Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989 3030737659, 9783030737658

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Jerzy Bański Marcin Mazur

Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989

Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989

Jerzy Bański • Marcin Mazur

Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989

Jerzy Bański Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw, Poland

Marcin Mazur Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw, Poland

ISBN 978-3-030-73765-8    ISBN 978-3-030-73766-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Publication prepared under the research projects of the National Science Centre, nb. UMO-2016/23/B/HS4/00421, Models of agriculture transformation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Eastern Bloc – review of achievements, determinants and development scenarios.

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Contents

1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     1 2 The Conditioning of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe ������������������������������������������������������������������������������     9 Socioeconomic Conditioning������������������������������������������������������������������     9 Natural Conditioning ������������������������������������������������������������������������������    16 3 A Review of Ownership Changes in the Agricultural Sector������������    19 Part I Structural Transformation in the Agricultural Economy 4 The Agricultural Population ����������������������������������������������������������������    31 5 Agricultural Land Use��������������������������������������������������������������������������    43 6 Farms’ Agrarian Structure and the Market for Land�����������������������    53 7 Crop-Growing����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    67 Cereals������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    73 Legumes��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    85 Root, Bulb and Rhizome Crops ��������������������������������������������������������������    87 Vegetables������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    87 Fruit����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    91 Drugs and Spices��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    97 Crops Grown to Produce Sugar ��������������������������������������������������������������   100 Crops Grown for Their Oil����������������������������������������������������������������������   101 Crops Grown for Their Fibre ������������������������������������������������������������������   104 8 Livestock-Rearing����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   107 Cattle��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   110 Goats, Sheep and Fur-Bearing Animals��������������������������������������������������   112 Pigs����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   114 Poultry������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   115 Insects������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   116 vii

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9 Means of Production in Agriculture����������������������������������������������������   119 Fertilisers and Plant Protection Agents����������������������������������������������������   123 The Irrigation of Land������������������������������������������������������������������������������   127 Part II Overall Change in the Agricultural Sector and Prospects for Its Development 10 Changes in the Role of the Farming Sector in the Economies of the CEECs������������������������������������������������������������   131 11 The Level and Structure of Agricultural Production ������������������������   137 12 Farming Efficiency��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   147 Farming Crop Efficiency��������������������������������������������������������������������������   148 Livestock Efficiency��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   160 13 An Identification of Directions of Change in Agriculture in the CEECs������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   175 The Transformation of Farms’ Ownership and Size Structure����������������   175 Trends for the Area of Land Under Crops ����������������������������������������������   181 A Synthetic Conceptualisation of the Crop-Cultivation and Livestock Structures in the Region as a Whole and Its Individual Countries��������������������������������������������������������������������   185 14 An Attempt at Scenarios for the Future of Agriculture in the CEECs ����������������������������������������������������������������   201 Phenomena and Factors Shaping the Future of the Agriculture Sector��������������������������������������������������������������������������   204 Three Scenarios����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   213 The Optimistic Scenario����������������������������������������������������������������������   213 The Pessimistic Scenario ��������������������������������������������������������������������   216 The Most-Probable Scenario����������������������������������������������������������������   218 Conclusions������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   221 15 A Presentation of the Contemporary Farm in the CEECs Using Case Studies��������������������������������������������������������   223 A Review of the Farms Researched ��������������������������������������������������������   224 A Family Farm Engaging in the Commercial Production of Cereals – Owner Florin Moldovano (Valcelele – Romania) ����������   224 The Agro Prest Iliuta SRL Production Enterprise – Large-­Scale Crop Production – Owner Vasile Iliuta (Valcelele – Romania) ����������   225 The Agrofam Production Group – Large-Scale (Highly-­Commercial) Crop Production – Director Stefan Poienaru (Fetesti – Romania) ��������������������������������������������������   225 Family Farm – Commercial Production of Fruit – Owner Ferenc Somodi (Suburban Zone Around Kecskemet – Hungary) ����������������������������������������������������������   227

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Multifunctional Family Farm – Plant Production and Services in Agritourism – Owner Tanya Kujani (Vicinity of Kecskemet – Hungary) ����������������������������������������������������   229 Family Farm – Breeding Pigs – Owners the Kőszegi Family (Kiskunfélegyháza – Hungary)������������������������������������������������   231 Organic Farming – Production of Vegetables – Owner Matyas Nemes (Fülöpjakab – Hungary)����������������������������������������������   232 Family Farm – Commercial Grain Production – Owner László Kovács (Kecskemet Area – Hungary)��������������������������������������   233 The Ziołowy Zakątek and Dary natury Farm Enterprises – Producing Herbs and Supplying Agritourist Services – Owner Mirosław Angielczyk (Village of Koryciny, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland)������������������������   234 16 Summary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   237 References ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   241

Chapter 1

Introduction

Thirty years have now passed since the fall of the old Eastern Bloc and the adoption of a new socioeconomic and political system by successive Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). The results of that were changes in all sectors of the economy, as well as in the social and cultural life of these states’ citizens. Dynamic change also swept through the food and beverages sector, this first and foremost entailing the privatisation of assets and the results of production, technological modernisation of farms, improved efficiency of production and a rise in levels of output, and the sector’s opening up to competition on the global scale (Bański 2001, 2004; Csaki and Lerman 2000; Halamska 2013; Petrick and Weingarten 2004; Rusu and Florian 2003). There was also a transformation in socio-cultural life on farms in rural areas as broadly conceived. The family model changed, activity in the community intensified (along with the aspirations of rural inhabitants), farmers’ levels of education and skill at managing their farms increased, and so on. Equally, for a large group of country-dwellers working in agriculture, the changes referred to were more in the nature of shocks. The state and cooperative sector in agriculture fell, giving rise to changes in land-use structure, types of production and the distribution of food products; as well as new conditions on the labour market (Bański and Bednarek 2008; Csatari and Farkas 2008; Doucha et al. 2005; Burger 2001). There was also a polarisation of social structure within the populations resident in rural areas, with levels of poverty growing, and a large socially-excluded group making its appearance. One example helping portray the dynamics and diversity of change in the agricultural sector of the CEECs involves the (re)privatisation of what was termed sektor uspołeczniony  – as typically rendered in English (not too effectively) as “the socialised sector”. In the communist era, the collectivisation of agriculture proceeded through to its conclusion in most Eastern-Bloc countries (Van Dijk 2003), albeit taking various forms and involving a number of different means (Meurs 1999; Pryor 1992). Only in Poland and the former Yugoslavia did private farming continue

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_1

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to play a key role in the communist-era economy. There was also a relatively large amount of farmland remaining in private hands in Hungary. The early 1990s brought radical change in the ownership structure of land (Swinnen 1996). In Hungary, for example, the change was vast, with the share of land used by the private sector increasing from 14% in 1990 to 54% in 2000 (Kovacs 2005). This was associated with a process of farm fragmentation as the number of large farms decreased, while small ones proliferated. The number of owners of land in this way increased to 2.2 million, with each having 3.65 ha of land at their disposal, on average. In contrast, Poland witnessed more limited change that was also more regional in nature. Privatisation put a very abrupt stop to the activity of the country’s State Farms, even though some of them had been in a good economic condition, and more in need of restructuring than liquidation (Bański 2007). The story in Slovakia proved to be different again, with privatisation taking place on a similar scale to what Hungary had witnessed, but in line with a quite different model. Here, the communist-era Cooperatives and State Farms were converted into private enterprises, but in large measure continued in the same hands (Spišiak 1997). Only a limited share of the farmland in Slovakia is thus in fact owned by individual small farmers, with the result that fragmentation has been avoided. Especially in the southern part of the study region there was a decline in the numbers of large entities; while the number of small farms increased. In Bulgaria in the early 2000s there were an estimated 8.7 M farm plots, under the ownership of some 5.1  M citizens of Bulgaria  – or 65% of the country’s entire population (Bencheva 2005; Kopeva 2003). The furthest-reaching change from this point of view affected Romania, where the transformation increased the numbers of owners of land steadily, to around 4 million (Benedek 2000). Accession of the CEECs to the EU; and the associated opportunities to benefit from direct payments, the Structural Funds and special programmes of finance targeted at agriculture further increased the dynamic of change in the farming sector (Rural Development … 2008). However, this took place via a variety of different scenarios and mechanisms by no means adequately recognised and evaluated. Moreover, current CEEC domestic policies regarding the food sector are also diverse, to the extent that differing influences on future development are bound to be exerted. Meanwhile, the relevant policy of the EU itself also changes, not least given the now long-established and further-developing approach to steadily limit support for” pure” agricultural activity, with a view to this being directed instead at farming’s multifunctional development, with a key role being played by the services farms can also render, as well as craftsmanship and small-scale production, and the generation of energy from renewable sources. This all serves to increase the value for money obtained from public funding, while also ensuring the further diversification of economic activity in rural areas. While it is true that the agricultural sector is of lesser importance to the CEEC economies than it was 10–20 years ago (the shares of GDP it accounted for in 2012 were 4.2% in Bulgaria, 0.9% in the Czech Republic, 2.7% in Hungary, 2.4% in Poland, 4.7% in Romania and 0.8% in Slovakia), it needs to be recalled that farming

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is the guarantor of food security that ultimately represents a strategic challenge in every country, while it also shapes the rural landscape, ensures work for a large group of rural inhabitants and impacts upon the quality and attractiveness of the natural environment. In the case of Poland, but also Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, agriculture goes on discharging very important economic functions (for example providing jobs for over 10% of the occupationally active population in Poland, and ensuring that exports of the produce and products of this sector account for around 15% of Polish exports), as well as those of a socio-cultural nature (counteracting unemployment, helping with the upholding of tradition, and so on). In the face of these remarks it would seem clear that there could be much of interest and research importance in the diagnosing and evaluation of the social and economic processes that have taken place in agriculture in the CEECs, as well as the determining of possible near-future changes. These are matters of major cognitive and practical significance for the farming sector in the above countries, which on the one hand participate in cooperative ventures with other EU Member States, while on the other hand remaining in competition with them on Europe’s Single Market (for food), as well as markets globally. And a key challenge facing farming, both in the region and in its individual countries, related to the choice of a proper model of development taking local natural and socio-economic conditions into account, along with the history of the last few decades. Thus for example, as the farm sector modernises, this does not mean it should follow blindly along the “Western” path leading to intensification and industrial agriculture. Rather, it should strive to head more in a sustainable, multi-functional direction that sees a decent income earned by households living in the countryside as they pursue varied forms of economic activity. In that regard, it obviously needs to be borne in mind that intensification of farming limits job opportunities in rural areas greatly, enforcing a process of migration that is nothing more or less than a major problem for Central Europe. The transformations that have taken place in the agricultural sectors of the CEECs have been the subject of a very large number of scientific studies and expert reports proving diverse in terms of subject matter. Land use is one issue, but then there is work on optimising conditions for production, and the roles played by knowledge, experience and skill when it comes to running a farm properly in this day and age. Indeed, the subject literature is so broad that it is hard to single out particular key studies addressing given topics. However, what have proved in the event to be especially valuable sources are the specialised scientific journals and other publications that often make available the results of up-to-date studies in regard to agricultural transformations in the CEECs. Publications whose positions and prestige are assured internationally include the Journal of Rural Studies, Agricultural Economics, Eastern European Countryside, Land Use Policy and others, while there are also national-level journals - including in the Polish case Studia Obszarów Wiejskich (Rural Studies), Wieś i Rolnictwo (Village and Agriculture), Roczniki Naukowe Ekonomii Rolnictwa i Rozwoju Obszarów Wiejskich (Annals of

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Agricultural Economics and Rural Development), as well as in Hungary Studies of Agricultural Economics, and so on). Against that background, we may for example note how Studies of Agricultural Economics came out with an interesting report comparing structural changes in Polish and Hungarian agriculture following these countries’ EU accessions (Potori et al. 2014). In turn, Studia Obszarów Wiejskich has included a volume devoted to Contemporary changes of agriculture in East-Central Europe, which brings together articles on transformation of the farm sector in Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary (Bański and Bednarek 2008). Similar subject matter is also taken up by the Rural areas and development series published by the European Rural Development Network (Bański and Owsiński 2003; Certan et al. 2015). So, we can reasonably contend that a wealth of information is on offer in the literature discussing agriculture, as it appears today in the countries of the region under study. It therefore needs to be stressed with particular force that the scope of these many publications is typically confined to detailed research topics that take account of only a small section of the very broad agriculture-related subject matter (e.g. Bański 2014; Doucha et al. 2005; Dumitru et al. 2004; Ilieva and Iliev 1995). Moreover, the authors of studies for the most part focus on their home regions or countries (e.g. Burger 2001; Csaki and Kray 2005; Ilieva and Iliev 1995; Kovacs 2003; Orłowski 2001; Spišiak 1997). This all ensures that there remain relatively few analytical conceptualisations reflecting research on the food economy in several, many or most of the CEECs simultaneously. Efforts of this kind have been made from time to time, but again the typical situation is for these authors’ texts to be brought together under joint editorship, and hence with connected – but still extremely diverse – subject matter. There thus remains a clear lack of studies that would bring together knowledge or seek to assess the transformations achieved thus far in the region’s agriculture, following the fall of communism and successive accessions to the EU. Moreover, little note seems to have been taken of the by-no-means-minor matter of the future of farming, conceivable or expected directions of development, and functions to be served in the decades to come. This study has therefore proceeded in line with set goals that are cognitive on the one hand and applied on the other. This reflects the need for both a reconnaissance and an assessment of the study region’s agricultural economy over a quarter of a century, and from the relevant social and economic points of view; with account taken of both certain expected similarities and differences. A further aspect relates to anticipated transformations in the farm sector by reference to expert knowledge and the investigation of both strategic documents and the subject literature. Findings presented here thus extend to agrarian structure, land use, level of technical or technological infrastructure, the structure associated with types of crop grown and livestock raised, and agricultural efficiency. As alluded to above, there are two hypotheses advanced here, i.e. that:

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1) given the influence exerted by the need to adapt to the requirements of the EU, and then the CAP, the farming sector in the CEECs has undergone some standardisation, and is characterised by similar social and economic processes that are reducing agriculture’s diversity and limiting the degree to which transformations are multi-dimensional. 2) contemporary economic processes characterising farming in the CEECs is first and foremost favouring the development of farms that produce using industrial methods, with this standing in the way of agriculture’s development in a multifunctional direction and working to eliminate traditional farms of limited or zero commercial viability; instead ensuring the generation of a variety of social, economic and natural problems in rural areas. In the event, and given the limits of knowledge systematisation, it proved possible to point to both differences and similarities in the processes ongoing in the farming sectors of the region’s different countries, in the assessments of them arrived at, and in indications as to the most effective solutions capable of generating favourable change in rural areas in future. As all this was done, resort to the subject literature and strategic documents was suitably supplemented by inputs of knowledge from experts in selected CEECs. It is in this way that the present study is able to supply practical knowledge on contemporary transformations in the agriculture of the CEECs that will prove suitable for use by the regional and national institutions shaping policy regarding the development of the agricultural sector. While it has already been made clear that our work is devoted to Central and Eastern Europe (and hence what are known as the CEECs), it has been pursued in full awareness of varied relevant historical and political connotations, as well as definitions even regarding the region’s actual location in space (Halecki 1994; Hoffman 1989; Kłoczowski 2000, 2003). Contemporary conceptualisations of this region mainly see it as comprising states that arose as an when the communist bloc fell. However, post-War, the term Central and Eastern Europe took in all of the states present on the map between Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union – with Austria and the old GDR also therefore included. Indeed, from a historical point of view, western parts of (today’s) Belarus and Ukraine also seem worthy of inclusion (Fig. 1.1). Faced with a region of such a profile, one would need to see it as something of a” soft” entity or polity, given – for example – the historical, religious and ethnic distinctiveness of both the Balkans and the area along the Danube. In the view of S. Huntington (1997), the region in question actually straddles a dividing line that has taken shape since the time the Roman Empire in the west fell. The separation in this context is between a Latin civilisation and an eastern (Byzantine) one. In the view of A. Podraza (2004), the great division of Europe needs to be supplemented by a third one that came into being as the Middle Ages came to an end and the Modern Era commenced. Emerging at this point were two differing economic zones separated by the Elbe, and further on by a line running to the Adriatic via the Czech Lands and Austria. To the west of that line, dynamic capitalist economic development took place, while to the east of it economies long remained dormant,

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Fig. 1.1  The research area in Central and Eastern Europe Source: authors’ own elaboration

thanks to the continued upholding of a feudal system in agriculture. The disparate development of social and economic relations attendant upon this division of the continent would later be associated with an eastern part under heavy Russian and then Soviet influence – with the latter assuming total dominance for half a century. In this scenario, it was only with the enlargement of NATO and the European Union that the line shifted eastward, with the present-day boundary not differing greatly from that of the old USSR per se, albeit with today’s Baltic States on the western side of the dividing line, and with the roles of Ukraine and Belarus looking ambiguous. This leaves Central and Eastern Europe and the CEECs within it as a kind of third part of Europe that is neither “West” nor “East”. From the point of view of this study, the CEECs forming this region having once been part of the communist bloc, and having later acceded to the European Union, comprise Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic/Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria. It is in the context of these states that the authors have sought, not only to describe the differentiation characterising agriculture, but also to evaluate the specific features of this area encompassed by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. To this

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end, different features of agriculture in the region – and their evolution – have in many places been set against the situation in the” Old EU”. The tracing of the directions this region’s agricultural transformation has followed has denoted a reference point enjoying a certain degree of constancy. Irrespective of the time interval, we have in that “Old EU” a group of 15 countries that were already Member States of the Union in the twentieth century – as augmented by Cyprus and Malta, i.e. countries that did join the Community later, but were never part of the “Eastern Bloc”. Together, this gives the “EU 17″. It is by deploying this kind of conceptualisation that it is possible to observe convergence (frequently) and divergence (rarely), when it comes to features of agriculture in the CEECs. This study has drawn on a rich scientific literature, plus other sources materials – mainly in the form of statistical data from national statistical offices, Eurostat and the FAO. It is worth stressing how diverse the available statistical data actually are, from the subject-matter point of view; and how  – furthermore  – these data were gathered using very varied methodologies. The definition of various statistical categories also differs from one country to another, hence (in part) the disparate nature of values for given indicators that make comparative analysis either difficult or impossible. As an example, one might take the matter of the area of agricultural land in Croatia – which was 1,563,000 ha as of 2015, according to FAOSTAT and the Croatian Bureau of Statistics. In contrast, an expert report entitled The agriculture sector in Croatia – published in the same 2015 – gave a corresponding figure of 3,150,000 – which is to say twice as much. Such a discrepancy is of course most likely to reflect different adopted definitions either taking or not taking account of areas with extensive pastureland. In the face of such issues, the work presented here proceeded on the assumption that comparative analyses of features first and foremost use data from a single source. Two spatial scales are also taken account of – the national and the regional.

