The purpose of this study is the development of a methodology for assessing the impact of social capital of rural areas on the efficiency of farming development institutions’ functioning. The use of synthetic approach to qualitative assessment of the structure of rural territories’ social capital on the basis of complex application of tools of sociological survey, economic and mathematical methods of graph construction and adjacency matrix has been proved. The substantive essence of the concept “social capital of rural areas” has been clarified and supplemented with structural elements including network relations between individuals, economic entities of different levels and state institutions that determine the group actions of farmers in a changing institutional environment. The advantages of the synthetic approach in assessing the social capital of rural territories over the discrete one due to the possibility of reflecting the mutual influence of network relations and institutional environment of rural territories have been proved. The relationship between the efficiency of functioning of different types of institutions regulating the development of farming and the mechanisms of structural elements of social capital impact on rural territories on the behavior of farming subjects is highlighted. The author’s methodology of qualitative assessment of the structure of social capital of rural territories, including the closeness, length, frequency of interrelation of farming entities with the institutional environment of rural territories is proposed. The scientific contribution of the study consists in supplementing and clarifying theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of the functioning of social capital of rural areas as a resource that includes behavioral mechanisms of economic entities and impact on the system of institutions of state regulation and self-regulation of farming development.