Meat production is one of the most important sectors of the agricultural economy. This is due to consistently high needs of population in developed countries and the growing needs of developing countries. These types of food have high taste and nutritional value and are essential to the human diet. The generator constant increase in demand for precious food, the list of which includes meat, is the growth of world GDP and the national income. So, we can expect the further growing in demand for meat and meat products in a global scale.

The place and role of our country in world meat production is the subject of heated internal debate. After having favorable climatic conditions, with the right resource potential and the perennial experience in the livestock and poultry we lost not only our positions at the global meat market but we even havebecome an import depending country.

The purpose and objectives of the study - to assess the current state of the world meat market and to find out the trends in its development, to determine the place of Ukraine in the target market andtry to predict its appropriate role in the future.

At the global meat market there is a growing trend in production. However, the dynamic in terms of markets meat of cattle, pigs and poultry is heterogeneous. The largest increase is in the bird meat production - + 63.2% over the past 18 years, while in the beef and veal sector has the lowest growth+ 21.5% during the same period. The uneven dynamics of the absolute increments ofdifferent types of meat has led to fundamental changes in the structure of their production. The share of pork in the structure of global meat production is fairly stable and fluctuates at a mark of 43-44%. In return, the share of meat birds increases pro rata the decrease in the share of beef and veal.

The prospect for the meat production development in the agricultural sector of Ukraine depends on what kind of meat livestock industries we are considering. In the sector of beef and veal is logical restore production in areas that have the most favorable conditions for this purpose as the sufficient level of moisture, the natural pastures and the relatively low population density. Such agro-climatic zones are in Polesie and in the northern steppes and the mountainouslandscape of the Carpathians.

At the pork production sector,a strong impact availability of a forage base will give its influence, using the domestic grain production,the national food traditions and a wider using of all low cost technologies for growing pigs.

In our opinion, the most promising in terms of access to foreign markets is the poultry industry. Nowadays, Ukraine exports 170 thousand tons of meat birds (by preliminary data 2014.). Strengthening domestic poultry prospects most dependent on reliable food base as the stable growth of grain industries. Among other things, it is necessary to continue building of a storage infrastructure.

Conclusions:

1) at the global meat market there is a constant increase in production of all kinds of relevant products. However, the production structure has undergone significant changes - the proportion of meat birds increases due to a proportional decrease in the proportion of beef and veal, while the pork share stays relatively stable;

2)large countries with climatic opportunities in a technology pasture in growing cattle and are characterized by relatively low population density are the world exporting leader of beef and veal.

 3) the world leaders in exports of pork and poultry meat are countries with surplus grain balance;

4)as for meat, Ukraine has been import depending country since 2004. The meat and meat products using by the population exceeds the volume of their production;

5) Ukrainian joining the top ten world exporters of poultry meat is contradictory for the consequences - on the one hand the country carries out on the world market and fixed there, on the other - it increases the deficit in the domestic market and strengthens the position of importers of the product concerned;

6) the restoration of a domestic beef cattle production scale in the pre-reform period is unlikely. It makes sense to government to stimulate the restoration of the industry in regions with relatively low population density and favorable for grazing cattle climatic conditions. Such the agro-climatic zones as Polesie and the northern steppes and mountain landscape of the Carpathians;

7) to fully meet domestic demand and increasing exports respective except transition to intensive technologies, domestic pig and poultry should be provided with reliable feeding grounds which created in the grain production area. For the stable growth of grain fields, among other things, we must continue to build storage infrastructure.

Justification organizational and economic mechanism territorial specialization in production of various kinds of meat, the calculation of the required number of budgetary resources to revive the beef cattle industry and their recipients in the region, development tools balanced development of the internal market and its export meat are promising directions for further research on the subject.

Key words: meat production, beef and veal, pork, poultry, structure, exporting countries, natural pastures, population density, grain balance.