Chapter 2

The Conditioning of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe

Socioeconomic Conditioning The socioeconomic change taking place in the CEECs post-1989 ensured the unfolding there of step-by-step if diametric change in the impact key factors have been exerting on the development of the farming sector. The social, economic and political conditioning was all transformed. In rural communities, there was a major rise in the level of interest in raising educational qualifications and otherwise upskilling; as well as in the need to find employment away from agriculture in the traditional sense. The consequence was a steady outflow of young people (above all women) from agricultural areas. In parallel with the decline in the agricultural population, there was progressing automation, specialisation and concentration of farm output. Changes in economic conditioning mainly entailed a change in the price relationship between the means of agricultural production and agricultural produce and products  – to the detriment of the sector’s profitability in comparison with industry or services. As a result, any staying on in farming was mainly made possible by direct payments, subsidies and grants of external origin, as well as a steady increase in levels of efficiency in terms of mass per unit area of farm, as well as outlays of capital and labour. In turn, the political changes gave rise to a reorientation of directions of foreign trade in farm produce and products, as well as the structure characterising the demand for these. The CEECs’ accession to the EU had the effect of further reducing the diversity of farming operations, with similarity of trends reflecting the impact of the CAP. In contrast, high levels of financial support and new export opportunities where food products were concerned brought about an intensification and specialisation of farm production. In any country, it is agriculture that proves the component of the domestic economy most sensitive to all kinds of change. And, while a functioning free-market economy is most likely in place in the given country, a strong influence of state

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_2

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2  The Conditioning of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe

policy is always exerted on farming … and there is no indication that this kind of state- or EU-level interventionism is going to ease off. The CEECs of the communist era mostly witnessed a high level of state subsidisation of agriculture, primarily reflecting an ownership structure dominated by the state or Cooperatives under its de facto control. A somewhat analogous situation has continued into post-communist times, in that the sector has generally continued to receive firm support, even if the very first period of transformation – associated with the liberalisation of trade and freeing up of food prices – was indeed associated with a transient – and dramatic – decline in state assistance. However, this initial shock of the 1990s was followed by interventionist action to stabilise the farming sector – and of course this coincided with our region’s states making their preparations for European Union membership. There thus remains no country anywhere in Europe that leaves agriculture entirely “at the mercy” of free-market forces. Indeed, a realistic thesis might be that the agricultural economy is actually looking more and more dependent on overall economic policy pursued at state level. There are many reasons for this, and they begin with the overproduction of food long synonymous with Europe, in inevitable association with limited real profitability and high levels of subsidy. The problem became plain to see in the United Kingdom as long ago as in the 1980s, with the “productivism crisis” referred to by Lowe et al. (1993); or what was termed more vaguely the crisis in agriculture (Woods 2005). In the CEECs, it was more in the 1990s that such a problem made its appearance (Hruska et al. 2015), only to intensify once the region came under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. The necessary result was a paradigm shift whereby European farming moved away from quantity of output in the direction of quality (Bureau 2012), with the share of the EU budget accounted for by agriculture falling in the process from 70% to around 40% (European Commission 2014). There was likewise more and more attention paid to (and appreciation of) the non-productive significance of agriculture, as well as its numerous links with non-farming functions rural areas are able to serve. The maintenance of agricultural activity in areas where this is of limited economic efficiency is thus seen to pay off, and not only in terms of enhanced food security. For in this way support is also extended to local traditions and identities, as well as to the upkeep of valuable natural and landscape-related features, and the nurturing of potential for rural tourism to develop, with local resources of various kinds also promoted. In an era of growing personal mobility and the development of the information society, elements linked firmly with farming like the rural landscape, cultural diversity, an attractive natural environment and calm atmosphere all came to look like valuable resources (Woods 2011). Moreover, the agricultural activity in areas of this kind goes on playing its major social function – as simply the main source of upkeep of the greater part of all inhabitants. This all leaves it worthwhile for some financial backing to be extended to agriculture, even as there may be appropriate shaping of the directions in which productive activity is heading. A reflection of all of that content is inherent in the level of economic assistance the EU has been willing and ready to target at rural areas – and above all their farms.

Socioeconomic Conditioning

11

Around half of the Community budget was long earmarked for different types of agricultural subsidy and payment. And, while it is true that financial support for the farming sector has fallen in recent decades, this remains the most-supported part of the economy across the EU. The first decisions on policy concerning the development of rural areas and agriculture in Associated Countries were as set out in the Treaty of Rome signed by the Six on March 25th 1957 with a view to the European Economic Community (EEC) being established. Treaty signatories committed to the pursuit of common policy regarding the development of rural areas  – by way of structural policy, regional policy and agricultural policy. The objectives here included the achievement of social and economic cohesion within the Community, with disparities in levels of development between regions evened out. That meant that less well-developed areas would be encompassed by various forms of assistance. Similar targets for action were designated in the TEU signed at Maastricht on February 7th 1992. The Member States declared that, through the application of the Structural Funds, they would support the development of rural areas and agriculture, with a view to this leading to balanced economic growth among all EU regions. Equally, from the mid-1980s onwards, the Associated Countries had played host to debate on change in policy towards rural areas and farming. This was to involve a departure from the concept of maximised output in favour of multifunctional rural development, the liberalisation of the market for farm produce and products, and the gradual limitation of production. This way of thinking gained its confirmation in – for example  – a Commission-devised 1998 document of the EEC entitled The Future of Rural Society. This assumed a declining role for agriculture when it came to employment in rural areas, with stress thus placed on the need for rural areas to be treated cohesively, in their entirety. However, EU farm policy through to 1992 continued to be predicated mainly on the maintenance of high prices for what farmers were able to produce. Key objectives were increased productivity, a stabilised market and raised levels of income among those still working in agriculture. These were in turn achieved by way of intervention buying, the granting of assistance to exporters and protection of the market from excessive imports. However, in 1992, the then EU Commissioner for Agriculture Ray MacSharry proposed a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy that would enhance the competitiveness of EU agriculture through support for farm income. However, action would also be taken to limit the burden on the bloc’s budget imposed by the CAP). The reform of this profile was thus a first step towards more-extensive and diversified agriculture, as well as linkage between farm policy and that applying to the development of rural areas. The measures also recognised the importance of environmental requirements, with new programmes ushered in to link agricultural and environmental issues. The setting-aside of land came to exemplify the conditions under which assistance in the form of direct payments could be claimed, with these helping to offset the reduce levels of price support. As further years passed, a series of EU documents and studies appeared in which the development of agriculture was seen in a still-wider context, i.e. through the

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2  The Conditioning of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe

prism of the development of rural areas (hence for example the European Charter for Rural Areas and The Cork “Living Countryside” Declaration). All such documents noted the need for the development of new forms of economic activity in rural areas that would favour multifunctionality and sustainable development. However, the multifunctional development that was kept in mind was mainly to entail the said diversification of economic activity through the introduction of non-­ agricultural functions and the social and economic activation of rural inhabitants. In the time since, activity has had as a key aim the diversification of sources of income among country-dwellers, with efforts made to ensure the emergence of new job opportunities helping to combat unemployment. The concept founded upon multifunctional rural areas was thus seeking to limit the role of farming vis-à-vis other economic functions. However, in no way was that to mean agriculture being marginalised. Rather, it was a matter of harmonious linkage with other economic activity, on the further condition that the natural balance was not disturbed excessively in the process. And so to the related concept of sustainable development – as perceived to entail consistent, persistent and durable social, economic and cultural development in such a way that the aforesaid balance of nature is retained, inter alia in the sense that processes inherent to nature would always be able to go on operating. In fact, sustainable development was brought into the Polish language and Polish practice as rozwój zrównoważony (which – as the name suggests – has as much to do with balance as with durability/persistence). However, the term would later give way to the more explicit ekorozwój concept, rather self-evidently looking for rozwój (development) of a green or “ecological” kind, in line with natural principles. A further condition harking back to the original vision of sustainable development was that the needs of society today would be met in a way that did not preclude future generations making optimal use of environmental resources. The main thrusts to policy on rural areas and agriculture in the 2000–2006 period were as set out in Agenda 2000 For A Stronger And Wider Union, which the European Commission brought out on July 18th 1997. This included a package of reforms (i.a. relevant to negotiations with Candidate Countries), and of course laid down conditions for the EU’s financial and budget activity over the entire 7-year period. The Community’s key objectives at this point were the diversification of incomes, a decent standard of living for the inhabitants of rural areas, stability of farming income, the search for alternative sources of income for farmers and their families, and the pursuit of sustainable agriculture. The shape of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the years 2007–2013 inclusive was as provided for in an agreement concluded at Luxembourg by EU Ministers of Agriculture on June 26th 2003, as well as what was agreed by the Council on April 22nd 2004. The fundamental element of the EU’s new farm policy was the system of direct payments under which each farm (which needed to meet defined requirements and standards as regards the environment, human and animal health and the marking of livestock) would have a unit payment per hectare of land calculated for it. This meant payment being decoupled from production, in a manner that simplified both application procedures and the accessing of the actual funds

Socioeconomic Conditioning

13

available for farmers. In the view of specialists, the system ensured that production (in terms of both structure and level) was more in tune with signals coming in from the wider market, with this therefore providing for enhanced business efficiency of the agriculture sector. The 2003 reform of the CAP also assumed a higher level of funding for the development of rural areas. The assumptions underpinning pursuit of the Common Agricultural Policy under the 2014–2020 Financial Perspective are of fundamental significance to agriculture in the CEECs, and to the shaping of its directions of development. Moreover, support directed to the region under the Cohesion Fund contributes to the development of rural areas and an improvement in living conditions. Indeed, a downward trend is now being observed for disparities in levels of socioeconomic development between rural areas and the urban agglomerations representing the main centres of growth (which had worsened markedly in the 1990s). It is precisely because of the CEECs’ integration with the EU that polarisation between these areas has become less distinct. The EU’s Structural Funds have allowed for many important infrastructural developments and other activities supporting rural areas; and in this way the situation of the rural population in the region under study has changed for the better in many ways. Specifically, the situations of country-dwellers as regards income, infrastructure and education all improved. This is the consequence of Cohesion Policy  – as an EU policy addressed specifically to rural areas, especially those developed to only a limited extent and lagging behind; as well as a Common Agricultural Policy also designated to assist the rural population (Wilkin 2016). The subject literature and statistics both point to the huge significance of programmes of assistance put in place for the agroeconomy of the CEECs (Bański 2018; Wilkin 2016; Page and Popa 2013; Todorová 2016). Farming folk and the rural areas of their countries they inhabit became the greatest beneficiaries of funding of this kind, with EU accession bringing each new Member State an influx of money allocated to socioeconomic development in the broadest sense, and to the adaptation of management- and administration-related structures to Community requirements. Rural areas and farming have been able to take advantage of dedicated programmes within the wider CAP framework, as well as others seeking to ensure the development of different kinds of activity in society, and of an economic nature, principally under the Structural Funds. Indeed, agriculture here first began to gain EU support when states still had the status of Candidates for accession. And alongside the financial assistance offered in support of new developments in rural areas, there were special projects addressed to young farmers, as well as encouragement given to producers’ groups. That all went hand in hand with training to facilitate knowledge acquisition and upskilling among country-dwellers. Specifically, PHARE was the first pre-accession programme (originally denoting Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring their Economies, but later expanded beyond this range). This European Commission concept first saw the light of day in 1989, with material assistance extended to the above two states already categorised as Candidate States.

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2  The Conditioning of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe

However, as soon as in 1990, PHARE was extended to take in Bulgaria and the then Czechoslovakia. Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia followed on, and the process continued to the point where PHARE had been of benefit to 17 countries by the time the new millennium arrived. Poland was the greatest beneficiary, with its PHARE allocation over the whole 1990–2003 period amounting to some 3.9 bn euros. This funding was mainly designated for the development of infrastructure, environmental protection, education and scientific research, as well as – of course – for the development of the agricultural sector. However, it was typical for the main implementers of PHARE projects to be the stronger and more capable of Poland’s administrative units. This meant that, where regions were only developed to a limited extent, with farming of low or zero commercial viability on highly-fragmented farms, funding proved hard to gain, because it was likewise hard to find qualified personnel able to prepare creative and competitive project applications. Somewhat later, a second pre-accession instrument dedicated more specifically to agriculture and rural areas made its appearance. Known as SAPARD (Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development), it swung into operation in 1999, so that Candidate Countries could be helped with their preparations for participation in the Common Agricultural Policy. The assumption was that countries enjoying EU Associated status would in this way adapt their farming to market-­ economy conditions. The focus was on stimulated local development in rural areas through projects linked to the diversification of economic activity among rural inhabitants, as well as the installation of new infrastructure. SAPARD was wound up in 2006  in most of the CEECs, though an exception was Croatia, which was authorised to go on receiving funding under the programme (later named IPARD) in the years through to 2013 inclusive. Enjoying the different status of “Community Initiative”, LEADER proved very important in improving the quality of life of rural inhabitants in the CEECs, throughout the 1991–2006 period. LEADER in fact went through three editions, and in each case the aim was to support local development in rural areas, with particular account taken of those that were lagging behind – up to and including depopulating peripheral parts of given countries. With ultimate accession of the region’s states to the EU came the switch to a universal system of area payments for farmers. The CEECs obtained a huge amount of support under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EFRROW). In the context of the 2007–2013 Financial Perspective, it was rural areas of Poland and Romania that were the main beneficiaries of this, receiving several times as much funding as any other states in the region under consideration. However, notwithstanding the many years of preparation for EU accession, a great deal more time had to pass for agriculture in the CEECs to take full advantage of their de facto participation on the Single Market. Indeed, it can reasonably be suggested that the initial period of membership saw a worsening of disparities between categories of farms and sectors of production. Thus, while Bulgaria’s EU accession did help raise farmers’ incomes, this was only true of those specialising

Socioeconomic Conditioning

15

in cereal-growing. Farmers orientated towards vegetable, fruit and vine production experienced a major decline in sales and a fall in income. Moreover, the small farms having no capital of their own and not characterised as very competitive simply saw themselves “left for later” (Todorová 2016). Meanwhile, a further cause of the economic marginalisation of such farms lay in the lack of relevant knowledge on CAP-­ related criteria, opportunities, and means of obtaining funding. A further barrier to drawing down any EU funds was (and remains) the ubiquitous paperwork of the “red tape” kind. As the work done by the aforementioned S. Todorová (2016) makes clear, the selection of means assigned to Bulgaria’s farmers under EFRROW was very much dependent on farms’ forms of organisation. Thus, family farms have used funding under a special programme for young farmers (actually irrespective of the ages of those who run farms), as well as a programme helping to restructure farms of limited commercial viability. In contrast, farms enjoying Cooperative status or legal personality mainly draw benefit from pools of funding for farm modernisation, as well as the increased value of output from farming and forestry. As the above author also shows, it is more or less universal for all categories of farm in receipt of funding to assign that money to purchasing new means of production, first and foremost agricultural machinery and other equipment (Todorová 2016). In the case of the Czech Republic, accession to the EU in 2004 brought about a clear improvement in the profitability of production, and increased income in the farming sector (Veznik et  al. 2013). Nevertheless, the share of GDP the sector accounted for declined steadily, along with levels of employment. By the year 2000, around 170,000 people were employed in agriculture (4.4% of the country’s professionally active people), yet a further 10 years brought a decline by another 70,000. Alongside the described external conditioning of the region’s agriculture that is of a political and economic nature, there is also demographic and social conditioning exerting a major influence on differentiation and directions of change. A feature characteristic for most areas of Central and Eastern Europe with a leading agricultural function is a steady outflow of young inhabitants who are typically more active and entrepreneurial then those living around them. There is also a prevalence of women among those who move away, hence unfavourable change when it comes to gender and age balance in the populations left residing in many agricultural areas. These processes intensified from the early 1990s onwards, when the development of the economy in a free-market direction revealed just how much excess workforce had been engaged in farming (Bański 2007). In Poland, this was a major issue for areas where the ownership of farmland was highly fragmented. And, as the years passed, the tendency for many or most younger inhabitants of farming areas to leave them was maintained, also as a result of ongoing specialisation and mechanisation in agriculture itself. In spite of the unfavourable demographic conditioning already referred to, it is possible to note a diversification of socio-occupational structure in many parts of the studied region, as well as a marked rise over the last several decades in the levels of specialist knowledge and education farmers possess. Formal levels of education do continue lower in areas with a prevalent agricultural function – as a reflection of

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the more limited spatial and economic accessibility of the educational system, especially where its higher tiers are concerned (Irvin et al. 2012). However, thanks to development and the use of ICT, the importance of these barriers has been declining markedly since the beginning of the twenty-first century. A further matter of importance is the way in which farmers have changed their attitudes to education and a constant process of upskilling and updating knowledge (Czapiewski and Janc 2019). The importance of these factors for a farm’s development is now better-appreciated. Indeed, change in the structure of the country-dwelling population in terms of its level education combined with support via the CAP to produce a “rejuvenation” of the farm-ownership structure, with this increasing the appetite for risk and level of entrepreneurism, as inter alia manifested in a diversification of sources of income through the linking of agricultural and non-agricultural activity on farms (Bański 2007).

