The role of human capital in providing smart growth in agriculture

Abstract

Agriculture is a basic sector of the national economics that demonstrates its growth even under the economic crisis. Agriculture is currently of significant social importance since more than 3091.4 thousand people are involved in agricultural production. According to the results of 2014, the share of agriculture was 11.8% of the total gross added value of all economic sectors, and the volume of its products in all categories of enterprises, at current prices, amounted to UAH 370.8 billion. However, having defined the agricultural sector as a "locomotive" of the national economy growth, the value of human resource, along with its knowledge, experience, skills and intelligence, is completely neglected that deepens the current problems of domestic agriculture, causes reduce in agricultural development potential based on economic sustainability, securing structural imbalance, monoproductive export orientation, environmental unjustification of agricultural activity, imbalance of life in rural areas. [1]. According to the World Bank estimations, the share of human capital in the structure of the world national wealth in the early 20th century exceeded 66% and in the EU countries it is over 75%, which exceeds half the accumulated national wealth in the world ($365 trillion) [2]. The role of the process of reproduction of this category has been growing, in Ukraine, particularly, the share of human capital in the structure of national wealth occupies over 47% [3]. This indicates that sustainable agricultural development is impossible without high-quality human capital. To ensure the proper smart growth in the agriculture worldwide, considerable attention is paid to development of mechanisms for qualitative renewal of productive human capital in rural areas, through raising their educational level and practical skills improving. That is, the relationship of economic growth and human development has always been one of the key issues of scientific research.