The article is devoted to the strategic development of the agricultural industry. The purpose of the study is to substantiate a systematic approach to the interaction of strategic priorities of the agricultural sector with directions of human development, which together form strategic competitiveness. The study allowed us to identify five main strategic priorities in the agricultural sector, which include ensuring food security, organizational transformations, taking into account natural changes and a careful attitude to the environment, urban development, and the introduction of innovations. The implementation of these priorities is based on human potential, which, in the context of strategic management of agricultural development, is developed with the aim of mastering certain qualities. Among such qualities, professional skills and high qualifications, which can be formed within the framework of the relevant education system, are highlighted first of all. Organizational transformations require not only professional qualities, but also flexibility and the ability to perform various tasks. The priority, which involves the rational use of natural resources and taking into account climate change, requires the ability to think strategically, to see future benefits and risks arising from the actions of natural factors. The development of rural areas is characterized as the next priority, which, in addition to the above, also requires compliance with and development of certain cultural principles. Innovative transformations are such a strategic priority that requires developing human potential in the direction of creativity, mobility of thinking and the ability to work in conditions of permanent technological and organizational changes. Both strategic priorities and directions of human development do not operate in isolation, they are interdependent. Thus, without innovative development it is impossible to ensure food security in the current conditions, and the introduction of modern organizational forms expand the scope of labor and contribute to the development of territories. In other words, the defined strategic priorities for the development of the agricultural sector form the economic and managerial system, just as the directions of human development - the socio-economic system. The combination and interaction of the two systems is a condition for the strategic competitiveness of agriculture, and as a final result - the strategic competitiveness of the country and its regions. 

agricultural sector, farming, innovation, strategic priorities, human development, human potential, competitiveness, strategic development