Natural Conditioning Contemporary changes in Central and Eastern Europe’s farming sector are very much a reflection of the natural conditioning; first and foremost climatic factors. However, it is changes in climate of global reach that have been posing particular challenges in recent decades, with these also impacting on other elements of the natural environment (e.g. hydrological conditions). As the current trends indicated are for a steady increase in air temperature, as well as greater frequencies of occurrence of extreme weather phenomena like heatwaves, cloudbursts, floods, droughts and cyclones, it is worth considering how this may be influencing farming in the region under study. In a north-south direction, the region extends from the shores of the Gulf of Finland (at 60°N) south almost to those of the Aegean Sea (at 41°N). Climates thus range from the cool temperate through to the sub-tropical, while there are also differences in day length, soil conditions and relief; which all ensure natural conditioning supporting a wide range of different kinds of agricultural output. In the north, annual totals obtained by summing mean 24-hour temperatures only reach some 1000 °C, i.e. the lower thermal boundary for the cultivation of crops of economic significance. However, the northernmost parts of our region still manage to achieve some 1400 °C in total, with this allowing crops (albeit less-demanding ones like early potatoes, fodder beets, swedes and fodder turnips) to be grown. And, while most areas of the CEECs are in fact suitable for the cultivation of most of Europe’s key crops, there are a number like winter wheat, sweet corn, sugar beet, sunflowers, soya beans and vines that are likely to be cultivated with much greater commercial success in the south as opposed to the north, given the more favourable thermal conditions (Falkowski and Kostrowicki 2001). Beyond the matter of temperature, there are large parts of our region’s north – in the Baltic States and lowland Poland – in which more-demanding crops can only be

Natural Conditioning

17

grown to a limited degree, on account of the presence of extensive areas featuring poor podsolic soils. This is a contrast with the south of the region, in which there is a greater share of brown earths and albeluvisols, and sometimes even chernozems, representing suitable conditions for crop-growing. On the other hand, over large areas of Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia, farming is adapted to conditioning that reflects rather varied relief. Mountainous areas, with their harsher climate, less well-developed soil cover and often steep slopes, are home to livestock- (especially sheep-) raising, while lower south-facing slopes support vines. Farming is dependent on climate and atmospheric phenomena to an extent that no other branch of the economy is. Serious impacts on it can be exerted by even the smallest-scale anomaly of climate or abrupt weather phenomenon. Equally, events of this kind are of short duration, and they encompass only limited areas. Quite different effects can be expected to follow on from long-term climate change of global reach. The latter will probably bring about changes in the extent of areas of cultivation of different crops, the times at which given types of work in the fields are carried out, times of harvesting and so on. And this is already forcing farmers to seek out new solutions as regards both methods and types of production. On the other hand, climate change is actually induced by agricultural activity, with the felling of large tracts of forest to allow for cultivation being just one way in which this happens, with conversion to monocultures and irrigation also having their impacts. Equally, notwithstanding the two-way nature of the interaction, it would seem that the climate exerts a far greater impact on agriculture than agriculture does on climate. Bearing in mind this climatic impact on conditions for farming, full account needs to be taken of our region’s distinct differentiation from this point of view. The Baltic States and northern part of Poland fall within the zone of cool temperate climate, under which the growing season is relatively short and there are only limited possibilities for warmth-loving crop plants to grow. The largest lowland part of the region is that extending from Poland in the north through to Romania in the south, and characterised by a transitional climate in which thermal conditions are variable, but the growing season is sufficient for most of the plants typical for the zone to be grown. In contrast, the southern (Balkan) region has a warm temperate or Mediterranean climate that allows for a very diversified crop structure, while at the same time being afflicted with the worst water-shortage problems. An irrigation system is here an indispensable component of technical infrastructure that determines the success of agricultural production. It is thanks to its rather favourable conditions for agriculture in terms of soil, warmth, hydrology and relief that the zone of temperate climates serves as the bread basket (better the food basket) of the world. However, today’s changes of climate do pose new challenges for some parts of this zone – to the extent that output can be impacted upon. On the one hand, observable changes are ensuring a lengthening of the growing season in our region’s central and northern part – something that will most likely allow production to increase. On the other hand, increased productivity of farmland could well mean a reduction in its overall area, and a decline in numbers of farms. The knock-on effect of that might well be the departure from agriculture

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of a large further group of people employed in it, and hence increased demand on the labour market. This is just one of a number of examples that make clear the complexity of the relationship between climate and the food economy (Bański and Błażejczyk 2006; Kozyra and Górski 2004). Equally, there are some climatologists who suggest that the phenomena of extension of the growing season and the shift of agroclimatic zones will be associated with a decline in the area of land that is most productive, first and foremost on account of moisture deficits. The process of this kind is likely to be ongoing most visibly in the lowlands, where a decline in amounts of precipitation is to be anticipated. In contrast, sub-mountainous, foothills-type regions are likely to see their climatic circumstances for farming improve (Trnka et al. 2011). Globally, warming will most probably produce a spatial polarisation when it comes to food grown. Potential will mainly increase at higher latitudes, where countries are anyway better-developed economically. In contrast, in the tropics and sub-­ tropics there might be at least a relative decline in farming’s productive potential. A consequence of all this might be for food to be overproduced in the rich world, at just the same time as shortfalls make themselves felt in countries only developed to a limited degree. In the region under study, relationships between agriculture and environmental conditions also relate to the shaping of spatial structure in rural areas. Thus, for example, the fragmented agriculture of Poland, Croatia and Romania may go on shaping a mosaic-like situation as regards both the landscape and biodiversity. The downside of this model for the agricultural economy is of course its low level of efficiency, hence the conflict with the needs of environmental protection that mostly characterises agricultural activity. A typical way of achieving an increase in on-farm income entails intensified, more-specialised production, which almost by definition denotes enhanced use of chemicals, mechanisation, an increase in plot or field size and an end put to multifaceted farming. And the negative impact of that for biodiversity and the natural environment more generally are plain for all to see. Conversely, farms in areas facing environmental limitations prove less favourable when it comes to achieving higher output.

Chapter 3

A Review of Ownership Changes in the Agricultural Sector

The changes of ownership taking place after 1989 in formerly-communist countries assumed various forms and dynamics. However, they depended first and foremost on the earlier degree of development of the sector subject to a kind of nationalisation often referred to as “socialisation”; as well as the particular nature of the system adopted decades later to restore rights of ownership to farmland, as well as other assets associated with agriculture. While the attention of the authors of relevant academic literature on ownership change has tended to be drawn to land-­management issues, it needs to be recalled how processes of the privatisation and restitution of rights of ownership also took in land excluded from agricultural production, as well as buildings and technical infrastructure falling into a variety of different categories. Bulgaria was one of the first of the CEECs to pass legislation on the restitution of private property. In the peak period under communism, the area of the country’s land managed for agriculture was around 6.2 million ha, denoting 55% of the total. Almost 90% of all farmland was not under private management, hence the 1991 enactment of an Act on the ownership and management of arable land that provided for the return of property seized previously (Zadura 2005). The former owners or their heirs were in a position to either receive land or bonds (of various different types) in compensation for the loss. However, unlike in other communist countries, Bulgaria did not literally nationalise land – rather sustaining a situation whereby enterprises of the aforementioned “socialised” sector took charge of its management. The key point here is that owners never actually lost ownership title in respect of the land concerned (Property Restitution… 2007). However, agricultural reform failed to gain appropriate support from state policy, and thus began without prior preparation  – or any setting-out of a vision for the future development of farming. This lack of cohesion, and of a transparent programme of structural reform, combined with the deficiencies of the privatisation plan and attempts to ensure that certain circles had their interests safeguarded to ensure that a negative impact was exerted on both farming and farmers (Bencheva 2005). The process of the restitution of property lasted through from 1992 to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_3

19

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December 2000 – this being the time needed for more than 99% of the land earmarked for this to find itself back in the hands of rightful owners (De Arriba 2007). Negative consequences were the extensification of farm production (Moteva et al. 2014), as well as severe fragmentation of areas of cultivated fields, and an increase in the number of small farms (Bencheva 2005). By the early 2000s, it was estimated that some 8.7 million plots were in existence, their owners being no fewer than 5.1 million of Bulgaria’s inhabitants (or some 65% of the entire population) (Kopeva 2003). According to data from the Bulgarian office of the UNDP, the agricultural land was being utilised by over 1.5 million households, or half of all those present in the country (UNDP 2004). But a lack of funds at the same time prevented new owners from maintaining the technical infrastructure already in place, and some land was even abandoned. According to estimates from the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture, 90% of the farmland on small farms is in need of consolidation. Unsurprisingly then, the Agricultural Census run in Bulgaria in 2003 revealed very marked polarisation of the situations farms faced. On the one hand, there was a huge group of small farms covering less than 2 ha, and together utilising under 10% of all farmland. On the other hand, there were a few very large companies and cooperatives in operation that had over 70% of all agricultural land naturally at their disposal. This kind of structure is entirely sufficient to shape production trends, with the small entities actively engaged in labour-intensive growing (of vegetables, fruit and vines), while the large farms focus on cereals and crop species grown for their oil. In the Croatia of the period of communism à la Tito, it was private agriculture that continued to predominate. Thus privatisation, when it came along, took in small areas only, with the rate of transformation being very low. Croatia adopted an Act on the Restitution of Property in 1990, though the war in the Balkans ensured the suspension of the associated legislative process. It was only therefore in 1996 that another Act relating to the land seized in the old Yugoslavia came into force. This in fact prohibited the lodging of claims by citizens from outside Croatia. A legal entitlement allowing foreigners to make claims for the reinstatement of nationalised assets – or to be paid damages – was only conferred in 2002 (Property Restitution… 2007) (Table 3.1). Table 3.1  The place of the “socialised” sector (State Farms and Production Cooperatives) in the farmlandownership structure charact‑ eristic of countries of the old Eastern Bloc

Percentage share of agricultural land that was nationalised 1960 1988 Country Bulgaria 91.0 89.9 Czechoslovakia 88.0 93.9 Yugoslavia 14.0 15.7 The GDR 92.4 90.2 Poland 13.1 22.8 Romania 94.2 90.5 Hungary 95.5 85.8 The USSR 99.0 98.2 Source: Historia bach... (1991)

Polski

w

licz-

3  A Review of Ownership Changes in the Agricultural Sector

21

In Croatia, privatisation and the transition from a planned to a market economy proved a slow, unstable process, surrounded by an aura of mistrust. This reflected widespread corruption and cronyism whose result was the sale of many state enterprises at below-market prices. Naturally, such a state of affairs favoured neither true reform of the economy nor foreign investment. As of the late 1990s, therefore, around 70% of Croatia’s largest enterprises remained in state hands (Benczes 2014). Change then came in the new millennium, with a new government and the ultimate pursuit of key structural reforms. Through to 2001, the farming sector was still a matter of 93% of state-owned farmland being leased, with only 3% as yet subject to privatisation. However, in that same year, new regulations came in to provide for the preparation of programmes for the privatisation and leasing of state land at the level – and in the hands – of units of local-government administration. Also laid down was a requirement that state assets might only be privatised by public tender, with priority in such tendering assigned to farmers and artisans associated with the food sector. By the end of 2002, half of the relevant local-government programmes had been approved, with these designating 44% of land for sale, 41% for leasing, and 15% for other purposes. 2013 saw Croatia accede to the EU as the last of the CEECs to do so. A new chapter in the history of that country thus commenced, with new opportunities inter alia available to those working in farming, who now became fully-entitled recipients of direct payments. Nevertheless, it was only in 2015 that procedures associated with the restitution of property confiscated by the old communist regime in Yugoslavia came to be enacted. A 2015 report revealed that family farms were engaged in cultivating around 80% of all Croatia’s farmland, with the remainder being in state hands (The agriculture …. 2015). However, the results of privatisation through to that time had tended to be negative, i.a. leading to an increase in the area of abandoned land. In communist-era Czechoslovakia there was “socialisation” of almost all land. Thus, within the borders of what is today the Czech Republic, the Cooperatives accounted for 65% of the farmland, and the State Farms for 35%.1 Unit field size had been increased as a result of collectivisation, with full access for large items of farm machinery facilitated in this way. While the land-use structure did not change, the rural landscape did – very markedly – with all the attendant negative impacts on the environment, not least a marked reduction in biodiversity (Doucha and Foltyn 2008). Further noteworthy impact involved land degradation, in particular through ongoing erosion by water and wind, with the humus layer of topsoil often lost as a result. Another harmful occurrence arising regularly is the takeover of prime farmland (of high quality soil) for non-agricultural use. Naturally, this is especially 1  In the case of the former Czechoslovakia, a distinction needs to be drawn between the notions of land ownership and land use. During the communist era, private owners of land were not allowed to use it, as its management was in the hands of either the Cooperatives or the State Farms. Such owners came to be termed “naked”, as their land was used without them receiving any compensation (Bandlerova and Marisova 2003). In communist-era Slovakia, around 65% of all agricultural land was actually under private ownership.

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3  A Review of Ownership Changes in the Agricultural Sector

the case in the vicinity of towns and cities, with farmland redesignated to allow it to be built on (Janku et al. 2016). Post-1989, the new authorities of the Czech Republic and Slovakia recognised that there had been a suspension of ownership of private land over the 1948–1989 period, hence the presence of a legal basis for reinstatement. Applications seeking the return of farmland plots (of up to 150 ha) could then be submitted by persons with permanent residence in the then Czechoslovakia who were owners of land back in 1948 or are the heirs thereof. Where the restitution of particular assets proved impossible, a substitute might be offered in its place, or else compensation in the form of Treasury bonds. The result of the privatisation process was a transfer into private hands of some 3.4 million ha of farmland, with just 400,000 ha therefore remaining at the disposal of the state (Bicik and Jelecek 2009). State-owned land administered by the State Land Fund is utilised by individual farmers, companies or Cooperatives; and from 1999 on it became possible for this to be sold to any permanent resident of the Czech Republic. Similar processes took place in Slovakia. The restitution of land there was very much obstructed by the compact nature of the distribution of fields – whose separation into plots would not have made economic sense. In the first decade of the new state’s existence right of ownership was conferred upon, or restored to, around half of the total area of agricultural land. Remaining land remained under the management of the Slovakian Land Fund. Some of the land not under particular ownership was nationalised and given over to local authorities for their use. However, despite far-reaching ownership change, a decided majority of agricultural land continues to be utilised by the former Cooperatives, which have now transformed into commercial-­law companies. In Estonia, as in Latvia and Lithuania, private agriculture was dominant in the period prior to the loss of independence. After 1940, family farms lost their land, being left solely with small plots located close to their dwellings. Agricultural land as such was managed by the “socialised” sector (in enterprises of the Kolkhoz or Sovkhoz types – i.e. Collectives and State Farms). While the number of such farms had risen to around 3000 by 1950, a process of mergers into larger units reduced the number to 300 by 1989. An Act passed in 1991 to achieve the reform of agriculture provided for the restitution of rights of ownership to land. In the year following, a further Act closing down the Collectives was passed. An initial phase of this kind of restitution resulted in an abrupt fragmentation of farmland. Around 200,000 farms made their appearance in rural areas of Estonia, though World Bank credit and support from the Dutch Government brought a rapid consolidation of land, such that there were 56,000 entities in farming in 2001, and just 17,000 as of 2016. Among these, large enterprises engaging in specialised output played the most major role. In the period immediately prior to World War II, agriculture in Lithuania was dominated by small family farms. However, a process of collectivisation was set in train in 1947, with 90% of private farms already encompassed by it by 1951 (Jepsen et al. 2015). Once independence was finally regained, the country immediately proceeded with privatisation and restitution within the agriculture sector. 1990 brought

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the enactment of an Act on the use of land in rural areas, while another to provide for the restitution of rights of ownership of land followed a year later (going on to be amended subsequently). Under the Acts adopted (with privatisation regulated by both the Act on restitution and that concerning agricultural reform), land could only be taken on by citizens of Lithuania, whose maximum entitlement for the return of farmland was 50 ha (later increased to 150, though in this case together with forest and areas under water). As in other countries, restitution was an option for former owners or their heirs. Those not wishing to obtain land could also receive compensation in place of that. However, given a difficult situation in which there was a sudden need for the basic requirements of rural inhabitants to be met, the authorities in Lithuania gave the green light for a measure to allot 3 ha of land to the families of former Kolkhoz workers, with other country-dwellers entitled to 2 ha. Alongside its positive social impact, this solution generated a new problem of land fragmentation, as a large number of very small farms made their appearance (bereft of both capital and necessary knowledge), while there were also a very small number of very large farms managing the greater part of all agricultural land in the country (Daugaliene 2008). During the peak period for communism in Latvia, the “socialised” sector used more than 90% of all farmland. It was not until 1991 that an Act on agricultural reform was passed, providing for the transfer of land into private hands. Land nationalised under the communists was to be returned to its former owners and their heirs, or to be conferred upon those who had hitherto been using it. The process of land restitution pursued by the Central Land Commission only extended to citizens of Latvia, and came to an end in 2001. In the reform’s first phase alone, 800 large Collectives or State Farms gave rise to 200,000 private farms (Tisenkopfs 1999). Nevertheless, the reinstatement of ownership over land did not lead to the fragmentation of land or farms; and – according to A. Zadura (2005) – around 60% of the real estate recovered via this process took the form of a single piece of land. Thus, there was no repeat here of the situation that had afflicted Bulgaria and Romania, entailing mass fragmentation of the agrarian structure. As of 2016, the number of farms in Latvia was 82,400, while their mean area was no less than 36 ha. A feature of Poland was the way in which private land ownership prevailed throughout the communist era, with family farms predominant. In general, these were very small units of just a few hectares each, and some served only to offer additional work and income for an owner otherwise employed in some other circumstance. The “socialised” part of the process was mainly a feature of western and northern parts – in which large patches of land found themselves unowned in the wake of the Second World War. Most of the farmers that had been there had emigrated out to Germany. As of 1989, there were 1666 State Farms (Zgliński 2003). These had spent more than 40  years serving a variety of economic and socio-­ political functions and had become an apparent constant in the rural landscape. Immediately prior to the transformation, some 19% of Poland’s agricultural land was in their possession, with the sector accounting for 18% of the total output from agriculture (Zgliński 1997).

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3  A Review of Ownership Changes in the Agricultural Sector

The privatisation of agricultural land in Poland took a different course and focused mainly on areas in which the State Farms had operated previously. Returns of property were not therefore as universal as in other studied countries of our region, being rather an occasional matter characterised by an extended period of legal procedure. Unlike in the Czech Republic or Slovakia (where the State Farms formed a basis for the founding of large holdings), the State Farms of Poland were ultimately slated for total shutdown. The result of the phenomenon of this kind was an abrupt increase in unemployment, devastation of agricultural infrastructure, the impoverishment and disintegration of local communities, limited access to cultural and educational infrastructure, and in general a major decline in agricultural output in areas hanging over from the era of the State Farms. It is hard to estimate the losses borne by Poland as a result of its decision to privatise the state agriculture sector, as combined with apolitical forms of implementation often being at least somewhat corruption-related (Zgliński 1997). Today it is all the more typical for people to criticise the reforms of the agricultural economy introduced at the beginning of the 1990s, arising out of a wider package of economic and systemic reform – the so-­ called Balcerowicz Plan2). The last State Farms were closed down in 1994. While most were less-making, there were also those coping quite well enough in the new economic reality (Bański 2011; Zgliński 2003). In order to take on the land in the State Land Fund, as well as the closed State Farms – the Polish government called into being the Agricultural Property Agency of the State Treasury (APA). It was first and foremost into the hands of legal persons (mainly capital companies) that land passed. Natural persons were only involved to a more limited degree. The legal persons tended to buy large(r) parcels of land (exceeding 100 ha), while the natural persons – mainly individual farmers – acquired smaller areas. At times, the owners of larger properties had actually been the Directors of farms who had held their posts in the communist period, and thus with the approval of the Party. This in turn prolonged the existence of earlier coteries and groups of no formal structure seeking to exert influence. Indeed, their economic and political influence might be marked at local level, and even at times regionally. In Romania, the communist authorities nationalised the property of the Church and the Royal Family, as well as privately-owned land where this covered more than 50  ha. The process of the collectivisation and nationalisation of agriculture took place in the 1950s; such that by the 1960s only 15% of farmland remained in private hands, with most of that of low quality. As of 1989, the main form of land ownership was the production Cooperative (of which there were 3776, accounting for 59% of all agricultural land), as well as the State Farm (of which there were 411 managing almost 30% of all agricultural land) (Balteanu and Popovici 2010). That left 10% of farmland in private hands  – and mainly in more-mountainous areas of less-­ favourable agroclimatic conditions and limited accessibility (Page and Popa 2013). 2  The popular name for this reform is owing to the surname of the main person pursuing it, i.e. Prof. Leszek Balcerowicz – the then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in the government of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

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The Romanian model for the privatisation of agricultural land was based around the 1991 Land Fund Act, which provided for the return of up to 10 ha of land to former owners of land that had been forced to hand their land over to the Cooperatives. The Act limited possibilities for rights of ownership of such land to be transferred, and also set out a 100 ha limit for the permitted area of a farm. However, subsequent years brought the adoption of new Acts liberalising provisions where rights of ownership were concerned. The consequence of this ownership transformation was the return to former owners of almost 9 million ha of land. The privatisation of state agriculture in turn required the founding of a State Property Agency, which gained the right to sell and lease land to commercial-law companies that had been established. Slovenia’s agriculture resembled that of Poland and Croatia in remaining basically private throughout the communist era. Here, around 90% of farmland remained in private hands. The only farmland to be nationalised was in the form of plots covering more than 45 ha, until a 1953 Act obliged private farms to transfer to state entities any land in excess of 10 ha (Zadura 2005). Post-1991, it became possible for former owners to have that old “excess” land returned, or else to seek some other form of restitution (e.g. as bonds or certificates of ownership). By the early 2000s, around half of the land that had been taken had been handed back. Remaining state-­ owned land is leased to the private farms or companies making their appearance in place of the State Farms. In Hungary, post-War agricultural reform initially favoured an increase in the number of private farms. However, a process of collectivisation, ongoing and intensifying in the 1948–1962 period led to the takeover of private land ownership by newly-established State Farms and Cooperatives. It was typical for the large landed estates of old to be taken on by the state, while small farmers were forced to band together to establish Cooperatives, which then gained economic and administrative support from the state. In the peak period, around 75% of agricultural land belonged to Cooperatives, of which there were 1500 in Hungary as of 1990 – along with 124 State Farms (Kovacs 2005). Hungary’s reprivatisation reform was pursued in the years 1992–1996, and entailed lost assets being compensated for (by way of tradeable coupons), with the Cooperatives being made over into other forms, while the State Farms were subject to privatisation. A total of 2.7 M ha was designated for the satisfaction of reprivatisation claims, while remaining land was disposes of among members of Cooperatives, or else sold to private owners and the former personnel of the State Farms. An estimated 1.5 million people received land that had hitherto been under shared ownership, while half a million people had land returned to them. A further half a million people received the so-called “golden crown” land3 (Kovacs 2005). Privatisation and restitution combined to produce far-reaching change in the ownership structure. By 2011, around 80% of farmland was in private hands (Toth-­ Naar et  al. 2014). The results was the shaping of two main types of farm, i.e.

