ZIBOLKY, Ukraine — Like many of her neighbors in this old Soviet collective farm, Maria Onysko prefers to be paid in grain instead of cash for the modest plot of land she rents out.

“I have two cows and four pigs, many chickens,” said Ms. Onysko, 62. “So we use it for them.”

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, farmland in newly independent Ukraine was divided among villagers, acre by acre, creating a patchwork of agricultural endeavors that are often inefficient or unprofitable. Some land is rented to fruit growers, grain operators or large-scale farming businesses. Some locals work small plots on their own. Some acreage sits fallow, stuck in legal limbo after the owner has died.

Ukraine was once the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, known for its rich soil where grain, sunflowers and livestock flourished. But farming production dropped sharply in the chaotic decade after the collapse of communism, and recovery has come in fits and starts. Production is only now returning to peak levels of the 1990s, stymied by the corruption, red tape and inefficiencies that have plagued the broader Ukrainian economy for years and left the villagers living humble existences.

Restoring Ukraine’s farming legacy will be crucial to the success of the country’s newly elected president, the billionaire businessman Petro O. Poroshenko. Such efforts would go a long way toward fixing Ukraine’s economy and reducing its dependence on Russia. Agriculture once accounted for nearly 20 percent of the gross domestic product; it is now roughly 10 percent.