Market Farm Sustainability Assessment of the Central and Eastern European Union Member States
Veselin Krustev
Abstract: The main concept of every agricultural policy is aiming to support the farm sustainability beyond the aspects defined in a single definition and a contemporary state policy could not escape from the focus of economic efficiency, social responsibility and/or environmental compatibility.
The European Union regulations are reorganizing the holdings in the entire Community and this reflects crucially on the economic size and furthermore the agricultural sustainability of the farms.
This paper aims to find out how the agricultural holdings are affected and how the connection between farm economic size and sustainability is developed within the three sustainability pillars.
The scientific approach uses an assessment that modifies the Farm Accountancy Data Network set of variables in comparison of predefined criteria used as a sustainability scoring system establishing a sustainability estimation based on affiliation of two independent indexes as a final balanced rating classification.
The results are determined for each economic size class to the benchmarking frame received by a previous research on a EU level which reports the Balkan farms as a part of the EU vulnerable agricultural units.
The European Union regulations are reorganizing the holdings in the entire Community and this reflects crucially on the economic size and furthermore the agricultural sustainability of the farms.
This paper aims to find out how the agricultural holdings are affected and how the connection between farm economic size and sustainability is developed within the three sustainability pillars.
The scientific approach uses an assessment that modifies the Farm Accountancy Data Network set of variables in comparison of predefined criteria used as a sustainability scoring system establishing a sustainability estimation based on affiliation of two independent indexes as a final balanced rating classification.
The results are determined for each economic size class to the benchmarking frame received by a previous research on a EU level which reports the Balkan farms as a part of the EU vulnerable agricultural units.
Keywords: agricultural holdings; economic size; farm sustainability
Date published: 2023-09-29
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