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The eco-efficiency of agricultural firms in European Union

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Climate change and global warming become great policy issues in the world in general and in agricultural production in particular due to the full dependence of these activities on climate conditions. Economic agricultural activities produce not only desirable outputs (e.g., food) but also undesirable outputs (e.g., CO2 and methane emission, etc.). The important policy issue is how each Member State of the European Union can balance agricultural economic development and environmental protection to attain sustainable development and food security. This study aims to evaluate the environmental efficiency of European agricultural firms in European Member States. The methodology includes a stochastic frontier model where Gross Value Added of Agriculture (GVAA) is considered as the desirable output and Greenhouse Gases emissions as the undesirable output emissions from agriculture (gigagram CO2 eq.). The inputs include agricultural land, employment in agriculture, and agricultural investment. The ratio GVAA/GHG is maximized given the restricted values of the other three variables. The paper analyses three periods, namely, 2006; 2014, and 2020. That division includes the last three reforms of Common Agricultural Policy from the European Union and aims to analyses the comparative analysis among periods and the potential improvement of eco-efficiency of European agricultural firms. The results prove that on average the European agricultural firms have in general a medium level of efficiency besides occurs some differences among countries. The comparative analysis among CAP periods also shows a slow improvement of environmental efficiency of European agricultural firms among countries. However, the countries with more contribution to Gross Development Agricultural Product presents in general low levels of eco-efficiency. That represents a conflict between environmental and economic sustainability and represents a great challenge in the future in terms of CAP policies and institutional measures to promote agricultural sustainability.

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Keywords

European agricultural firms Environmental efficiency Stochastic frontier model Agricultural sustainability Common Agricultural Policy

Citation

Dos-Santos, M.J. (2023, feb, 22-23). The eco-efficiency of agricultural firms in European Union. Paper presented at 9th ICSTR Dubai - International Conference on Science & Technology Research, Hotel Riqqa, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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Scientific and Technical Research Association (STRA)