 The old unit of measurement of the quality of farmland used in Hungary.

3

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3  A Review of Ownership Changes in the Agricultural Sector

agricultural enterprises (mainly enjoying cooperative or production company status) and typical small farms. Data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office from 2013 reveal that there were then almost 8800 farms of the former type (making use of some 2,122,000  ha of agricultural land), as well as 482,500 of the latter (extending over 2,468,000 ha). The private owners were predominantly those running small farms of just a few hectares – a marked contrast from the agro-enterprises that each have several hundred hectares at least. Thanks to land redistribution, 8 million ha of farm and forest land found itself back in the hands of some 1.8 million owners (among a total national population of 10 million). The mean area of a farm stood at 4.4 ha at this point. The thousands of new landowners making their appearance included pensioners and people inheriting plots. The latter were not in fact involved in farming at all, with a majority of them not even resident in rural areas. So instead of involving themselves in cultivation, they leased out the land to corporate or individual farmers, whose production costs therefore rose considerably. While 1994 had brought the passing of a new Act forbidding Cooperatives, firms and foreigners from purchasing farmland, it became clear after accession that these regulations contravened those of the EU (Burger and Szép 2006). It did prove possible to complete the twin processes of restitution and agricultural reform. Most of the CEECs pursued them in line with a Western European model for the organisation of agriculture in which the main system is based around typical farms of a rather traditional type (Zadura 2009). The result across the region was a fragmentation of agrarian structure  – albeit with this problem affecting Bulgaria and Romania most of all (Nedalkov 2005; Swinnen et al. 2006). But there were many cases in which the reactivation of family farms emerged as a minor economic disaster where people who took land on had no means to mobilise their economic activity more fully. Rapid sale of their land was the inevitable consequence for a great many beneficiaries of land restitution who lacked either the qualifications or the motivation to engage in farming. A further obstacle was provided by conditions unfavourable to the development of private enterprises, especially prior to our studied countries’ accessions to the EU. The surplus of agricultural land that arose in this way in the initial phase led to falls in land prices and increases in the area of land left fallow. The responses to such problems on the part of Romania, Hungary and Croatia was to establish relevant institutions that were in a position to manage the land in question. In turn, in Latvia, the task of managing “unwanted” land was conferred upon existing administrative structures (Trnka and Pivcova 2005). As has been noted, it is today family farms that play the dominant role in most of the CEECs. These are then entities managed and serviced mainly by members of households. This category of farm is also the most widespread to be noted in the countries of Western Europe. According to Eurostat, as of 2016, over one-third (i.e. 34.5%) of the EU’s 10.4 million family farms were located in Romania. A fairly large share of all farms of this type (13.6%) are also present in Poland. In most countries in the region (i.e. in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia and Poland), family farms are within the group of small entities dealing with less than 10  ha of land on average. However, family farms actually extend across a rather

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wide range of categories – from small entities of limited commercial viability, via multifunctional ones with diverse economic activity obtaining income from farming, services and processing, through to large farms with a higher degree of specialisation, and production orientated firmly at the market.

Part I

Structural Transformation in the Agricultural Economy

Chapter 4

The Agricultural Population

In recent decades, rural areas in the CEECs have experienced significant changes in population that have been varied in both nature and direction. Thus, Poland and Slovakia have for example experienced an increase in the number of rural inhabitants. In Poland, this increase is “statistical” only, i.e. is very much an artefact. For the direction of demographic change has not changed significantly, and it is still possible to note depopulation in traditional rural areas also further afflicted by developing disproportions where the structure of the population by gender is concerned (as young women are the first to leave rural areas), as well as by the ageing of society. At the other extreme there are rural areas located close to large cities and key industrial districts that are losing their rurality, having more in common with the town or city in a functional sense, and when it comes to the employment structure of inhabitants. The people flowing into such areas from urban areas are wealthy and well-educated. It is this kind of influx of formerly-urban inhabitants into areas of suburbs and satellite towns that have been regarded as rural in the statistics that has caused an overall increase in the percentage of the population that is rural. The reverse process – a decline in the rural population – characterised Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary in the 1992–2014 period. In large measure, this was due to natural decrease, as well as intensified migration to urban areas. The phenomenon is true of countries with a very monocentric settlement system (in which the capital city is markedly dominant, while there is a lack of regional or sub-regional centres capable of generating socioeconomic growth). Thus, in just the 2007–2012 period, Bulgaria experienced a more-than-10% loss of population from rural areas, mainly thanks to natural decrease (a marked preponderance of mortality over birth), though also to a lesser extent in relation to migratory outflow to towns and cities. Beyond that, it is possible to observe shortfalls in numbers of families with young children, with the effect that rural schools and kindergartens close down (along with other local social infrastructure), and the quality of life in rural areas declines further. The consequences of negative social and demographic trends are only enhanced by unfavourable changes in agriculture © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_4

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itself, with inadequate use made of the productive potential of Bulgarian agriculture when it comes to kinds of livestock-raising and crop cultivation that require greater outlays of labour (as with vegetable- and fruit-growing). Only in the cases of cereals and oil crops (sunflowers) is self-sufficiency achieved, and even a major surplus (Velikov 2013). The process by which population flows out of rural areas into cities is a permanent one attesting to a country’s urbanisation and ongoing economic development. However, an excessive loss of population has to be seen as negative, as consequences ensuing from it include certain areas’ demographic and economic stagnation. The most unfavourable aspect of the process of migratory outflow is that the largest group among the migrants mostly tend to be young, well-educated, active people – also with a prevalence of women over men. The further consequence of that is a decline in the rate of natural increase – resulting in ongoing social and economic polarisation at national level. While on the one hand it is possible to observe the dynamic development of agglomerations and the areas surrounding them, on the other the depopulated areas take further shape – acting as foci for socioeconomic problems of various kinds (Table 4.1). As of 2017, around ten million people in the EU were working in agriculture (i.e. some 4.4% of all people in work  – Agriculture … 2017). However, the CEECs (other than the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Estonia) were characterised by particularly high figures against that general background, albeit with the still-weakly-­ developed Greece and Portugal resembling them (with respective percentages of 10.7 and 9.0). Equally, it needs to be stressed how a far greater number of people do actually work on farms even though this is not their full-time occupation – hence non-inclusion among the official statistics. This means that the overall farm workforces in different countries are larger, with Eurostat estimates suggesting that 20.5 million people might have been doing farm work in 2016 – on a variety of different bases. The suggestion would thus be of around 9.5 million workers doing the job

Table 4.1  Selected features of the populations of the CEECs as of 2016

Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

Population size (M) 7150 4240 10,543 1313 9855 1970 2878 38,612 19,511 5426 2068

Percentage of the population that was rural 25.4 40.4 25.4 32.6 28.4 31.9 31.0 39.7 45.1 46.1 50.1

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on Eurostat data

Percentage of the population working in agriculture 17.5 6.3 2.7 2.7 5.7 5.4 7.0 10.6 23.0 2.1 7.2

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full-time (this therefore corresponding closely with the figure for total employment in agriculture). And among the countries of interest in this study, it was the Czech Republic that had the highest percentage level of full-time employment in agriculture (somewhat over 50%). This was then in marked contrast to Romania, where just 1.5% of those employed in agriculture at that time were actually working on it full-time. What is more, a steady decline in numbers of people working in farming has been occurring since the immediate post-War years. Thus, back in 1960, no fewer than 26% of all professionally-active people in the then Czechoslovakia were in agriculture, while the corresponding figures for Poland and Hungary were of 48 and 38%. By 1990, the respective percentages for the three countries were 10, 27.5 and 17.5 (El-Agraa Ali 1990). Processes analogous with these ones (if of varying intensities) have been observable in recent decades in all of the CEECs. Thus, Eurostat data for Bulgaria set a 1990 figure for employment in agriculture of around 25% against a 2017 figure of around 17.5%.1 Still, our region typically goes on having a far higher share of employment accounted for by agriculture than would be true of the EU as a whole (on 4.2%). Only in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Estonia are percentage shares of all employment more or less as low as in Western European states (Table 4.2). The decline in numbers of people employed in agriculture was associated with the closure of the State Farms following an initial (generally dramatic) increase associated with the reprivatisation process. Among other reasons were economic optimisation of production, and mechanisation. Moreover, there was a decline in the role played by the farming sector in the region’s economies. A further matter – of particular significance in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland, for example  – were Table 4.2  Percentage changes in the shares of all people employed accounted for by the agricultural sectors in the different CEECs under study Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Latvia Lithuania Hungary Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

2000 13.1 No data 5.2 6.4 14.9 19.2 6.5 18.7 45.2 6.9 9.5

2005 8.9 17.3 4.0 5.2 12.1 14.3 4.9 17.4 32.3 4.7 9.1

2010 6.8 14.2 3.1 4.2 8.6 8.8 4.5 13.1 31.0 3.2 8.8

2015 6.9 9.2 2.9 3.9 7.9 9.1 4.9 11.5 25.6 3.2 7.0

2017 7.0 7.0 2.8 3.5 6.9 7.8 5.0 10.2 22.8 2.7 5.5

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data 1  According to FAOSTAT data, the Bulgarian farming sector gave employment to 221,000 people in 2017, or around 7% of the total number in work.

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4  The Agricultural Population

declines in numbers of farms – whose former owners were also joined by family members in seeking employment in other sectors of the economy. Recent years have seen relative stability in the levels of employment accounted for by agriculture  – in particular in the cases of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Bulgaria. This is probably a sign that agriculture in these countries has reached its optimum level of employment, which will therefore in all likelihood remain rather steady from now on. In contrast, in Poland, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania, the index is still the subject of major change – thereby sustaining a conclusion that the farming sector in those countries continues to be characterised by excess employment. Something of an exception is provided by Hungary. There too, a decline in numbers employed in agriculture took place, only for that to reverse in more recent times. This most likely marks a change in employment structure, with some of those employed now enjoying a more legalised status. This is a process that in the main affects family farms, where quite a large number of de facto workers are not really paid for what they do, being members of a farming family. On the other hand, the young generation is content to leave this kind of work on the farm behind, its replacement by hired labour that can gain employment on a farm legally. Again though, until recently, people in the latter group were regarded as ad hoc labourers and basically treated as unemployed (Figs. 4.1 and 4.2).

Fig. 4.1  Employment in agriculture of selected countries in the period 2002–2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

4  The Agricultural Population

35

Fig. 4.2  Share of those in employment working in the agricultural sector as of 2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Alongside quantitative change in numbers of people employed in agriculture there have also been changes in age structure that reflect overall demographic trends in Europe in general and the analysed region in particular. Throughout Europe the statistic for the number of children born to each woman go on declining, just as average longevity increase, with the result that societies everywhere age. Europe is doing this at a rate that may be thought of as shocking. While 13.9% of people were over 65 in 1990, that had risen to 19% by 2017. UN forecasts for the Europe of 2050 in turn suggest that the 65+ group will by then account for 28% of all the continent’s inhabitants, with this raising the figure for demographic burden to 49.0 (from the already-high 26.4 reported for 2015). The age structure characterising Europe’s population is thus one in which people of productive age account for an ever-smaller share, while the opposite is true for those of post-productive age. Young families tend to conform to the 2 + 1 model, inter alia as they elect to put career in first place, putting off the time of arrival of the first child to ever-greater average ages. Part of this issue related to cultural conditioning that has, for example, provoked certain conflicts between traditional and modern understanding of the role of women. This is writ large in Eastern Europe, and in particularly where habits in urban and rural areas are compared. Naturally, opinion-formers active in the traditional media treat the city way of doing things as progressive and modern and striving to generate a more and more “correct” way of living. The corollary of that is of course that country-dwellers (and especially those inhabiting far-flung areas furthest from the main urban centres) are seen as

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4  The Agricultural Population

conservative, “backward-looking” and over-inclined to take in what the Church (be it Catholic of Orthodox) has to say. This kind of polarisation in society is to some extent a matter of active shaping, as left-wing movements apparently garner the support of “Brussels” as they face off against strengthening right-wing forces seeking to respond to what they perceive as the loss or threatened loss of certain key elements of national identity typical for our part of Europe. And at the core of that belief is a sense that cultural influences deriving from the West are currently too strong. At a practical level, an ageing society means a decline in levels of consumption, associated with increasing demand and expectations vis-à-vis the welfare and healthcare systems. This scenario obviously brings its economic problems, as these systems will be needing ever-greater outlays, and the aforementioned demographic burdening of people of productive age may reach such a pitch that social provisioning in line with need becomes an impossibility. An already-tangible problem sees the means capable of being generated by those in employment today already needing to be augmented to a significant degree from the state budget (i.e. the taxpayer), in order for the needs of today’s pensioners to be met. This process can only intensify. Analysis of the age structure of the workforce in the EU-28 as of 2016 shows how the average age of those working in farming is higher than in the workforce as a whole. Around 32% of agricultural employees were under 40 at that point, as compared with 42% in the labour force more widely. In turn, people in the 65+ age group accounted for just 2.4% of all those in work across the EU, even as the figure in agriculture was as high as 9%. The statistics are far more pronounced when it is the owners of farms that are considered, as opposed to just those working in agriculture. Data for the CEECs from Eurostat show how every fourth owner of a farm is aged 65+. Furthermore, this feature proves a highly-diversified one in the context of the region under study, in terms of both the index itself and the trends noted for it over the last 10–20 years. The oldest farm-owners are in Bulgaria and Romania. In 2007  – the year of the former’s accession to the EU – only 8.1% of those employed in agriculture were under 35, while 33.6% were over 64. This forms part of a worsening trend in which the contemporary demographic situation is less and less favourable. The process of depopulation of rural areas in Bulgaria is the most intensive to be noted in any of the CEECs, but in general it gives rise to a number of other negative trends, including a decline in numbers of marriages and births, problems on the labour market, a decline in household incomes and falling levels of consumption. Thus progressing depopulation gives rise to destabilisation in social, economic and settlement-related terms (Mladenov and Ilieva 2012) (Figs. 4.3 and 4.4). A similar problem afflicts agriculture in Romania, in which the share of farm-­ owners who are elderly continues to rise. This was already indicated in an earlier part of the report, with it being stressed there how the process of reprivatisation in the sector gave rise to a very large number of small farms mainly owned by people of advancing years. The correlations between the ages of farmers and sizes of farms in Romania therefore come as no surprise. Among farms covering less than 20 ha,

4  The Agricultural Population

37

Fig. 4.3  Percentages of all farms whose owners were 65 or over in 2005 and 2013 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

Fig. 4.4  Percentage of farms in 2013 with an owner aged 40 or less Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

around 70% of their owners are over 55, while just 13% are under 45. In turn, when it comes to farms of more than 100 ha in area, 37% of the farmers are over 55, while 35% are under 45 (Page and Popa 2013). The phenomenon is of somewhat lesser intensity in Hungary, but in Czechia there is a very marked increase in the share of farm-owners that are older. Paradoxically, the analogous phenomenon that might be expected for Slovakia (until recently included along with the Czechs in a single country) is actually quite the reverse, though the reasons for that really ought to be the subject of separate

38

4  The Agricultural Population

study. Relatively the smallest share of older owners of farms is seen to characterise Polish agriculture, with this reflecting the different history of this sector of the economy during the communist era, as well as the age-old tradition of “father-to-son” inheritance, and a policy of extending active support to young farmers. It also emerges that Polish agriculture features the highest share of young owners (aged under 40). 2016 Labour Force Survey data on levels of activity in the economy show that the proportion of women working in agriculture across the EU was far lower than the share of all occupationally active people – the respective figures being 35.1% and 45.9%. There are three countries in the region in which more than 40% of the labour force in agriculture is female, i.e. Romania, Poland and Slovenia – on 43, 41 and 41% respectively. Only two other countries elsewhere in the EU cross that threshold, i.e. Austria and Greece. Interestingly, the CEECs have higher shares of women who manage farms. Eurostat data for 2013 show that over 45% of all farm managers in Lithuania and Latvia were women, while the values was above 30% in Estonia, Romania and Poland (Agriculture… 2017). For comparison, the values for this indicator in the European Union as a whole is just 27.9%. As of 2016, the ISCED figure for the educational attainments of people working in agriculture across the EU-28 differed markedly from that characterising people in work generally. While in the entire working population, people lacking education or having been educated to primarily level represent 17.9% of the total, the corresponding figure for those in farming is of 40.7%. The two groups do not differ much where the share with secondary education is concerned (as the respective figures are 48% among all workers and 50.2% among farmers). Equally, while on the labour market as a whole 33.9% of workers have higher education, the figure for the farming sector is of just 8.9% (Table 4.3).

