Baltic Journal of Economic Studies  

170

Vol. 8 No. 5, 2022

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms 
of the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0

1 National Scientific Center "Institute of beekeeping named after P. I. Prokopovich", Ukraine (corresponding author)
E-mail: senchuktanya.bee@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5272-8947
ResearcherID: ABJ-4760-2022
2 National Scientific Center "Institute of beekeeping named after P. I. Prokopovich", Ukraine
E-mail: igor.pelyuhnya@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4330-2722
3 National Scientific Center "Institute of beekeeping named after P. I. Prokopovich", Ukraine
E-mail: vitaliiadidenko14@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5947-2307

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30525/2256-0742/2022-8-5-170-175

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT  
OF THE UKRAINIAN BEEKEEPING INDUSTRY

Tetiana Senchuk1, Ihor Peliukhnia2, Vitaliia Didenko3

Abstract. The results of an interdisciplinary systematic study of sustainable development of beekeeping in  
order to improve its institutional support are highlighted. The state documents (laws, concepts, strategies)  
concerning the development of agriculture and beekeeping are analyzed. It was found that the existing 
institutional support for the development of beekeeping is insufficient to fully realize the potential of the  
industry. The international criteria of sustainable development and their application to agriculture and  
beekeeping industry of Ukraine are generalized. The role of beekeeping in the implementation of the  
Sustainable Development Goals of Ukraine until 2030 is substantiated. The factors and conditions influencing the 
development of beekeeping and improvement of its production capacities are studied. It is proved that many 
problems can be overcome by improving the system of state regulation of the industry and creating sufficient 
institutional support. For the first time, criteria and a system of indicators for sustainable development of  
beekeeping have been developed, which are grouped into 7 blocks: state regulation / management; education, 
education and science; material, technical and financial support; primary production and processing of  
products; market and sales of products; food safety, veterinary support, epizootic welfare; environment and 
biodiversity. The formulated goals, criteria and indicators of sustainable regional development of beekeeping  
will improve the system of institutional support of the industry and develop a monitoring system to assess  
its progress and development. 

Key words: economy, legislation, institutional framework, sustainable development criteria, agriculture.

JEL Classification: O13, О43, Q01, Q18

1. Introduction
Beekeeping is closely related to many industries,  

as it occupies a specific intersectoral position in 
agricultural production: as an agricultural sector, 
beekeeping is an integral part of animal husbandry,  
at the same time, bees are among the main pollinators 
of entomophilous crops, contributing to the solution  
of agro-economic and environmental problems. 
Moreover, it is one of the few industries that creates  
and multiplies the final product, both its own and 
related industries, with almost no negative impact  
on the environment (Lisohurska et al., 2022).

The beekeeping industry of Ukraine has several 
problematic issues: low competitiveness of domestic 
producers due to non-compliance with European 
quality standards, lack of harmonized legislation on 

production, which also undermines the foundations  
of sustainable development of beekeeping, the  
problem of under-pollination of plants of natural  
and cultural flora of many regions of Ukraine due 
to a certain deficit in pollinating insects, including  
honey bees. As a result, the decrease in crop yields  
due to under-pollination. In addition, deterioration of 
the ecological state of the environment and violation  
of ecological requirements for growing crops leads to 
mass poisoning of bees by insecticides and pesticides.

Many scientists have studied the problems of 
beekeeping development in Ukraine (Karpenko et 
al., 2019; Dudar et al., 2021). In their works the main 
attention is paid to the issues of breeding, keeping  
and breeding of bees, control of major diseases and 
pests, improving the technology of keeping, wandering 



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Vol. 8 No. 5, 2022 
and wintering of bees, improving the production  
of bee products, developing drugs for apitherapy. 
However, the problems of choosing the most effective 
market-oriented institutions that would ensure 
sustainable regional development of beekeeping 
in Ukraine based on the optimal combination of  
economic, environmental and social aspects remain 
insufficiently researched. 

