Family homestate settlements – a promising direction of society development

Abstract

EN: Problem statement. The village has always been the cradle, bearer and custodian of Ukrainian culture, its traditions and customs. But bearing the burden of change in Ukraine, the village began to decline. At the beginning of 1990 there were 28,804 rural settlements in Ukraine, and at the end of 2021 there were 28,369 villages left. During the period of 1990–2021, the number of rural settlements decreased by 435 units, which is 15 villages per year. The process of extinction of villages has accelerated almost tenfold. The number of large rural settlements is decreasing. 11% of villages were emptied, 714 thousand village yards have no owners. Since 2011, the number of deaths has exceeded the number of births by 80,000. The development of the social sphere of the village has practically stopped. As we can see, during the years of independence, about 400 settlements in rural areas have been removed from the map of Ukraine. Besides, 230 settlements have no population, but documents on their removal from the map of Ukraine aren't prepared according to the established procedure. The state notes that the inventory of agricultural land should identify arable land located on the slopes with an inclination of 3 degrees or more (strongly and moderately eroded); unproductive lands (sandy, strongly acidic saline, saline, flooded, stony, etc.) on which it is economically impractical to grow crops, plowed lands of the hydrographic fund (lands near ponds, reservoirs, streams, rivers). According to the All-Ukrainian Section for the Protection and Rational Use of Lands UkrTOP, there are about 12−13 million hectares of such lands. About 9 million hectares have been allocated, in terms of areas, for the adoption of appropriate soil protection measures. The process of depopulation of unpromising villages, collapse of the rural settlement network, active outflow of young people due to the lack of prospects of living in rural areas, reducing the level of protection of the rural population and maintaining the social infrastructure of the village is accelerating. The number of rural residents is now 14.7 million. Between 1990 and 2020, it decreased by 2.5 million people, including for 2000–2020 − by 1.6 million people. The number of school-age children in rural areas decreased by a third to 1.3 million. According to 2005 statistics, in one in five Ukrainian villages there were no 6-year-old children. Mortality in rural areas is 37 % higher than in urban settlements. 15.5 % of the total number of peasants are below the poverty line