Table 4.3  Levels of education among the professionally active in the CEECs and whole EU as of 2016 Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia EU-28

Working population total low medium 10.3 57.2 10.3 61.9 4.1 71.9 9.8 50.2 12.0 61.8 7.6 55.1 3.5 52.2 5.3 61.1 20.5 59.0 4.3 72.0 8.8 56.6 17.9 48.0

Source: EUROSTAT (Agriculture … 2017)

high 32.4 27.9 24.0 40.1 26.1 37.1 44.3 33.6 20.5 23.6 34.6 33.9

Working population in agriculture low medium high 42.9 49.8 7.3 47.8 46.6 5.6 4.1 84.5 11.4 27.2 52.9 19.9 26.3 62.6 11.1 18.3 70.7 11.0 10.9 76.0 13.1 15.6 77.9 6.5 54.9 43.5 1.6 5.3 87.9 6.8 37.2 53.8 9.0 40.7 50.2 8.9

4  The Agricultural Population

39

Though less well-educated than representatives of other sector of the economy, the agricultural population is characterised by a great deal of differentiation from country to country in terms of this feature. Generalising, as of 2016, it was farmers in the Czech Republic that could be regarded as the “best-educated” overall, given that just 4.1% of them had primary education only. In turn, relatively the lowest level of education characterised Romanian farmers, among whom only 1.6% had higher education. The level of education in Bulgarian farming is also relatively low. More than half of workers had primary or secondary education, while just 3% of farm managers had been educated in agriculture (Pochaleev and Todorova 2011). This poses tangible problems when it comes to the implementation of the CAP, as appropriate qualifications are required for that, including knowledge of ICT, management, environmental good practice and so on. Moreover, the low level (or lack) of mechanisation on some farms and use of what is mainly old equipment (more than 80% of what is used is more than 10 years old) help explain why primitive, low-efficiency production is continued with, and represents a major source of limited competitiveness (Todorová 2016). Lack of knowledge and experience combines with a lack of resources and equipment on the farm to encourage owners to sell their land on to large farms and cooperatives, in exchange for leaseholding of various kinds. Activity engaged in by farm managers across the EU has more to do with practical experience than with knowledge acquired at training centres. As of 2016, the Farm Structure Survey was showing that somewhat more than 68% of the group had no formal education in agriculture, while as few as 9% had a full education of that profile. That left a group of around 23% of the total who had some primary-level education on how to farm. It is in fact in the CEECs that we find the greatest disparities in the levels of education of farmer-managers. Thus the Czech Republic proves to be one of the leaders anywhere in the EU, with 39% of all managers of farms having full education in the relevant field (with only Luxembourg performing better – on 52.5%). At the other end of the scale, Romania is a country in which 97% of those who manage farms have nothing more than their practical experience to rely on; while the level of the above statistic is at just 0.4%. At this point it of course needs stressing that agriculture is a specific sector of the economy in which acquired experience in running a farm may indeed play a greater role than specialist knowledge acquired at some institution of higher education. That said, a farm manager who has at least a basic grounding in agriculture as a scientific discipline undoubtedly has a better chance of achieving economic success. Disparities in the education gained by farmers in the CEECs have varied bases. In Czechia, where the number of farms is not great and the transformation largely arose from changes in forms of ownership, there has long been a model of management in which the manager has a high level of competence when it comes to knowledge of agriculture. In contrast, as Poland has a tradition of farms being handed down through families – and did manage to maintain a largely unchanged ownership structure over more than a century  – its numbers of farm managers with a full agricultural education is far lower. Nevertheless, this has improved steadily down the decades, as more and more young farmers pick up relevant

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4  The Agricultural Population

knowledge in special agricultural schools and colleges at both the secondary and tertiary levels. An extreme example is provided by Romania, and to some extent Hungary, given processes of privatisation and restitution that saw farmland received by people specifically deficient in both a farming-related education and practical experience. This explains the high share of farm “managers” qualified by national statistics as having practical experience only, but in fact having no such experience. Hence the rapid decline in numbers of small farms in both countries referred to. As has already been noted, a great part of those working in agriculture do so less than full-time. Diversification of employment and the development of non-­ agricultural activity are linked with an abandoning of the traditional model of rural life. The fact that the labour market in rural areas has become diversified must be seen as a good thing, bearing in mind what is overall an excess of people in employment in farming, in particular in Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland and Hungary. The development of rural economic activity not entailing farming is indeed something desirable, and hence fully supported by European Community policy. It is, furthermore, a more and more important source of farm income even where the main source continues to be agriculture, and it also helps reduce the labour force where this is oversized. Differences in the efficiency of agriculture across the CEECs also attest to major disparities when it comes to outlays of labour each year, i.e. the so-called Annual Work Unit (AWU) per 100 working people aged 15–64. Visible here once again is the leader status of farming in Czechia, Slovakia and Estonia when it comes to efficiency, with each country looking to be in a very favourable situation even where the average for the EU as a whole is taken account of. In turn, the greatest outlays of labour going into farming (not well-correlated at all with farming’s share of GDP) are to be noted in Romania, as well as Poland, Lithuania and Hungary. The agriculture sectors in these states are thus characterised by far lower efficiency when it comes to outlays of labour, with simply an excessive level of employment in agriculture when set against the actual need there. Equally, the 2005–2015 period brought falls in outlays of labour in the farming sector in every state in the region, albeit most marked in percentage terms in Bulgaria, where the labour outlay ended up less than half of what it had been. Such a positive trend is ensuring that farming in the CEECs is more closely approaching the model noted in Western European countries, where production has gone on rising despite lower outlays of labour. The consequence is an increase in the level of efficiency of agriculture. A similar trend is to be observed in the case of the outlay of labour (in terms of AWU) per 100 ha of agricultural land. The greatest (almost five-fold) fall in this outlay over the 2005–2015 period was noted in Bulgaria. A marked fall in outlays of labour per 100 ha of land over this period was characteristic for almost all of the region’s states except Romania and Slovenia, which reported higher levels in 2016 than in 2010. In this regard, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Estonia are again the leaders – reporting the lowest values for the index – as a reflection of the major role played by large farms (Fig. 4.5).

4  The Agricultural Population

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Fig. 4.5  Outlays of labour (in terms of Annual Work Units) per 100 ha of agricultural land Source: authors’ own elaborations based on EUROSTAT data

There is a decline in numbers of people whose sole source of upkeep is agriculture, as well as an increase in the proportion of all people whose livelihood now depends on benefits (or pensions of different kinds), as well as people in the upkeep of others. People in farming are among the least-wealthy social strata, especially when it comes to the family farms of least commercial viability. According to A. Tickamyer (2006), the phenomenon of poverty within the population engaged in farming is especially visible in peripheral areas characterised by the long-term presence of barriers to development (a weak internal market, poor technical and social infrastructure, and limited access to public services). 2004–2015 research on the scale and conditioning of poverty among farming families in Poland showed that the phenomenon links up with economic conditions more widely (on the agricultural market, but also in the economy as a whole), while also obviously connecting with the level of support received in the context of direct payments. Poverty in the agricultural population of Poland is a factor for those running the country’s smallest farms (of less than 10 ha), and not engaging in any activity outside agriculture – often as a reflection of low or zero levels of professional qualifications (Dudek 2017). As of 2013  in the EU-28, what were in essence family farms (on which only members of the owning family worked) accounted for 93.3% of the total (FSS 2013). Thus the farms not employing family members are mainly of very large size, which are relatively small in number but still account for more than a third (i.e. around 34%) of the entire area of agricultural land. The largest mean size of farms of other categories (not worked on by family members) is the 766 ha to be noted in the Czech Republic. It reflects the transformation of the large former Cooperatives into new forms of Cooperative, or else companies (Fig. 4.6).

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Fig. 4.6  Shares of farms in the CEECs according to the structure of employed workers, 2013 Source: authors’ own elaborations based on EUROSTAT data

It is in the CEECs that farms manned solely by members of the same family are best-represented, with the share of all farms accounted for exceeded 80% in each of the countries under study. It is nevertheless possible to identify two groups of countries here, i.e. three with (relatively!) the lowest shares of family farms, i.e. the Czech Republic (82.1%), Slovakia (85.6%) and Estonia (86.5%), with all of these values far from the mean for the EU-28 (which is 93.4%). As of 2016, these three countries also feature the region’s highest figures for the share of agricultural workers not employed on family farms (over 48% of those working in agriculture in the case of Estonia; followed by Slovakia on around 29% and the Czech Republic on 28%). The agrarian structure of these countries is characterised by the most limited fragmentation, while the roles played by large farms are the most major to be noted anywhere in the region. These factors account for the way in which the share of farms not employing members of the owner’s family are highest. A second group of quite different structure of employment in farming comprises countries characterised by relatively far-reaching fragmentation of agrarian structure (i.e. Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Croatia). The shares of all farms employing family members only is close to 100% in these cases – as in Slovenia (99.3%) and Romania (99.2%). Other CEECs (Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and Hungary) have a transitional type employment structure between the above groups. This is also reflected in the agrarian structure of these countries, which is very much fragmented, even as the share of all farms that employ family members only is very high. Moreover, in the countries in question there is a much larger share of family farms with a lesser or greater share of those employed from beyond the family.

Chapter 5

Agricultural Land Use

Agriculture represents an important element of land-use structure in most European countries. Where those in the region under study are concerned, at the beginning of the period of transformation the largest shares of land taken by farming were those in Hungary (around 70%), followed by Romania (62%), Poland (60%) and the then Czechoslovakia1 (53%). In the 25  years that followed, the values of the relevant indicator declined most in Hungary and Poland. This leaves a current situation in which it is possible to note among the CEECs two groups of countries that differ greatly in the role in overall land use played by agricultural land. The first group comprises Romania, Hungary, Czechia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria, in which farmland predominates in the structure overall, with figures in the 40 to almost-60% range. The remaining four countries (Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia and Croatia) have relatively large areas of forest or unmanaged land. Indeed, more than 60% of Slovenia is under forest, while in Croatia there are extensive areas of mountain and coast in which more than half of the land actually suitable for cultivation is not being made regular use of (The agriculture… 2015). This reflects a variety of factors, including migratory outflow, the commercial non-viability of production on small farm plots, and also war in the mid-1990s contributing to a degradation of land-use structure. Overall, the low shares of land used in farming reflect unfavourable edaphic and climatic conditions in the case of the Baltic States, as well as relief where the Balkan countries are concerned (Fig. 5.1). From the point of view of the absolute area of land under the management of the agricultural sector, it is unsurprisingly the region’s two largest countries – Poland and Romania – that stand out. In each case, around 14 million ha of land is involved, and in total there is a great deal more farmland there than in all of the region’s remaining states put together (Figs. 5.2 and 5.3).

1  It was on January 1st 1993 that the place of Czechoslovakia was taken by the two new states of the Czech Republic (more recently also called Czechia) and Slovakia.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_5

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Fig. 5.1  The share of regions’ land area taken by agricultural land as of 2016 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

In all countries in the study region, the fall of the Eastern Bloc was associated with a decline in the area of agricultural land. However, this represents a further part of a long-lasting process that in essence dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century, and is the results of socioeconomic development – in its various aspects including ongoing urbanisation and industrialisation, as well as development of the network of technological and communications infrastructure. Nevertheless, states obviously differ from one another to some extent, though the greatest absolute areal changes unsurprisingly involve the two largest (also with the greatest acreage of farmland), i.e. Poland and Romania. The scale of the change is very great, though, with just the 20 years 1993–2013 bringing a decline in the two taken together equal to as much as 6,563,000 ha, which is actually more than the entire area of farmland in Czechia and Slovakia taken together. The loss mainly occurs close to large cities, where there is very dynamic development of single-family housing. The land needed for this first ceases to be used in agriculture, before being divided up into small building plots. A further loss of farmland reflects intensive expansion and remodelling of the network of expressways and motorways – and it is well known that the funding for this comes very largely within the framework of the EU Structural

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Fig. 5.2  The share of the total area of the CEECs accounted for agricultural land in 2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 5.3  Areas of farmland in the CEECs in 2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Funds. A third cause of the shrinkage in the area of agriculturally-managed land is economic, and results mainly from a rationalisation of production in the food sector. In this case, a function in farming is mainly being lost by areas in which the natural conditions disfavour agriculture and/or there are locations for a large group of farms not able to engage in efficient production – with the land they once utilised being abandoned altogether and reafforested (or else allowed to regrow forest spontaneously thanks to the operation of natural processes). Other than in the Czech Republic (where the share of the total land area taken by agricultural land has fallen only very slowly), the collapse of the old Eastern Bloc

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5  Agricultural Land Use

has resulted in the region’s largest countries losing up to 10% of that area. However, as recently as in the 1990s, the changes under analysis still tended to be limited – in connection with the crisis of the old, outgoing system and a slow construction or installation of a market economy. Only at the turn of the new century did a very dynamic transformation start to take hold. Generalising, it can be suggested that the intensity of the phenomenon that is the loss of agricultural land gathered strength from the time countries began to prepare for membership of the European Union, i.e. at a time when the dynamic of all social and economic processes increased (Table 5.1 and Fig. 5.4). Only in the case of Czechia is it possible to speak of a stable land-use structure with only a very minor loss of agricultural land. This reflects the way in which a high level of urbanisation and development of technical infrastructure in that Table 5.1  Area of land under agricultural management in the CEECs in 2017 (‘000 ha) Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

Total land area 10,856 5659 7721 4347 9126 6211 6264 30,619 23,008 4808 2013

Agricultural land 5030 1497 3521 1002 5303 1933 2935 14,462 13,378 1879 615

Arable land 3489 817 2498 684 4323 1290 2104 10,907 8543 1343 184

Permanent crops 148 72 45 4 176 8 36 384 415 18 54

Grassland 1392 608 978 314 804 635 796 371 4420 518 377

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 5.4  Changes in the share of all land in the CEECs accounted for by agricultural land Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

5  Agricultural Land Use

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country was put in place some time ago. Even in Czechia, there are marked differences in how much change in land use has taken place to be noted at regional level. The most major loss of farmland has unsurprisingly taken place in the vicinity of Prague, where housing has developed further, together with the associated infrastructure. In contrast, land use is indeed rather stable in the Moravian Lowland. The most marked fall in the share of land accounted for by agriculture has taken place in Poland, and this for several reasons. In the first place, city limits have been extending outwards, with residential areas in the suburbs and satellite towns and villages appearing in consequence. This phenomenon only intensified with the arrival of the new millennium. Some farmland has also made way for new transport developments, notably the newly-built expressways, as well as more general modernisation of the transport network in metropolitan areas. On the other hand, the pursuit of environmental programmes has ensured the reafforestation of low-quality agricultural land, on which production was anyway of limited or zero profitability. The disappearance of farmland can also be linked with such unfavourable demographic phenomena as the ageing of the rural population, inter alia with the migratory outflow of the young and active. Areas hit by these processes are failing to develop, and the farms present there (mostly unable to compete) go to the wall. However, similar processes are to be identified in marginal areas of the Czech Republic (like the northern parts of Bohemia and Moravia), and indeed other countries – where the limited or zero commercial viability of farming results from inferior agroenvironmental conditions that encourage outward migration movements to other parts of a given country (Bicik and Jelecek 2009; Gajdos 2005; Balteanu and Popovici 2010). This explains the importance development policy attaches to the stimulated development of sectors of the economy other than agriculture, i.a. in the direction of multifunctional rural areas. This exerts further impacts on the land-use system. Aspects involved here include the adaptation of land to better meet the needs of tourism and recreation, the growing of herbs and other crops used in cosmetics, the cultivation of crops as sources of energy, and the transfer of the worst-­ quality arable land over to other forms of agricultural use, first and foremost grassland (Havránek et al. 2007) (Plate 5.1).

Plate 5.1(a, b) Examples of abandoned farms on marginal land in eastern Poland (photographed by J. Bański)

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Crop-growing plays a very important role in the agriculture of the region under study, with cereals and industrial crops proving to be of particular importance. This can account for the way in which the prevalent form of agricultural land here is actually arable. A remaining key component to the land-use structure typical for agriculture is in the form of grassland. That leaves – basically as a trace component where different countries are concerned – production based around more-permanent cultivation of certain plants. In most of the CEECs, more than 60% of all land under agricultural management is devoted to field crops. Only in the cases of Croatia and especially Slovenia (where much of the land is hilly or mountainous) is there a smaller share of farmland taken by arable land. At the same time, it is in these two countries in particular that more-permanent kinds of cultivation play a key role, first and foremost given the possibilities the climate affords for both vineyards and olive groves to develop. For its part, Croatia has some 59,000 ha of land under vines – owned by a relatively small group of entities (i.e. 30 large wine-making enterprises, 35 Cooperatives and 250 family-owned businesses) (Fig. 5.5). The disappearance of farmland in the CEECs has been associated with changes in land-use structure, albeit ones differing in both direction and nature from one country to another. That structure was in general stable (only fluctuating to a limited degree) in countries with large areas of land managed by the farming sector, such as Poland and Romania. It nevertheless proves possible to note an increase in the share of land taken by meadows and pastures in Romania (at the expense of permanent crops and arable land); while Poland has first and foremost witnessed a rise in the share of permanent crops (denoting greater emphasis on the production of fruit and processed fruit products – both of which in fact became key – and well-renowned – Polish exports). Certain kinds of orchard also attracted high levels of payment

Fig. 5.5  The structure assumed by areas of agricultural land in the CEECs as of 2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

5  Agricultural Land Use

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following Poland’s EU accession, with this helping to account for new planting, and the introduction of species and varieties producing fruit more abundantly and efficiently. Nevertheless, not all of the investments into the development of orchards could really be justified, this particularly being true of the founding of new orchards in areas with no tradition of this kind of growing and characterised by unsuitable climatic and edaphic conditions. The prime example would be the walnut orchards set up in Pomerania in the context of a change of land ownership. Media reports show how these orchards were backed by investors (more accurately “speculators”) lacking agricultural experience and/or wanting to “get rich quick” on the back of the EU payments flowing into Poland. The first step towards that was always the purchase of land – mostly cheap and of low quality (Fig. 5.6). It is a notable fact that most of the countries in the south of the region have witnessed major declines in the growing of permanent crops (i.e. grapes in vineyards and fruit in orchards). This attests to an extensification of production structure that has seen highly-specialised forms of cultivation resigned from (Takacs 2008). And this is above all true of Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria, as well as Hungary to a lesser degree. A factor underpinning these kinds of processes is ownership change Fig. 5.6  Structure of land used by agricultural holdings in 2015 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Arable land Permanent grassland Permanent crops Kitchen gardens

e

a

Unutilised agricultural area

lt

ic

S

Wooded areas

Bl

ac

k S e

a

B

a

Other areas on the farms

A

d

ri

a

ti

c

S

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0

100

200 km

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5  Agricultural Land Use

and the associated eschewal by small farmers of labour-intensive cultivation that requires major inputs of various kinds, as well as modern technology and appropriate technical infrastructure. An ongoing phenomenon of this kind is confirmed by detailed land-use research done in Romania, on the basis of CORINE Land Cover data (Popovici et al. 2013). This shows how farmers resigned from intensive cultivation over the 1990–2000 period, with new landowners in some regions abandoning cultivation altogether, given a lack of capabilities to undertake the work involved (in terms of both available funding and appropriate occupational skill and training). Only in Slovenia – where farming has found itself in a more favourable economic situation  – has the importance of permanent types of cultivation increased (Table 5.2). In Bulgaria, it was not only the share of permanent crops, but also that of grasslands, that decreased, to the benefit of field crops. That would seem a justified trend, given the way that over 53% of all farmland in that country has deep, fertile soil. A key role in the crop structure is played currently by wheat and sweet corn, which are even viewed as strategic food crops (Moteva et al. 2014). An increased importance of industrial crops is also to be noted, first and foremost in the case of the oil crops grown to make biofuels. Croatia witnessed an increase in the share taken by field crops, with the key roles played by sweet corn and wheat. Levels of production of these grains were entirely sufficient to meet the country’s own needs. Indeed, maize grown for its grain is earmarked mainly for the home market, with any surplus there proving saleable in the neighbouring Bosnia, North Macedonia and Montenegro. In 1998, the farms growing sweet corn began to receive area payments taking the place of the earlier production subsidies. However, a condition for support to be received was possession of at least 3 ha under the crop. In recent years, the area under sugar beet has also increase – as a result of preferences being shown for Croatia and other Balkan countries when it came to sugar exports to EU Member States. Table 5.2  Changes in the percentage shares accounted for by different kinds of agricultural land use in the CEECs Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

Arable land 1995 2000 64.9 63.2 47.9 72.0 77.1 75.8 88.2 85.5 77.8 78.6 54.7 61.1 84.0 84.2 76.3 76.0 63.1 63.1 63.7 62.6 36.4 33.4

2017 69.4 54.6 70.9 68.3 81.5 66.7 71.7 75.4 63.9 71.5 29.9

Permanent crops 1995 2000 3.3 4.5 5.0 5.9 1.8 1.8 1.2 1.2 3.6 3.4 1.6 0.8 1.3 1.3 2.0 1.8 3.9 3.5 2.0 1.9 6.1 6.0

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

2017 2.9 4.8 1.3 0.4 3.3 0.4 1.2 2.7 3.1 1.0 8.8

Grassland 1995 2000 31.8 32.3 47.1 22.1 21.1 22.5 10.6 13.3 18.6 18.0 43.7 38.2 14.7 14.5 21.7 22.2 33.0 33.3 34.3 35.5 57.4 60.6

2017 27.7 40.6 27.8 31.3 15.2 32.9 27.1 21.9 33.0 27.6 61.3

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In the Czech Republic there was mainly an increase in the share of land accounted for by grassland, inter alia as a result of the fall of the State Farms in the mountainous or hilly areas characterised by low-quality agroecological conditions. A lack of taxpayer support for farming led people to resign from arable cultivation of limited commercial viability, with the result that land was turned over to meadow or grassland, or else reafforested. Equally, however, a fall in domestic consumption of beef, milk and cheese brought change to cattle-rearing techniques. While the 1990s had seen a dominance of a closed system that required fodder to be grown on arable land, the new system involved cattle being grazed out on grasslands for 7–8 months of the year (Bicik and Jelecek 2009). The changes occurring in the Baltic States were of differing profiles. In Estonia and Lithuania there was a marked increase in the share of grasslands at the expense of arable land, while in Latvia the converse was true. Equally, in the 1990s it was the latter country that had clearly the highest share of land under grass in any of the three countries. While changes since then have been major, the share remains rather higher in Latvia than in Estonia or Lithuania. Particularly major change in land-use structure was to be noted in Estonia, perhaps as a result of the widespread tendency for land to be purchase for non-farming purposes. For changes of designation of farmland in the direction of building land went untaxed there. According to A. Zadura (2005), transactions of this kind were made mainly in the vicinity of the country’s large urban centres (Tallin and Tartu), where it is likely that most of the land was arable (Fig. 5.7).