Thus, the complex of problems that have accu- 
mulated in the industry does not allow it to develop 
effectively, and the existing mechanisms of industry 
management do not allow solving these problems.  
In this regard, it is of particular relevance to substan-
tiate the main directions of improving the efficiency 
of beekeeping, ensuring the harmonization of 
legislation, the development of regulations governing 
social relations in the field of regional (and national) 
development of beekeeping and the formation of 
a mechanism for its development on the principles  
of sustainability (Shvorak, Filiuk, 2021).

2. Elaboration of strategies and goals  
for sustainable development of Ukraine

One of the priorities of the state regional policy, 
according to the Law of Ukraine "On the Basics  
of the State Regional Policy ", is to stimulate and  
support local initiatives for the effective use of 
the internal potential of the regions to create and  
maintain a full-fledged living environment, improve  
the quality of life of people (Law of Ukraine "On the 
Basics of State Regional Policy ", 2015).

Implementation of the state regional policy is  
carried out on the basis of a system of interrelated 
documents based on the Development Strategy of 
Ukraine, the General Scheme of Planning of the 
Territory of Ukraine, planning schemes of territories  
at the regional and local levels (State regional  
development strategy for 2021–2027; Materials  
of the General Planning Scheme of the Territory 
of Ukraine, 2002). The elaboration of regional 
development strategies is carried out taking into 
account the development strategies of cities, towns 
and villages, strategic priorities for the development 
of districts of the respective region. Implementation 
of regional development strategies and action plans 
for their implementation is carried out taking into 
account the strategic development goals of the  
region and provides for the incorporation of the 
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and  
indicators for their measurement into regional 
strategies and plans for their implementation, as  
well as comprehensive measurement of the impact 
of planned activities, projects and programs on 
the achievement of the SDGs at the regional level. 
The State Strategy for Regional Development until 
2027 envisages the implementation of tasks to ensure 

the implementation of the SDGs at the regional 
and local levels, which should be integrated into the 
processes of forming relevant horizontal (sectoral 
programs and strategies) and vertical (at the basic, 
subregional, regional and macro-regional levels,  
as well as at the level of inter-municipal cooperation) 
policies (State regional development strategy for  
2021–2027 and action plan for its implementation, 
2020). On the way to ensuring sustainable deve-
lopment (SD) for the people of Ukraine, it is  
necessary to fulfill two important tasks: to create 
an institutional mechanism and to implement the  
SDGs at the level of regions and local hromadas 
(Kormych et al., 2022).

Ensuring sustainable development of all compo-
nents of the socio-economic system is important for 
Ukraine today, especially in the context of European 
integration (Buriak et al., 2022). The issue of  
sustainable development has its history in the  
political life of the European Union. Significant  
progress in the implementation of the strategy is 
demonstrated by some EU members, in particular 
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (A handbook  
Localising sustainable development goals (SDGs)  
in the Baltic Sea Region, 2020). Taking into account  
the fact that Ukraine is a candidate for EU member- 
ship, studying the experience of these countries  
should be of great practical interest for Ukraine.

Consumer attitude to natural resources, attempts 
to achieve the highest economic effect today, despite 
the damage caused to the environment, have led to 
the depletion, degradation, violation of the quality 
of natural resources, especially soils, deterioration 
of health and living conditions of the population.  
One of the unique qualities of agriculture is that 
agricultural production is linked to renewable  
resources. It is clear that, like other resource-
intensive sectors of the economy, agriculture faces 
a number of conflicts between economic, social and 
environmental aspects (Melnychuk, 2014; Pasemko et 
al, 2020). Therefore, the transition to the principles of  
sustainable development, taking into account 
international criteria, is a necessary requirement 
of today (Herasymiv, 2016; Fraier, 2018, Lipskyi  
et al., 2021).

