Organization and effectiveness of marketing management of agricultural commodity producers under non-cooperative marketing: the experience of Ukraine

Under reducing domestic demand for food in Ukraine and increasing dependence on the world food market, a significant part of quasi-price rent from its sale is assigned by intermediary exporters, thus reducing the welfare of domestic commodity producers and consumers. To mitigate this negative effect, it is necessary to have a carefully designed marketing business strategy. The purpose of this article is to summarize the practice of using the main elements of the marketing complex, analyze the effective management of marketing activities of agricultural producers in Ukraine and determine the main directions for increasing its effectiveness by establishing marketing relations for the product supply. Given the large area of Ukraine and the complexity to obtain monographic data that are not subject to monitoring by the State Statistics Service, the study was conducted using agricultural enterprises of the typical agricultural district, namely Khrystynivka district of Cherkasy region (Ukraine) as an example. It is revealed that the use of marketing tools by agricultural enterprises is limited due to the specifics of commodity products and the managers’ focus on short-term business goals. The analysis of forming and realizing the marketing complex of the district enterprises using the monographic method has shown that enterprises systematically use only elements such as commodity policy and distribution policy, while relying exclusively on retrospective marketing data. Significant increase in the return on marketing costs in the short term can only be achieved if formal or informal associations of commodity producers are formed on a functional-territorial basis. This will create a scale effect and allow each member to reduce transaction costs and get an additional premium. It is proved that while conducting administrative-territorial reform in Ukraine, it is most appropriate to form such associations within the boundaries of the united territorial communities.