Fig. 5.7  Changes in agricultural land-use structure in the CEECs between 1995 and 2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Chapter 6

Farms’ Agrarian Structure and the Market for Land

Eurostat data show that, as of 2016, the CEECs considered here feature in excess of 5.9 million farms making use of agricultural land. However, marked spatial differentiation between one and another was easy enough to discern. By the standards of the EU overall, the Czech Republic and Slovakia can be said to have relatively few farms, while Hungary, Romania and Poland have very many. The total for these three last countries (at around 5.2 million) exceeds the number of farms in all of the remaining EU states. Closely connected with this disparate situation are differences in farm size, given that an average farm in Czechia has more than 130 ha of farmland compared with just 3.6 ha in Romania (Table 6.1 and Fig. 6.1). In the 1990s, the privatisation and restitution of land encouraged a huge increase in numbers of individual users of agricultural land, above all in Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania – i.e. the countries with large areas of agriculturally-managed land to dispose of. Reforms resulted in the development of a dualist model for farm size structure in these countries, whereby entities with large areas of land appeared on the one hand, alongside huge numbers of tiny farms. Bulgaria is therefore left with a situation in which the number of large farms is small, but these still own or manage a majority of the country’s farmland. At the same time, there are still an enormous number of small farms, which together account for only a small part of the overall area of agricultural land. As of 2010, the National Agricultural Census revealed more specifically that 67% of all farms in Bulgaria covered less than a hectare (where actual farmland was concerned), with this category in total accounting for just 10% of the area of the country in agricultural use. At the other extreme, the category of farms larger than 50 ha (not necessarily massive therefore) represented just 2% of the total, yet these entities taken together were managing some 84% of all farmland. What was more, more than 40% of the land managed for farming purposes was found to be in the hands of newly-established Cooperative-type entities. Even so, the last 2 decades have brought a (necessary) process of land consolidation also facilitated by the influx of EU funds. Beyond that, many of the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_6

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Table 6.1  Numbers of entities in selected countries of the region utilising agricultural land Country/Year Czech Republic Hungary Poland Romania Slovakia

2005 41,180 662,370 2,465,830 4,121,250 66,360

2007 38,490 565,950 2,380,120 3,851,790 66,520

2010 22,580 534,020 1,498,660 3,724,330 23,720

2013 25,950 453,090 1,421,560 3,563,770 22,050

2016 26,530 430,000 1,410,000 3,422,030 25,660

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

Fig. 6.1  Numbers of farms by region, 2016 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

new owners of land deliberately handed their property assets over for Cooperatives to use – in exchange for different forms of leaseholding rights. A similarly-unfavourable agrarian structure of farms characterises Croatia, where there is a preponderance of small family farms covering an average of 5.6 ha each. Together these utilise around 76% of all agricultural land. At the other extreme are the large agricultural enterprises belonging to the state (The Agriculture … 2015; Svrznjak and Franic 2012). The region’s remaining countries  – other than

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Poland – also noted an increase in numbers of individually-owned or run farms, if only a small one. As most farmland in Poland was in private hands, the privatisation of State Farms (concentrated in the north of the country) was not associated with an increase in the number of farms. This was because land undergoing privatisation usually passed into the hands of (typically larger and more mechanised) farms already in existence. 1990s Hungary had more than 1.4 million farms (Hartsa et al. 1998), but this number declined rapidly as the years passed. In the years 1990–2000 an estimated 30% of the total number of farms were lost, while in the 2000–2010 period the figure reached around 50%. There were many reasons for this situation, though first and foremost it was a matter of the limited profitability of agricultural production, the tendency for most small farms to be nothing more than self-supplying, the fact that farm owners were often employed in other sectors of the economy at one and the same time, and the process of population ageing that was ongoing in rural areas (Sadowski and Takacs-György 2005; Toth-Naar et al. 2014). At the same time, it was possible to observe a steady increase in numbers of large farms. The current agrarian structure in Hungary thus shows a kind of “bipolar” trend. On the one hand, there are a very large number of small farms (covering less than 5 ha); while on the other there are also a relatively large number of corporate farms covering more than 300 ha each. The larger entities (of 50 ha and upwards) are mainly Cooperatives and they in fact play the leading role when it comes to output, as they have around 60% of all farmland at their disposal, and can thus account for a 70% share of cereal production, as well as 60 and 50% shares respectively where pigs and poultry are concerned. In Romania’s case, there was a dramatic increase in the number of farms in the first period of transformation, only for the numbers to decline rather slowly after that. A negative impact of rights of ownership being restored was that the land that had been used in a consolidated way by the communist-era Cooperatives now came to be divided into small plots. The systemic transformation has the effect of increasing the number of users of farmland to around 4 million (Benedek 2000). And it was estimated that more than 60% of the farmers regaining land were elderly people, who bequeathed or handed on their farms to others in a way that ensured yet-further fragmentation. After a brief period of stabilisation, the number of Romanian farms passed into a phase of steady decline – to around 3.5 million by 2016. Privatisation-induced agrarian fragmentation proved to be a more severe phenomenon in Romania than in any of the other CEECs. Around 2.8 million farms (or some 71% of the total) still cover less than a hectare. Such farms cover a total area of 5 million ha altogether, which is just around 35% of the total area of agricultural land in Romania. In turn, there are over a million farms there (27% of the total) whose areas range from 1–10 ha. These are seen as entities of limited commercial viability and together have some 3.1 million ha at their disposal (i.e. 21.2% of all of the farmland in Romania). The main orientation of these farms is towards production to meet own needs (Otiman 2013). That leaves just under 60,000 farms in Romania (just 1.6% of the national total) in which sizes are in the 10–100 ha range. Together these occupy 1.49 M ha of land (or somewhat over 10% of all farmland).

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However, only some 12,000 farms (0.3% of the total, of average size 100 ha) engage in true commercial activity. And they are making use of no less than 34% of Romania’s total area of farmland (Otiman 2013). As the privatisation process in the CEECs’ agricultural sector was brought to an end, the shortlived increase in numbers of individual farms likewise ceased, by way of a reversal that immediately saw numbers of farms decreasing. However, while this trend was indeed characteristic for every country in the region, the dynamics of the processes involved varied greatly. The farms going to the wall were above all the small, economically-weak ones, and/or those in the hands of elderly people lacking heirs. The fact of accession of the CEECs to the EU only intensified the process, given the impact of loss of competitiveness on the market for food. Thus, in Bulgaria in the years 2003–2010 alone, the numbers of farms declined by as much as 56% from 665,500 in 2003 to 370,200 as of 2010. This process first and foremost affected the smallest farms of less than 5 ha in area, with the group of farms above 10 ha in size at this stage continuing to experience and increase in numbers (Velikov 2013). However, a further decrease in numbers of individual farms is to be anticipated, with this process mainly involving the entities lacking in commercial viability  – which as has been noted represented rather a large share of all farms in this region of Europe. Changes of this kind will related to Poland, Romania and Bulgaria above all (Fig. 6.2). Interesting conclusions arise out of analysis of farm-size structure, which proves to be highly differentiated. That said, the 11 countries under study here can be assigned to three different groups in line with similarities of structure. The first of these groups consists of Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary – and is characterised by the presence of very large numbers of tiny farms (accounting for around 70% of the

Fig. 6.2  The change in the number of farms in the CEECs in the 2005–2016 period (*Croatia 2007) Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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national totals). It is likely that the land involved in these cases will pass to larger farms in the near future. In many cases farms of these kinds are little more than statistical artifacts, as their land is being made use of by larger entities of greater economic strength. The second of the groups referred to in turn comprises Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia – where the size structure is characterised by a prevalance of small farms covering less than 10 ha. The third group is made up of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia and Estonia, and there is relatively large number of small farms, but also a very important category made up of medium-sized or large entities. This reflects a transformation of the farming sector in the countries emerging from the old Czechoslavkia that retains the earlier size structure of farms that changed their form of activity in a legal and administrative sense (only) – e.g. converting from the Cooperatives of the communist era into commercial-law companies). In contrast, in Hungary and Romania a major fragmentation of ownership has taken place, with this then being reflected at the level of the actual use made of land (Fig. 6.3). These changes in farm-size structure were very dynamic and of a dual nature. While the period of privatisation and restitution in the agricultural sector brought a dramatic increase in numbers of farms (including the smallest of all and the small), today the prevalent trend is for the numbers of the smallest farms to decline – as a result of an increase in the shares accounted for by medium-sized and large farms. It is therefore possible to refer to favourable and economically-justified structural change. Though of differing intensities, these processes have been a feature of agriculture in most of the countries in the region under study. An exception is Romania, in which (in terms of numbers), there was an increase the role played by the smallest

Fig. 6.3  Farm structure by areas of farmland in 2016 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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farms at the expense of small ones. This probably reflects the dividing-up of farms among heirs (Table 6.2 and Fig. 6.4). Correlated with farm-size structure is the overall structuring of the use of land by groups of farms organised by size. The CEECs can be divided into two main groups from this point of view. The first includes countries in which a decided majority of the farmland is managed by large farms – as in Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. The second group is characterised by the high degree of fragmentation of land use that has taken place, albeit with land divided among different groups where farm size is concerned  – as in Croatia, Poland, Romania and Slovenia (Fig. 6.5). Similar changes have affected the area of utilised agricultural land as considered in relation to categories of farm size. However, given the lack of statistical data for the 1990s, the analysis was confined to the last ten years or so – a period in which most of the countries under study had already been brought within the European Union structures. In most cases, the trend was for an increase in the area of farmland included within medium-sized and large farms, at the expense of the small ones. While the actual intensity may have differed, a phenomenon of this kind was at work in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Importantly, land managed for agriculture was lost by farms covering less than 20 ha, with the large farms being the beneficiaries. In contrast, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, land was lost by both the largest and the smallest even as increase in size were to be noted for all other size-categories of farm. However, it needs to be stressed that the changes in operation here were not large-scale. Thus in the case of Czechia, the trend for the largest farms (of more than 100 ha), in the study period (2005–2016) was to lose a mere 0.8% of land. In contrast, in Slovakia, the analogous figure was 3.2%. Relatively the most major changes were the ones taking place in the Baltic countries, where the share of agricultural land only increased on the largest farms – at the

Table 6.2  Numbers of farms by area of farmland in the CEECs in 2016 0.1– Country 0 ha 1.9 ha Bulgaria 16,330 130,870 Croatia 1780 50,810 Czechia 360 2710 Estonia 620 2010 Hungary 64,890 243,120 Latvia 290 12,370 Lithuania 190 22,330 Poland 5540 299,340 Romania 79,840 2,400,930 Slovakia 1750 5660 Slovenia 80 17,440

2.0– 4.9 ha 20,270 40,840 1890 3240 42,110 11,950 52,680 461,600 660,000 6880 25,050

5.0– 9.9 ha 9860 20,080 5180 3490 27,560 15,880 32,770 306,220 194,200 3570 16,060

10.0– 19.9 ha 7300 9470 4470 2700 20,060 14,560 19,320 202,350 50,210 2540 8230

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

20.0– 29.9 ha 3980 3160 2370 1170 8450 4990 6880 60,820 10,990 1000 2180

30.0– 49.9 ha 4370 3160 2380 1120 7760 3760 5370 40,390 7530 920 1250

50.0– 99.9 ha 3660 3540 2450 1050 7280 2890 5490 22,440 6010 940 500

100 ha or more 6060 1620 4710 1900 8760 3250 5290 12,010 12,310 2400 120

6  Farms’ Agrarian Structure and the Market for Land

Fig. 6.4  Changes in numbers of farms by area of farmland in the 2005–2016 period Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

Fig. 6.5  Farm structure by area of agricultural land in 2016 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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11,630 148,840 129,270 50,880 586,750 1,778,810 9210 56,630

Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

34,980 168,250 108,320 215,870 1,869,470 2,187,540 23,430 173,810

2,0–4,9 ha 124,710 162,180 8470 61,070 225,640 305,800 269,670 2,541,890 1,375,450 32,990 242,140

5,0–9,9 ha 75,440 158,860 41,430

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

0,1–1,9 ha 109,270 87,710 3040

Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia 74,410 323,900 388,770 317,230 3,129,520 706,710 68,610 218,570

10,0–19,9 ha 103,820 141,770 83,340 41,690 226,760 202,860 183,100 1,621,110 300,560 27,540 81,390

20,0–29,9 ha 154,170 82,620 61,660 58,810 325,150 215,650 228,720 1,649,120 309,770 44,430 60,420

30,0–49,9 ha 234,650 123,210 96,220

Table 6.3  Farm areas [ha] in relation to the agricultural land at their disposal in the different CEECs as of 2016

89,680 559,930 292,240 405,660 1,611,800 600,530 73,720 37,960

50,0–99,9 ha 360,510 250,600 209,170

824,250 4,254,450 1,381,860 1,493,010 3,214,580 6,595,260 2,796,880 35,450

100 ha or more 3,807,110 680,370 4,328,900

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expense of all remaining size categories of farms – in Estonia by 12.2%; in Latvia by 23.9% and in Lithuania by 21.6% (Table 6.3 and Fig. 6.6). Requiring particular attention is the matter of land-leasing – which can much-­ modify the real-life use structure where farmland is concerned where it is taken into account. The point is that leasing often occurs by virtue of informal contracts, hence the difficulties with obtaining reliable data. Moreover, what are typically the low costs associated with leasing may tend to curtail other activity on the market for land. Where the CEECs under consideration here are concerned, it is Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary in which leasing is seen to be practised most widely. In the first of these countries, estimates from the beginning of the twenty-first century showed that perhaps as much as 90% of all farmland was subject to lease (Doucha et al. 2005). And from among 3.5 million owners of land having 0.44 ha at their disposal on average, fewer than 1% actually engaged in farming activity (Bicik and Jelecek 2009). Remaining owners of land do not in fact farm it, rather leasing it out to production companies or a small group of individual farms. The leasing of farmland is provided for in law and the cost of doing this has been at 1% of the official cost of land. However, an owner and a lessee have the right to agree on another value. Much depends on the location of land and the quality of the agroecological conditions (i.e. the possibility of a given kind of crop-growing being engaged in). Work by F. Strelecek et al. (2011) pointed to a strong dependent relationship between the size of a least and the price of land. In contrast, in Hungary leasing costs correlate with the quality of farmland (Toth-Naar et  al. 2014). And around 93% of agricultural land under the management of Hungarian production companies is made available by way of lease. It is estimated that every fifth hectare of farmland in Poland is leased, though there is a lack of reliable data, as such cases are often of an informal nature where they involved various farmers at the individual level, the contracts therefore being of a verbal nature. That leaves prices hard to assess, though Statistics Poland (GUS) produced a 2017 figure of 200 euros per ha on average. Where land leased by the Treasury is concerned, the rent is usually set by reference to market principles, on the basis of tendering. Rates are set by reference to both current and average wheat prices as noted by GUS. The privatisation and restitution of property increased the possibilities for land to be traded in. However, at the beginning of the transformation period, the market for agricultural land was a dormant one – for a variety of reasons that differed from one are to another and reflected the specific nature of legal solutions and the general socioeconomic situation in different CEECs. Thus, in the Czech Republic, over the 1992–2002 period just 174,000 ha of agricultural land were subject to market trading (Zadura 2005). Most often, this land was located in areas attractive from the point of view of tourism, or in the vicinity of large urban centres. Purchasers thus most likely sought a change of designation from farmland to building land (serving a new residential function). A similar phenomenon was to be observed in other CEECs, with Romania for example witnessing an increase in the area near large cities that was built on equal to 42,000  ha over the 2000–2006 period. This was likewise mainly at the expense of land that hitherto been used agriculturally.

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Fig. 6.6  Changes in the areas of farms by reference to the area of land accounted for by agriculture in the years 2005–2016 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

While Poland also saw only limited amounts of land changing hands, that was due to somewhat different circumstances, i.e. the limited supply of land available and restrictions on its purchase by foreigners. The most movement on the market for land naturally took place where the abolished State Farms had been located. The years 1996–2004 thus say some 100–190,000 ha of land sold annually. In the early years, the low level of sales was also linked to inadequately-prepared privatisation from the formal and legal point of view, but also due to deficiencies with surveys and the delimitation of plot boundaries. That made it essential for Land Registers to be updated, or else made ready from scratch. From 2003 on, any natural person was in a position to purchase farmland in Poland, with no limits any longer set on the size of the tract(s) of land that might be acquired. The relevant 2003 Act provided that agricultural land might be purchased by persons with basic farming education, any kind of secondary or tertiary education, or else relevant experience of work in agriculture. However, farms might not exceed 500  ha in area. Rules of this type seeking to ensure the retention of appropriate land-use structure are in place in Western European countries (Granberg et al. 2001).

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A separate issue concerns the aforementioned limitations on the purchase of land by foreigners. As an example, Poland’s EU accession of 2004 was followed by some lifting of restrictions in this area (in respect of nationals of EU Member States, obviously), but a transition period of no fewer than 12 years was applied in the case of agricultural and forest land, which therefore continued to be purchasable by Polish citizens only. The period of this kind applying in other countries acceding to the EU at the same time as Poland (e.g. Czechia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovakia) was shorter, standing at “just” 7 years (Burger and Szép 2006). To this day, the prices payable for farmland across the CEECs remain far lower than those noted further west, even as a steady rise in the years after 1989 could be noted. Eurostat data make it clear that the average price paid for farmland in the Czech Republic rose from 1555 to 2249 euros per ha in the 2000–2009 period, as compared with an increase from 895 to 1256 euros in Slovakia. Where Romania was concerned, the increase noted for the years 2000–2005 was from 351 to 879 euros per ha. Thereafter, prices of agricultural land went on risking, albeit with trends varying quite markedly from one country to another, and in relation to the prevailing agroenvironmental conditions (Figs. 6.7 and 6.8). Land prices prove to be very location-dependent, though plot size and designation are also of course important. As of 2011, a hectare of farmland in the Czech Republic might be bought for prices in the 260- do 5500-euro range,1 even as the average figure was around 2000 euros (Strelecek et al. 2011). In 2007, the value of small plots of up to a hectare, whose designations are very often non-agricultural, reached prices equivalent to 59.000 euros per ha, only to rise by as much as 73% after that. In turn, prices of areas of land over 5 ha which retained their agricultural designations were of 1324 euros per ha on average, and in fact fell by around 15%

Fig. 6.7  Prices of arable land in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data  In line with an exchange rate whereby 100 CZK = 3.7 Euro.