3. Implementation of sustainable  
development goals in beekeeping

After analyzing the 17 goals of the SD, given  
in the Decree of the President of Ukraine, in order 
to determine in the implementation of which the 
beekeeping industry can participate, 5 such goals  
were found:

Goal 1 – Overcoming poverty: beekeeping provides 
food (primarily honey), and everyone can be engaged 
in beekeeping;



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Goal 2 – Overcoming hunger, achieving food  

security, improving nutrition and promoting  
sustainable agriculture. Beekeeping contributes  
to the achievement of food security, honey bees  
pollinate entomophilous crops, orchards and  
berries. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve  
sustainable agricultural development without 
beekeeping;

Goal 3 – Ensuring a healthy lifestyle and promoting 
well-being for all at all ages. All bee products  
(honey, propolis, bee sting, feather, wax, royal 
jelly, etc.) have healing properties and are used to  
strengthen the body, increase overall resistance and 
treat and prevent many diseases. Bee products are 
used in the pharmaceutical and perfumery industries. 
Nowadays a separate scientific and practical direction  
of medicine – apitherapy – is successfully developing. 

Goal 8 – Promote sustained, inclusive and  
sustainable economic growth, full and productive 
employment and decent work for all. To do this,  
it is necessary to establish training and retraining  
of the unemployed, giving them the necessary  
minimum knowledge and practical skills for beekeeping. 

Goal 15 – Protection and restoration of terrestrial 
ecosystems and promotion of their sustainable 
use, sustainable forest management, combating 
desertification, halting and reversing (reversing) 
land degradation and halting biodiversity loss. Bees 
pollinating entomophilous plants contribute to 
the conservation of biodiversity and sustainability 
of ecosystems. It should be noted that the role of  
honey bees in plant pollination in ecosystems is 
increasing due to the rapid decline of "wild" pollinators.

4. Problems of the Ukrainian  
beekeeping industry

Today, Ukrainian beekeeping has accumulated a lot 
of problems that can lead to a decline in the production 
of beekeeping products and export of honey to 
other countries, where Ukraine has made significant  
progress in recent years. This problem was understood  
not only by beekeepers and scientists. The authorities 
also began to talk about it (Green book on honey  
market regulation, 2018). Serious preparatory work 
was carried out for 2 years, as a result of which in 
January 2021 an order of the Ministry of Economic 
Development, Trade and Agriculture "On some 
issues in beekeeping" was published. Also, a working 
group of specialists and representatives of public 
organizations was created to prepare a new draft  
law on the development of beekeeping, which  
included scientists of the National Scientific Center 
"Institute of beekeeping named after P.I. Prokopovich". 
The working group formulated a list of the main 
problems of the Ukrainian beekeeping industry:
– lack of effective state financial support for the industry;
– low technological culture of production and 
processing of products, its packaging, lack of industrial 
technologies;
– reduction of entomophilic crops and insufficient use 
of bees for their pollination;
– deterioration of the ecological state of the environ-
ment and violation of technological requirements 
for the treatment of entomophilic agricultural plants 
with pesticides and pesticides and as a result – mass 
poisoning of bees;
– insufficient veterinary support, which leads to 
uncontrolled spread of bee diseases;
– lack of a harmonized legislative framework for the 
production and quality of the industry 's products  
and, as a result, difficulties in realizing the export 
potential of the industry.

In connection with the introduction of state support 
for beekeeping – the provision of subsidies for bee 
colonies, beekeepers began to more actively register 
their apiaries. According to the register (Register of 
apiaries of Ukraine, 2021), which was compiled to 
provide subsidies for bee colonies, there are about 
2.4 million bee families and 49 thousand apiaries  

Table 1
Data of the register of apiaries of Ukraine by regions 
(as of 01.10.2022)

