Agroecological Assessment of Suitability of the Steppe Soils of Ukraine for Ecological Farming

The intensive development of industry generates a number of negative consequences, which leads to an ecological crisis. As a result, the soil on which plant products are grown is polluted by radionuclides, heavy metals, pesticides, and chemicals. That is why in the early 1960s, the alternative farming, which is also called biological, biodynamic or organic, began to develop in Europe. The movement for alternative farming is widely developing in industrialized countries with a high level of chemization of agriculture. Therefore, the proposed topic is extremely relevant in terms of rational nature use, ensuring the sustainable development of territories, as well as food security in Ukraine. The article deals with agroecological assessment of suitability of agricultural land of the Steppe Zone of Ukraine for ecological farming and bases on the modern data from the Kherson branch of the state institution “Institute of Soil Protection of Ukraine”. Spatial modeling of the presence of nutrients in the steppe soil of Ukraine was made by the means of ArcGIS 10.1 product. Taking into account the obtained data and spatial modeling, the territories with soils of limited suitability for ecological farming occupy 67.2% (1194.5 thousand hectares) of the Kherson region, unsuitable soils are located on 16.7% (297.4 thousand hectares) of agricultural land of the Steppe Zone of Ukraine and suitable lands were detected on 16.1% (286.2 thousand hectares) of the territory of the studied lands. The conclusion was made that with the actual availability of lands occupied under ecological farming (4.3% or 75.9 thousand hectares), the territory of the Steppe Zone of Ukraine has a prime potential to increase the area under ecological farming by 4.2 times. Therefore, the article paid attention to ecological farming, taking into account the specifics of the content of trace elements in the steppe soils and their compliance with the methodology for determining whether soils belong to the categories of suitable, limited-suitability and unsuitable for ecological farming.