1

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6  Farms’ Agrarian Structure and the Market for Land

Fig. 6.8  Examples of average prices of 1 hectare of arable land in selected countries of the European Union as of 2002 (*2001) Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

in the analogous period. In Hungary, price increases occurred first and foremost in anticipation of the EU accession – in line with the associated possibilities of real estate being purchase by foreigners, and of advantage being taken of farm subsidies (Pop and Stauder 2003). In Poland, the average price of 1 ha of agricultural land sold privately in 1992 stood at 298 ha … only to rise to 9169 by 2016. Indeed, the whole period under a market economy has seen the average price of farmland rise. The change involved more of a sharp jump following the country’s accession to the EU, in the light of limited supply and the eligibility of farmers for farm payments. The land hitting record prices was that located next to large cities and the main transport routes, given purchasers’ intention to take the land in question out of agriculture, on the basis of a change of designation in local plans for physical development (to building or recreational land). What was interesting was the way in which the most-marked price increases (even of 20% in the course of a year) related to land least suitable for agriculture. Such land is easy to take out of production, and then to achieve a change of designation making housing construction possible (Wasilewski and Krukowski 2004). And following such a change of designation, it proved quite possible for prices of land to experience ten-fold increases or even more. Land is then divided up into small buildings plots and sold at very favourable prices. Today, a buildings plot in the Warsaw or Kraków areas might fetch a price in excess of 100 euros per square metre. The development of housing in rural areas adjacent to large agglomerations proved to be the strongest trigger of increases in land prices (Ihlanfeldt 2007; Mayer and Somerville 2000) (Fig. 6.9). In regional terms it is in the south of Poland that the highest prices for agricultural land are reached – and it is there that fragmentation ensures only very limited

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Euro 10000 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

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0

Fig. 6.9  Change in the average price of a hectare of arable land in Poland Source: Takacs-György et  al. 2011 plus author’s own calculations based on data from Statistics Poland

income for farmers. Land prices are influenced by the propagation of the custom of assets being passed down within families, to the extent that the supply of land is very limited. Moreover, ownership of land there has a kind of backup function for situations in which a job outside agriculture is lost. For a long time now, land has been the most favourable place in which to locate capital.

Chapter 7

Crop-Growing

Europe’s farms grow more than 100 species of crop plant, and the diversity characterising the field cultivation structure in the CEECs results first and foremost from geographical (including also climatic and hydrological) conditions. Thus, wheat is most prevalent in the states in the northern and central parts of the region under study. These areas enjoy the most favourable conditions when it comes to the aforementioned climate and hydrology. In contrast, a lower share for this particular species of cereal characterises the CEECs located further south (other than Bulgaria), given the leading role played there by maize. Climatic conditions have their clear determining influence when it comes to types of industrial crop that are grown, and that is all the more true of crops grown to produce oil. Further north (from the Czech Republic through to the Baltic States) it is the growing of rape and field mustard that is of most significance. In contrast, in the centre and South of the region, a key role is played by rape and sunflowers. Other crops like potatoes and sugar beet have less-­ distinct spatial specifics, being distributed more in line with the tradition and structuring of the food industry (Figs. 7.1 and 7.2). It is cereals that prevail in the areal structure characterising crop-growing across the European Union, as well as in the CEECs. In the whole EU, these crops’ share by area reaches 63.1%, with the comparable figure for our region as high as 68.8%. In both cases, it is wheat that takes the lion’s share, even as the breakdown for remaining key species can vary markedly. While in the CEECs, maize comes second after wheat, as followed by rape, the structure for the EU 17 features barley in second place – the area sown with it being greater than that planted with all the other cereals (other than wheat) put together. Among the CEECs, larger areas are planted with both rape and sunflowers than with barley. Thus, the crop structure for cereals in our region as opposed to the whole EU differs primarily in the higher share of maize at the expense of barley, while sunflower is the more important of the crops grown to produce oil (mainly here at the expense of olives). At the same time, the trends for area under different kinds of crop are basically similar in the region studied to in the EU as whole, with rape and wheat increasing their shares markedly, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_7

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7 Crop-Growing

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Bulgaria

Croatia

Wheat

Czechia Estonia

Barley

Oats

Rye

Hungary Maize

Latvia

Lithuania Poland

Rapeseed

Sunflower

Romania Slovakia Slovenia Potatoes

Sugarbeet

Fig. 7.1  Structure characterising the presence of the main crop plants on arable land in the CEECs as of 1989 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Bulgaria

Croatia

Wheat

Czechia

Barley

Estonia Hungary

Oats

Rye

Maize

Latvia

Lithuania Poland

Rapeseed

Sunflower

Romania Slovakia Slovenia Potatoes

Sugarbeet

Fig. 7.2  Structure characterising the presence of the main crop plants on arable land in the CEECs as of 2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

while the proportion of farmland planted with potatoes and barley declines. The region is further distinguished by the growing importance of sunflowers and triticale, as well as the decline in the share accounted for by rye (Fig. 7.3). In the whole northern part of the CEEC region large shares within the areal structure of crop production are taken by barley, oats and other less-popular cereals, as

7 Crop-Growing

69

Fig. 7.3  Areal structure of crop cultivation in the CEECs and EU (data for the countries of the “Old” EU) as of 1989 and 2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

well as rapeseed. In contrast, there is only limited production of sweet corn for grain, spices and species used to make drugs. Moreover, the structure in the Baltic countries at least differs in the high shares accounted for by wheat and beans, as well as the low shares to be noted for triticale and cereal mixtures, plus different kinds of fruit, sugar beet and minor crops. In terms of trends characterising changes in crop-growing, countries in the region’s whole northern part show an above-­ average increase in the importance of wheat and other less-popular cereals, as well as a declines in the shares taken by rye and potatoes. Moreover, it is possible to note above-average increases in the shares of peas and rape, as well as an increased share for beans, and an exceptionally marked decline in the significance of barley. More specifically, the transformation in crop structure in Estonia has been featuring an above-average decline in the shares of oats and cereal mixtures, as well as stabilisation in the cases of sugar beet and triticale. On the other hand, Latvia has experienced a marked decline in the shares taken by oats and sugar beet, while crop structure in neighbouring Lithuania stands out for its decline in the share the group of less-popular crops accounts for (Table 7.1). Poland’s crop structure by area is characterised by relatively high shares of triticale, rye and cereal mixes, as well as potatoes and various kinds of fruit. A feature

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Table 7.1  Areas supporting selected categories of crop in the CEECs as of 2017 (hectares) Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

Cereals 1,729,758 494,500 1,357,136 330,677 2,438,706 633,500 1,199,510 7,607,232 5,195,942 718,582 99,498

Fruit 83,197 51,278 35,023 7021 161,727 6664 26,947 409,386 343,521 12,914 19,975

Vegetables 23,382 7930 12,557 3042 27,819 8184 12,451 162,678 242,764 3917 5168

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

characteristic for the country has been an above-average increase in the role of triticale, a greater significance of fruit-growing, and a marked decline in the share taken by oats. Crop structure in neighbouring Czechia features relatively large shares of wheat and barley, as well as spices, drugs, sugar beet and rape. In turn, changes over the last three decades have mainly involved an increased share of wheat, as well as of rape, spices and drugs – at the expense of barley and other less-widespread crop plants. Moving on to Slovakia, and that small state has noted a marked increase in the shares of rape and soya beans, as well as a decline in the importance of barley and spices, plus drugs. For its part, Hungary features a relatively stable crop structure in which changes have mainly been involving increased areas planted with soya beans and sunflowers  – at the expense of less-popular crops (Table 7.2). Characteristic features of the areal crop structure in the south-westernmost CEECs include high shares noted for maize, vines and other fruit trees, as well as low shares for wheat, rye and cereal mixes, plus rape. Slovenia and Croatia also have relatively large shares of their farmland taken by spices, drugs, soya beans and olives. Hence the change of structure following the collapse of communism first and foremost entailed above-average increases in the shares of less-popular cereals, as well as soya beans and olives, with declines in the role played by maize. Moreover, Slovenia has been experiencing increases in the shares of land taken by both vegetables and vines. On the other hand, Croatia witnessed an increase in the share of green maize grown to feed livestock, as well as oats, cereal mixes, sugar beet and the less-popular crops. Conversely, declines in the significance of vegetables and vines were to be noted there. The areal structure characterising crop-growing in our region’s central and south-­eastern countries entails a relatively high share accounted for by sunflowers, with conversely low shares for triticale, rye, oats and cereal mixes, as well as

Barley 128,365 53,950 327,707 102,487 268,081 70,300 141,645 953,784 455,029 120,329 20,369

Maize 398,643 275,407 85,995 0 1,025,446 0 9929 567,341 2,407,833 188,922 38,290

Oats 13,266 23,139 44,065 33,649 37,254 54,000 75,987 491,241 165,550 14,821 1448

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

Potatoes 12,806 9833 23,418 5388 16,364 21,500 19,351 329,323 171,379 7450 3165

Rapeseed 160,650 48,616 394,262 73,786 303,005 112,200 180,932 914,266 597,558 150,082 3435

Table 7.2  Areas sown with the main types of crop plant in the CEECs as of 2017 Rye 8237 774 22,221 13,314 26,480 31,800 25,843 873,222 9584 9970 1081

Sugarbeet 0 19,533 66,101 0 15,941 0 17,146 231,716 28,099 22,377 0

Sunflower 898,844 37,152 21,601 0 694,543 0 0 3238 999,162 87,348 299

Wheat 1,144,519 118,380 832,062 169,753 966,400 446,800 811,947 2,391,853 2,051,664 373,667 28,016

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sugar beet and less-popular crops. Typical trends in turn relate to an above-average increase in the share of sunflowers, as well as declines noted for various kinds of fruit, spices and drugs. Moreover, the structure reported for Romania features high shares of maize and vegetables, while features typifying next-door Bulgaria are the high shares taken by wheat and soya beans. It is worth noting that every state in the region is experiencing (if at varying intensities) an increase in the share of farmland given over to organic farming. In this case, certification of produce is associated with a conversion of farmland from conventional to environment-friendly forms of management  – under the supervision of accreditation institutions. Depending on the crop concerned, this is a process that usually takes some 2–3 years. As of 2012, the land designated for organic farming across the CEECs represented some 17% of the overall area of this kind in all 28 Member States of the European Union (Bruma 2014). Currently, the highest shares of farmland allocated to organic farming methods are noted in Estonia, Czechia and Latvia; the lowest in Bulgaria and Romania (Fig. 7.4). Estonia is among the leaders in organic farming at the level of the EU as a whole: in terms of the share of land accounted for it comes second only to Austria. Estonia’s organic farms are mostly of a mixed character, combining crop production with livestock-rearing in a way that is facilitated by an average farm area of 80 ha. In turn, in Latvia, the land of this kind mainly supports livestock, as over 80% of that assigned to the category is in the form of pasture or fields designated for the growing of fodder crops. The same can be said of Poland, where around 70% of the land certified is under grassland.

Fig. 7.4  Shares of agricultural land given over to organic farming Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

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Cereals The region’s states are together in a position to grow all the cereal crops popular in Europe. And indeed, they are among the key areas anywhere in the world when it comes to the cultivation of these kinds of crop. Since the beginning of the twenty-­ first century, there has been a steady and rather dynamic increase in the output of cereals here, mainly as a consequence of increased yields. Indeed, in the period, values for the production of cereals per inhabitant were ever more likely to exceed averages for the EU 17. The only country now reporting a level below the EU average is Slovenia, while values close to the average still characterise Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Croatia. A high level of production of cereals as expressed per inhabitant is therefore seen to be present in two parts of the region, i.e. the Baltic States and the south-east. However, given the quite-different natural conditions in these two areas, there are of course differences in the structure when it comes to the cultivation of different types of cereal crop (Fig. 7.5). Cereals are the most important component of crop cultivation in all of the region’s states. In the period under analysis (1990–2016), the area sown with them tended to be stable, albeit with a limited downward trend. It is possible to anticipate a further slow decline in the area concerned – in connection with an overall loss of land from agriculture. There is also a decline in their share within the areal crop structure that can be associated with the introduction of new, higher-yielding varieties providing for a higher level of production even on a smaller area of land. In turn, this poses some threat of overproduction arising, with a consequent decline in the profitability of cereal-growing. Over the study period, the most-marked mean annual fluctuations in areas under cereals were to be noted in the south-east of the region, i.e. in Bulgaria (7.1%) and

Fig. 7.5  Overall production of cereals per inhabitant Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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Romania (6.1%). This reflected dynamic change for ownership, with a consequent unstable overall situation on the market for food produce. Large mean annual fluctuations relating to cereals could also be noted in the region’s northernmost parts, i.e. in Estonia and Latvia (each with a figure of 6.3%). As a consequence, the value for this indicator in the region as a whole was of 3.4% – and was therefore much higher than for the EU 17 (at 2.4%). It is also worth noting the distinct changes over time when it comes to fluctuations in areas of land given over to cereals. From the end of the last century through to the year of (most countries’) EU accessions, there were increases in the areal share of the CEECs planted with cereals of 3.0% annually in the 1991–1995 period, and of 5.4% through the years 2001–2005 inclusive. Equally, in the period after that, the corresponding area stabilised, to the point where the mean annual change in the period 2011–2017 was of just 1.5% (Fig. 7.6). Given a range of varieties adapted to various suites of natural conditions, wheat is the cereal grown most widely in our region. This is mostly the typical wheat that supplies grain to make flour, but the species may also be grown as a key component of animal feed (supplied above all in the form of stems and chaff). Wheat demands a fertile soil, hence its being grown only more rarely in the northern part of the region (where soils are mainly sandy and in need of heavy applications of fertiliser). The climate may also stand in the way of wheat-growing in the region, not least because rainfall totals are lower than in Western Europe, albeit unfavourably concentrated – in terms of both amount and intensity – in summer. Nevertheless, the CEECs taken together achieve a 37% share of overall wheat production across the EU. Wheat plays the most major role in overall crop structure in the south of Poland and central part of the Czech Republic, as well as on the fertile soils present on the plains of Hungary and Wallachia, the Dobruja region, and northern Bulgaria.

Fig. 7.6  Changes in the areas under cereal crops in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

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The lead-producers are thus Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary – the four countries together accounting for more than 72% of the region’s overall output of wheat. A further large producer of the crop, at least when set against its (small) area and population, is Lithuania, which by itself grows 6.6% of all the region’s wheat. The leading role for wheat in the agriculture of the CEECs reflects its potentially high yields and near-ubiquitous use in the feeding of both people (mainly via bread) and livestock (in feed). For example, in Poland, the products made from cereals going for human consumption are 78% derived from wheat grains. Rye takes second place, but accounts for a corresponding figure of just 18%. In Bulgaria too, wheat is a strategic crop which combines with maize to account for 53% of the entire area under cultivation. That said, Bulgaria is notable for the quality of its soils, with around 53% of farmland boasting deep and very fertile soil favourable to the growing of this cereal crop. The area devoted to wheat-growing tends to remain at a similar level in different countries, with only limited periodic fluctuations. An exception is Romania, where the area under wheat changed in a more major way, especially after EU accession in 2006. Earlier, the mean annual change in wheat cultivation had grown from 20.3% in the 1991–1995 period to 29.9% in the years 2001–2005. After that, a gradual stabilisation set in, with the mean annual change figure for 2011–2017 being of just 3.4%. A similar trend could be noted for most countries in the region, if admittedly on a more limited scale. Thus the mean annual change in the area under wheat went from the 6.9% noted for 1991–1995 to the figure of 12.0% characterising 2001–2005. Thereafter, in the 2011–2017 period, there was a decline to 6.8%. While the above stabilisation has been noted for wheat, in the region it continues to be subject to a variability far greater than has been recorded for “the old EU”. There, the figure for mean annual change in the years 2011–2017 inclusive was of 3.2%. The phenomenon this denotes for the CEECs is most likely linked to the aforementioned process of change of ownership of land, leading to the emergence of a very large number of small farms of mixed profile. Where farms are small, the area under cereals reflects costs of livestock production – given that this is the main source of income for the farms in question. Hence the way in which variations in numbers of pigs, for example, may affect the interest in cereal-growing. Beyond that, the fall of the so-called “socialised” sector came to leave technical infrastructure in a rather devastated state – first and foremost as regards irrigation. The fact that droughts arise periodically may do much to limit farming activity (and especially field cultivation), or even discourage people altogether from engaging in it (Fig. 7.7). Rye is a cheaper and lower-yielding cereal than wheat that is used in bread-­ making and animal feed. The CEECs constitute the world’s key centre for the growing of this species, whose soil requirements are less-exacting and whose frost-resistance is greater (in fact the highest to be noted for any of the winter-sown cereals.) This leaves rye as a very popular crop for the region’s northern part. That said, even here rye-growing has been in decline, as wheat-growing becomes possible on ever-poorer soils, and thus takes its place. While rye yields are higher than in 1989, harvests of the species noted for the CEECs more than halved in the middle

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Fig. 7.7  Changes in the area under wheat in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

part of the twenty-first century’s second decade. The decline in output here is far larger than elsewhere, and – as was suggested above – this has mainly reflected a limiting of the area planted. Over a quarter-century (1990–2015), the decline here was of over 70%. Thus, while the CEECs accounted for (the equivalent of) 71% of the EU farmland area given over to rye, by 2015 the corresponding figure was at just 45%. While average yields noted for rye in this region did increase, the 1991 figure whereby the region accounted for (the equivalent of) 60% of overall EU production compared with the 2015 figure of just 33%. Poland is (remains) the world’s second-­ most-­important producer of rye – after Germany. That is further reflected by a situation in which Poland grows almost five times as much rye as the other CEECs put together. Among the remaining states, it is the Czech Republic that leads, as followed by Hungary and Latvia. Indeed, in the region’s more-southerly parts, this species is confined to the mountains (mainly of Czechia and Slovakia), or else to soil of lower quality (mainly in Hungary) (Fig. 7.8). Triticale arose when wheat was crossed with rye, with a view to the productivity of wheat being combined with the greater resilience in unfavourable climatic and edaphic conditions that is typical for rye. The first triticale varieties of commercial significance appeared in Hungary in the 1960s and in Poland in the 1980s. It was the latter country that developed the varieties of triticale now most widespread worldwide. The grain in this case is used in both animal feed and breadmaking. Post-1989, production in the EU and CEECs increased markedly. However, it remains in Central and Eastern Europe that this cereal enjoys most popularity, with it currently accounting for 61% of the area of land in the EU given over to the hybrids, as well as 53% of the overall output. Markedly the world’s largest producer is Poland  – where the level is twice what is achieved by the second-placed Germany. Triticale is a popular cereal option in southern and central parts of Poland in particular. The