Oblast
Number 

of apiaries 
registered

Number 
of apiaries 
eliminated

Number 
of apiaries 

in total

Number 
of bee 

colonies
Vinnytsia 3137 4 3141 204313
Volyn 969 0 969 29687
Dnipropetrovsk 3190 1 3191 138069
Donetsk 1352 0 1352 99769
Zhytomyr 806 0 806 36215
Zakarpattia 1054 0 1054 93283
Zaporizhzhia 3252 3 3255 130662
Ivano-Frankivsk 2228 1 2229 99094
Kyiv 1462 1 1463 56501
Kirovohrad 3916 7 3923 216118
Luhansk 1954 3 1957 103823
Lviv 2158 0 2158 84886
Mykolaiv 3101 9 3110 137204
Odesa 2788 0 2788 160321
Poltava 2047 0 2047 107067
Rivne 1052 1 1053 33082
Sumy 2418 1 2419 119803
Ternopil 1714 12 1726 69656
Kharkiv 2048 1 2049 104934
Kherson 1400 0 1400 50307
Khmelnytskyi 2186 7 2193 111438
Cherkasy 2443 0 2443 102666
Chernivtsi 1004 0 1004 77987
Chernihiv 1404 0 1404 56536
Kyiv (city) 16 0 16 848
Total 49083 51 49134 2423421

Source: Data of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine



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in Ukraine (Table 1). These data are approximate 
estimates of the number of bee colonies, as not all 
beekeepers applied for subsidies.

Currently, the main attention of the state is  
paid to the legislation in beekeeping, conducting 
nationwide registration of apiaries and beekeepers, 
preservation of native bees and involvement of  
science in breeding work.

According to the State Register of subjects of  
breeding in animal husbandry, 32 apiaries have the  
status of breeding farms in Ukraine: 21 of them are 
breeding apiaries, 9 – bee nurseries and 2 – breeding 
plants. 

5. The essence of criteria and indicators  
of sustainable development of beekeeping

Assessment of Sustainable Development is 
multidimensional in nature, therefore, the assessment 
of the real state of the industry, factors of influence  
and their dynamics requires comprehensive  
measures to develop appropriate criteria and 
indicators – indicators of SD, reflecting the social, 
economic and environmental aspects of this 
development.

Among a large number of SD indicators that 
characterize the state of a certain sphere, it is  
necessary to choose those that can be used for 
quantitative and qualitative assessment of the state  
of the environmental, social and economic  
environment without using a large amount of  
statistical information. At the same time, the  
indicators must meet such criteria as validity,  
sensitivity to changes, reliability, quantitatively and 
qualitatively reflect all the main details of the state  
of the environment, social and economic spheres  
and ensure the promotion of the beekeeping industry 
to the SD.

Based on the results of the study of the problems  
and factors influencing the state of beekeeping in 
Ukraine, as well as the analysis of the collected 
information, a methodological framework and a  
system of criteria and indicators of the SR of  
beekeeping were developed on the basis of  
modifying the evaluation system (set of indicators); 
redistribution of indicators by areas (goals,  
objectives); assessment of the relevance of indicators; 
adjustment of the scale of measurement of variables.

The developed system of indicators and measures is 
grouped into 7 blocks (Figure 1), by environmental, 

ENVIRONMENT /
BIODIVERSITY

4 criteria,
18 indicators

STATE 
REGULATION

/GOVERNMENT/
INSTITUTIONS

3 criteria,
10 indicators

EDUCATION/
SCIE NCE
2 criteria,

10 indicators

MATERIAL AND 
TECHNICAL/
FINANCIAL
SECURITY
3 criteria,

12 indicators

PRIMARY
PRODUCTION/
PROCESSING

4 criteria,
12 indicators

MARKET/
SALE OF 

BEEKEEPING 
PRODUCTS 

(GOODS) 
AND BEE 

POLLINATION 
SERVICES
4 criteria,

16 indicators

FOOD SAFETY /
VETERINARY /

EPIZOOTIC
WELFARE
3 criteria,

13 indicators

Figure 1. System of criteria and indicators for assessing 
the ecological, sociological and economic state of the SD beekeeping 

Source: (Peliukhnia, 2022)



