading scientists-economists, devoted to research of problems of management of marketing activity of agricultural commodity producers. The results of the study show that the only way small and medium-sized farms can compete with big ones is to collaborate with each other to implement the concept of collective marketing. World practice shows the prevalence and effectiveness of functioning in the agrarian sector of cooperative structures that take on a significant part of marketing functions. In Ukraine, the process of combining agricultural commodity producers into cooperatives is slow and not widely spread due to institutional and subjective reasons, the main ones being the lack of mutual trust and the lack of experience and information on the benefits of cooperation. The scientific novelty of the research is to substantiate the proposals on the feasibility of creating agricultural commodity producers, which are one united territorial community of a single organizational structure – a marketing coordination center. The practical value of the study is to calculate the cost estimates for the creation and maintenance of the functioning of the marketing focal point and the development of its recommended organizational structure with the allocation of functional responsibilities of employees. A promising direction for further research is to find out the potential role of local authorities in coordinating the marketing activities of agricultural producers.