Food Security and Environmental Impact of Agriculture in the European Transition Economies

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of relations between agriculture and environment, considered in the context of political changes that took place in Central and Eastern Europe. Against the background of general considerations on the significance of natural and anthropogenic factors (including mainly politics), the research refers to the European post-communist countries, some of which joined the EU, and some being still outside the group. Research results were compared with the corresponding values for EU-15 Member States and the average values for the World. The analysis covered the period between 1993–2013, i.e. the years of the undisturbed existence of the countries concerned. Using the original methodology, we identified changes in the productivity of agriculture (understood as the amount of agricultural energy produced per 1 ha) and agriculture’s impact on the environment, estimated as the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Results of the analysis proved that demographic and natural factors had an essential impact on the intensity of agricultural production and the scale of greenhouse gas emissions. The possibility to achieve food security depended on the technologies used, and indirectly on the level of the country’s economic development. Attention was paid to a different approach to the development of agriculture in the transition countries which are EU Member States and those which are not. With regard to the environmental sustainability, the greatest progress has been made by the transition countries which did not join the EU. Within this context, we considered some non-political factors shaping the relationship between agriculture and environment.