For more than 30 years the world has been focusing on the idea of economy and ecology balance in terms of the need for its own social development. Such scientific approaches are called sustainable development. According to the 1987 Bruntland Report “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In agriculture, we speak about a sustainable development as the balance of three aspects, namely economic, ecological and social. The main purpose of the article is to analyse the economic, ecological and social conditions of agricultural development. The analysis of official statistical data (State Statistics Service of Ukraine), research materials of Ukrainian and foreign scientists and own research results of the authors shows that Ukrainian agricultural policy pays much attention to the productive function, but it does not pay enough attention to the problem of social development, which underlays the experience of the state management of agriculture of Ukraine. These conclusions are based on the analysis of the macroeconomic indicators of the agriculture, the Ukrainian legislative base and the scientific proposals of the authors.