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social and economic components, according to 
generally accepted international practices:
1) State regulation/management – to improve the 
management system of the beekeeping industry, 
to make the management system favorable for the 
development of the industry, to create an econo- 
mically favorable environment and conditions for 
beekeeping, to provide guarantees for the observance  
of the rights and protection of the interests of  
individuals and legal entities engaged in beekeeping; 
2) education, enlightenment and science – to form 
people's understanding of the role of bees in solving 
the food problem, providing raw materials for the 
pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry, and most 
importantly, awareness of the pollination role of 
bees to ensure the yield of entomophilic crops and 
conservation of wildlife biodiversity; to form a  
cohort of professionals for the beekeeping industry;  
to carry out scientific support of the beekeeping 
industry with the development and implementation  
of innovative technologies; 
3) material, technical and financial support – to  
provide sufficient material, technical and financial 
support for the development of beekeeping to  
obtain the required volume of bee products and 
to achieve the number of bee colonies that will be 
sufficient for full pollination of agricultural and wild 
entomophiles; 
4) primary production and processing of products –  
to create favorable conditions for the primary 
production and processing of bee products, the  
creation of cooperatives and other structures for this 
purpose;
5) market and sales of products – to create  
favorable conditions on the market for the sale of  
bee products for producers; 
6) food safety, veterinary support, epizootic  
welfare – to create favorable conditions for the  
veterinary and epizootic welfare of bee families  
and ensure food safety of consumers of bee products; 
7) Environment and biodiversity – protection of  
local (native) bee populations and their habitats. 

The adopted system corresponds to the essence 
of environmental, social and economic assessment  
of the level of sustainable development as a  
dynamic structure that is consistently deployed.  
The sustainability of such a system is implemented  
on the principle of taking into account the weight  
and impact of each link. 

To ensure the goals and objectives of sustainable 
development, the minimum and maximum  
quantitative values of the relevant basic indicators  
are statistical indicators, indicators calculated by 
direct or indirect methods using official public  
sources of information and data for which it is  
possible to determine such indicators, indicators 
determined on the basis of expert judgments 

and sustainability benchmarks justified for the  
regional level.

For integral convolution there are additive and 
multiplicative forms of the integral index, each of  
which has its advantages and disadvantages. An 
important stage of the integral assessment is the 
normalization of indicators and their threshold  
values. The procedure of normalization of indicators 
and their thresholds is a necessary step in the 
calculation of the integral index, since different 
indicators have different dimensions. Moreover,  
they can be multidirectional: there are indicators  
whose increase is desirable, others whose decrease 
is desirable. The normalization procedure, firstly, 
transforms the indicators of different dimensions into 
dimensionless values in the range [0, 1], and secondly, 
makes it possible to compare multidirectional indicators.

Obviously, each component and indicator has its 
own influence on the integral index, so it is necessary 
to take into account the weights. Moreover, the  
weights are not constant over time, so it is necessary  
to calculate dynamic weights.

Such an integrated assessment of sustainable 
development will reflect the degree to which the 
beekeeping industry is moving towards environmental, 
social and economic sustainability.

The defined set of criteria and indicators is not final 
and can be changed and supplemented in accordance 
with current priorities, challenges and opportunities.

6. Conclusions
It was found that the institutional support of the 

Ukrainian beekeeping industry is insufficient. In 
particular, there are no such strategically important 
documents as the nationally approved Sustainable 
Development Concept, the National Sustainable 
Development Strategy, and the National Action Plan. 
But there is the Concept of Sustainable Development  
of Human Settlements, approved by the Resolution  
of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Decem- 
ber 24, 1999. Also, the Sustainable Development 
Goals of Ukraine for the period up to 2030, approved  
by the Decree of the President of Ukraine  
No. 722/2019 of 30.09. 2019.

It is established that one of the most significant 
problems of the industry is the lack of perfect 
harmonized (coordinated) legislation, imperfection  
of by-laws, regulation of relations in the functioning 
of the beekeeping market system. The options for 
improving legislation and by-laws to eliminate existing 
problems are proposed, which can lead to more 
effective development of the beekeeping industry in 
Ukraine. Improving the legislative framework, taking 
into account international experience, is the first step 
towards creating proper institutional support for 
sustainable development of beekeeping in Ukraine.



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Received on: 7th of October, 2022
Accepted on: 25th of November, 2022
Published on: 30th of December, 2022