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Fig. 7.8  Change in the area of rye cultivation in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

amount grown in this country is almost 3.5 times that in all the region’s remaining countries taken together. In the other CEECs, further places in the ranking for the production of triticale are taken by Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The cultivation of barley is much more widespread. As of 2018, the CEECs grew 18% of the barley produced in the European Union. As much as 64% of this is accounted for by the region’s three largest producers, i.e. Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic. A relatively high level of production of the crop is also achieved by Lithuania and Estonia, with these countries together growing 9.5% of all the barley produced by the CEECs. The area planted with barley has declined somewhat since the 1990s, hence the greater output managed by some countries is mainly attributable to increased yields. In the region it is the growing of spring barley that prevails, given the short growing season and better adaptation to a cool climate. In line with this, the range of cultivation extends far to the north and into mountain areas. Winter barley, being rather poorly frost-resistant, is grown much less commonly in the region. On the other hand, on account of its greater tolerance of heatwaves and droughts, this is grown to a limited extent in the southern part of the region. The purposes for which the crop is grown in this region have changed greatly, with the significance in terms of alimentation marginalised, as the role of the crop in animal feed increases. In particular, the grain serves as food for pigs, while of course also meeting the needs of brewing. In relation to designation, varieties of barley differ in their protein contents. The soil requirements of this cereal species are similar to those in high-­ yielding varieties of wheat, hence its status as a competitor crop, first and foremost where there is a demand for the more expensive brewing barley exerted by a local brewing industry. A contiguous area of cultivation of brewing barley is therefore present in the Czech Republic, Moravia and Silesia. On the other hand, the

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Fig. 7.9  Changes in the area planted with barley in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

less-lucrative barley meeting the needs of animal feed is grown on soils of poorer quality (Fig. 7.9). Oats resemble barley in needing a short growing season, being resistant to cool and damp during the flowering season, and being rather non-demanding when it comes to soil conditions. For that reason, this is one of the key cereal crops in the northern part of the region, as well as in mountainous areas, as in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Hard frosts are still a problem for this species, but the occasional spring frost is well tolerated. Drought is not, however. Hence, oat cultivation is not especially successful where the climate is dry and warm, leaving this species as a rare crop in the southern part of the region. In Western Europe, oats owe much of their popularity to a healthfood status in the context of flakes used to make porridges, as well as flour or bran. Equally, in the CEECs, this crop is mainly grown as a fodder plant, above all as food for horses. This is why, as mechanisation progressed in the region and the use of horses on farms declined, the area planted with oats fell markedly – such that production was down even as yields increased. Currently, the CEECs’ share in the overall EU production of oats is at 30%. Most cultivation of oats takes place in the northern part. The key producer  – accounting for as much as 50% of the regional total – is Poland, which from this point of view is second only to Spain in the entire European Union. Further relatively major producers of oats are all three Baltic countries, which together account for 19% of total output from the CEECs (Fig. 7.10). In the CEECs in general, and in Poland in particular, cereal mixes enjoy quite considerable popularity. The advantage is more-predictable and stable yielding, which looks particularly important in a transitional climate that produces variable weather. Hence, where the weather conditions in a given year do not favour one of the species in a mix, a more favourable yield may be achieved by the other kinds of

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Fig. 7.10  Changes in the areas of farmland planted with oats in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

cereal, with the result that losses are in part compensated for. Cereal mixes also display enhanced resistance to disease, thanks to the spacing-out of individuals of any given species. A particular role in this case is played by the most-resistant species, oats – which play a kind barrier role when it comes to the spread of infectious disease. An important role in the mixes is also played by barley as the species with habitat requirements most distinct from those needed by oats. This helps ensure some balance within the mix. Frequently, a key admixture species is triticale. Cereal mixes are of significance as sources of animal feed. If cultivation is designated for the feeding of cattle and horses, barley and oats prevail in the mix. The feeding of pigs and poultry requires feed of greater value, hence the dominance of barley and wheat in mixes serving that purpose. However, such mixes can be grown in relatively fertile soils. And given the fact that livestock-rearing is concentrated on an ever-smaller number of specialised farms, the cultivation of cereal mixes declined somewhat after 1989. The CEECs still account for as much as an 82% share in the overall production of mixed cereals in the European Union. The world’s largest producer of these is Poland, with as much as 75% of world production (almost 7 times the level of second-placed France). The fact that this level is so high may be attested to by the fact that Poland grows over 50 times more of these than all of the remaining CEECs taken together. The largest of these remaining growers are Lithuania and Latvia. In the twentieth century, our region witnessed an almost total disappearance from cereal cultivation of proso millet, which had been designated mainly for the production of millet groats. To some extent the species is also ground to make flour or used for birdseed. Thankfully, recent years of EU payments have combined with a recognition of healthfood status (and knowledge of millet’s gluten-free status) to encourage a resurgence of the popularity of this species among the different cereals on the European market. Proso favours a dry climate and fertile soils, hence the 38%

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share of EU production accounted for by countries in the region under study. The key producer here (accounting for 66% of the CEEC total) is Poland, which also comes second only to France in the context of the Union as a whole. As other more major producers in the region are Bulgaria and Hungary, the three countries taken together grow 91.1% of the region’s millet. The so-called foxtail millet – a separate species, not merely a variety – is grown to make animal feed, in Hungary mainly. Sorghum is another grain of considerable nutritional value, consumed directly, or turned into flour or flakes. It also goes into animal feed. While this is one of the world’s most important crops, it is grown in only small quantities in Europe, as the climate is mostly just too cool. A key feature in that context is resilience in the face of heatwaves and drought. Furthermore, a higher level of resistance to disease ensures that this species sometimes takes the place of maize. The CEECs currently account for a 19% share of EU output. Growing is concentrated in the South-east, with key producers being Romania and Hungary  – which account for 75% of regional output. Romania comes third in the EU ranking for this species, after France and Italy. Among other countries in the region, Bulgaria is of relatively major importance with its 24% share of the regional total. Buckwheats are members of the family Polygonaceae (along with the bistorts) hence their status as pseudo-cereals. Marketwise, they resemble millet in having virtually disappeared from Europe’s cereal crop structure (east and west), only to enjoy something of a renaissance in more-recent times. While buckwheat is grown for groats, as well as flakes, and only occasionally given to livestock, Tatar (bitter) buckwheat is another species that goes solely into animal feed. The protein present in these grains is actually more valuable than that from cereals in the conventional sense – so much so that it almost matches legumes. Buckwheat is nutritious where it is grown in areas in which the temperatures go higher. A further positive feature is the nectar the plant supplies to honeybees. The role of the CEECs in the cultivation of buckwheat is rather a key one, with 49% of overall production within the EU accounted for. Growing this species is usually a matter for the poorest soils in the northern part of the region where growing other kinds of cereal is largely ruled out. Buckwheat has a very short growing season, is cold-resistant and is not demanding as regards soil conditions. Nevertheless, these are frost-prone species that do not like to be rained on too much as they are flowering and fruiting. Our region’s major producers are Poland and Lithuania – with these together taking an 81% share of regional output. A relatively high level of production of the crop also characterises Latvia, with its 14% regional share. In the EU as a whole these three countries take second, third and fourth places  – after France. While a number of different varieties can be tried, a common feature in maize-­ growing is that a long growing season is needed, as well as quite large amounts of warmth, light and humidity from the time of planting through to the flowering period. Ultimately, therefore, desirable results are mainly obtainable in the warmest, southerly parts of our region. In contrast, the soil and water requirements are not especially exacting, even though better results are naturally achieved where soil is better.

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Maize-growing for grain that can be eaten as a vegetable fresh, canned or frozen, or as an ingredient in other products, is more demanding than the species grown as a fodder crop, hence a range limit more or less reached at the southern edge of the Carpathians. The Danube Valley obviously offers especially favourable conditions, hence the role of this crop throughout Hungary, though most of all in its south-­ eastern part; as well as on the Wallachian Plain. In both Romania and Croatia, maize is grown over a larger area of cropland than wheat. The share of sown cereals is also large in the southern part of Czechia and Slovakia, in Slovenia and in northern Bulgaria. In Croatia, maize is among the few kinds of produce yielding a trade surplus. While the level of Croatian exports of the crop are not comparable with those achieved by Hungary, the significance in trade with Bosnia, North Macedonia and Montenegro is greater. Further north, maize is grown only far more rarely, and mainly as a fodder crop to be supplied to cattle and pigs, fresh or in the form of silage. The northern range limit for the crop runs across Poland, hence the almost-­ total lack of maize-growing in the Baltic countries. As in the case of barley, there has been a change in the area within the region given over to the growing of maize. Currently it is of marginal significance as a direct sources of food, instead being used almost in its entirety for the manufacture of animal feed, or else (much more rarely) as an industrial crop. The CEECs take a 56% share in overall EU production. The Union’s leading producer of this crop in the EU as a whole (and therefore also among the CEECs) is Romania, which accounts for 46% of overall production in the region. Third place in the EU (after France) is then taken by Hungary, which generates a further 21%. While the post-1989 increase in the growing of maize as green fodder was notable across the Union, that increase was exceptionally dynamic in the CEECs. While the region’s share in relation to overall EU output was at 33% in 1992, the figure (now from within the EU) had risen to 56% by 2018. In most of the CEECs, the area planted with maize has remained at a similar level, if with periodic fluctuations. However, cultivation is becoming a more popular option in Poland, as a reflection of favourable prices, as well as a development of green-maize growing for the production of bioethanol. Thus, the first decade of the twenty-first century saw cultivation of this crop rise by 400% in Poland, with this being the largest increase noted for any of the country’s crops. It was in 2012 that the area sown with maize first exceeded 1 million hectares. And at the present time, around 550,000  ha of that is for grain, while the remaining area supports maize grown to serve as fodder for livestock. Of by no means limited significance in accounting for change in the area planted with maize is climate change allowing cultivation to become a more widespread phenomenon than before. New, early varieties are also now being grown, given than these are more resistant to volatile weather. Equally, a growing threat to maize-­ growing in southern Europe reflects the increasing frequency of periods of drought, with this tending to raise the economic viability of growing maize at higher latitudes (Fig. 7.11). Rice is only grown over a very small area of our region, along stretches of the Danube Valley in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. These generate just

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Fig. 7.11  Change in the area planted with maize in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

4.1% of the rice grown in the European Union as a whole. As recently as in the 1980s, it was Romania that was the region’s leading producer of rice. Currently, however, the country has lost this dominant position, though together with neighbouring Bulgaria it does contribute to 90% of all rice-growing in the region. Natural conditions do much to limit the cultivation of this crop, as good results will always be impaired by the region’s coolness and limited numbers of sunny days. Furthermore, rice needs both a heavy soil and a large amount of rain. This is famously the most “thirsty” cereal crop. A niche role is played by the production of birdseed from canary grass (which hails from the Mediterranean region). Sprays of stems with seeds are also sometimes dried to make decorative elements for flower-arranging. The crop requires compact soils of high humidity. Although its cultivation in Central and Eastern Europe is of local significance only, this region still supplies 93.9% of the entire production of canary grass in the European Union. Furthermore, it is worth noting that – across the EU and therefore principally among the CEECs – the significance of this crop has grown very markedly since 1989. Decidedly the leading producer of this species in the EU is Hungary, which accounts for more than 82% of overall production. Czechia takes second place. The areal structure of sown cereals differs greatly in different CEECs. Wheat takes the largest share, with maize (grown for its grain) in second place. A key difference with the European Union as a whole is a far greater share accounted for by maize, at the expense of barley. Nevertheless, when the comparison is with 1989, it is possible to observe a trend towards a more-comparable structure for sown cereals. As recently as in 1992, the share of sown wheat was 31% lower here than in the area accounted for by the EU 17; while as recently as in 1999, the share taken by rye was as much as 2.7 times greater. Currently, the proportions accounted for by these two species of cereals leave the region looking quite similar to the EU as a whole.

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Generalising, it may therefore be suggested that current changes in the growing of cereals in the CEECs have brought about an advanced stage of convergence vis-à-­ vis the Union overall. All of the countries in the region’s northern part feature a large share of oats and buckwheat, as well as a low share of cultivated maize and less-well-known cereals. A characteristic direction taken by the this region’s transformation involving sown cereal crops entails an above-average decline in rye-growing. A further feature where the Baltic States are concerned involves the respectively high and low shares taken by wheat on the one hand and triticale and cereal mixtures on the other; while another feature typifying the transformation in these countries is an above-average increase in the shares taken by wheat and buckwheat, as well as a marked fall in the share accounted for by barley. Among the Baltic States, Estonia therefore stands out rather, in the still-high share of cereals accounted for by barley, as well as in an above-average reduction in the role of cereal mixtures, as well as stabilisation when it comes to the share taken by triticale. A feature characteristic for Latvia is a stabilisation of the figures for the share taken by wheat, while Lithuania has experienced an increase in the share of oats among cereal crops. Where cereal-growing in Poland is concerned, the shares of triticale, rye and cereal mixtures are high. However, alongside changes typical for the entire northern part of the region under study, Poland also witnessed an above-average increase in the share taken by wheat, and other increases relating to the less-well-known cereal crops, as well as falls in the area of land assigned to the cultivation of oats and cereal mixtures. The states in the study region’s central part have low shares of triticale, rye, oats and cereal mixtures. In contrast, the directions of change relating to cereal crop structure include a steady share for triticale. Against the background of the group, the Czech Republic stands out for its high shares of wheat and barley. In contrast, Slovakia looks typical from the point of view of the central CEECs. In all countries of our region’s south-western part a characteristic feature of the analysed structure is the high share taken by maize; and on the other hand a low share noted for wheat, rye and cereal mixtures. Change today entails an increase in the share of barley and a stabilisation in the share of rye, along with an above-­ average increase in the share of buckwheat. A characteristic feature for sown cereals in Hungary was an above-average decline in the shares the less-popular cereal crops accounted for. However, both countries of the former Yugoslavia noted an increase in the share of those same less-popular cereals, as well as relative declines for maize. In the case of Croatia, what needs stressing is the high share of maize grown for its greenery, as this has been increasing steadily for two decades now. The share of oats also rose in Romania. In turn, the structure noted for sown cereals in Bulgaria stands out for the high share of wheat (Figs. 7.12, 7.13, and 7.14).

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Fig. 7.12  Structure noted for sown cereals by country as of 1989 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 7.13  Structure noted for sown cereals by country as of 2017 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

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Legumes

85 CEECs 1989

CEECs 2017

Other cereals

Other cereals

Maize

Maize

Wheat Grain, mixed

Wheat Grain, mixed

Oats

Oats

Rye

Rye

Barley

Barley

Triticale

Triticale

EU 17 1989

EU 17 2017 Other cereals

Other cereals Grain, mixed

Grain, mixed

Maize

Oats

Oats Triticale

Rye

Barley

Wheat

Triticale

Maize

Rye Wheat

Barley

Fig. 7.14  Structure noted for sown cereals in the CEECs and countries of the “Old EU” Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Legumes Plants of the pea and bean family Leguminosae or Fabaceae play a relatively limited role in the region’s crop-cultivation structure. The various crops include beans of different kinds, chickpeas, broad beans, lentils, peas and other species. Varieties of bean (the key legumes grown around the world) are very diversified and adapted to different natural conditions. While beans in general need a warm climate, the CEECs account for a high and rising level of production of these plants. Across the whole EU, the loss of area of farmland under beans post-1989 has been compensated for by a dynamic raising of yields. As of 2018, the region under study gave rise to 79% of the EU’s overall production of beans, with two countries Lithuania and Latvia – accounting for 73% of that. Moreover, the region accounts for 12% of the overall production of green beans. The leading producer in the region is Romania, with a 66% share. Also relatively large is the share associated with Hungary (19% of the production from the CEECs).

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Unlike typical varieties, green beans are prized for the edible nature of the whole pod – eaten young – as opposed to merely the seeds within. This is a vegetable of high nutritional value, of which larger-scale production is engaged in by Poland (accounting for about 13% of production at EU level). Legumes grown in smaller amounts include (as most popular) the chickpea, which bears some resemblance to peas in terms of appearance and properties. However, this is a species most popular in Mediterranean cuisine that only more rarely goes into animal feed. Post-1989 there was a marked increase in its popularity across the EU. The CEECs account for 28% of overall production in the EU, with the lead producer – Bulgaria – accounting for as much as 96% of the CEEC total. Indeed, in the EU as a whole, Bulgaria is second only to Spain from this point of view. Lentils are nutritious seeds, eaten once cooked or turned into flour. The crop can also be used to feed livestock. The CEECs currently have just 3.1% of the farmland in the EU given over to growing of lentils. And as much as 90% of the production in the region is concentrated in Bulgaria. Broad beans go mainly for consumption, though there is a variety that turned into animal feed. Production of both has declined greatly in the CEECs since 1989, to the point where just 0.3% of the overall production in the EU is now accounted for. Of that, as much as 62% of the total is concentrated in Czechia. Slovakia is also a fairly major producer, accounting for a further 17%. Various other kinds of bean or legume are grown to feed both livestock and people – in the former case a popular crop is common vetch, of which 4% of the EU output is grown in our region. Among the CEECs, Poland is the lead producer, accounting for as much as 77% of the total. Cowpeas are drought- and heat-resistant crops, and  – on account of the high protein content – the seeds gain much use in vegetarian cuisine. The growing of this kind of crop has become far more popular in Croatia in recent times, with the result that this country is responsible for 93.5% of all that is produced in the region, and 93.7% of the EU total. The carob is another legume whose beans also go by the name of St. John’s bread. As something of a last resort for people, this is mainly used to feed animals. Locally, it was once used to supply sugar, and the fruit can serve as an ingredient in baking and cake-making – as a thickener. There are also uses in the manufacture or both cosmetics and cigarettes. The species is cultivated around the Mediterranean, hence the key role – albeit only on the regional scale – for Croatia. The latter country is nevertheless responsible for just 0.46% of overall production of the crop within the European Union. That said, the trend for the EU as a whole is very markedly downward, even as interest in Croatia has grown very dynamically. The growing of peas requires a cooler and moister climate. The species is eaten fresh, frozen of canned. Currently, the CEECs account for about a 34% share of the peas grown in the EU. The major producers here are Lithuania and Romania, from which 54% of the region’s production derives. In the case of peas grown for their greenery, the region accounts for 18% of the EU’s overall production, with the key country in this case being Hungary, which makes up 56% of the regional total.

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A key role is played by the growing of small-seeded legumes used solely in animal feed, such as lucerne, clover and lupins. These also have their key role in replenishing levels of nitrogen in soils. The lupin is a protein-rich fodder plant, of which Poland is the EU’s largest producer. Indeed, Poland takes second place in the entire world from this point of view (after Australia), and it accounts for 67% of overall EU output of this kind. The region as a whole accounts for 70%.

Root, Bulb and Rhizome Crops Within this group, only the potato plays a more-major role in our region, as more widely in the temperate zone. Somewhat remarkably, this species plays a less and less major role in feeding human beings, just as it more and more often provides food for animals (especially pigs). It is also a major industrial crop. The fact that this crop remains spread across the entire region (including in cooler area and/or on post-glacial soils) is a reflection of its not-especially-exacting soil requirements. On the other hand, achieving good results with its production is more difficult where summer temperatures are high. A characteristic feature of potato cultivation is the need to weed, dig and scatter – hence the labour-intensive nature of the effort. This was not a major obstacle in the past, given the excess workforce present in the region’s agriculture. Most of the CEECs have been part of the steady decline noted for the area of farmland under potatoes, with no increase in yields able to compensate for that process. As a fodder plant, the potato is also giving way to other root crops, while where direct consumption is concerned, the demand is declining as interest in other vegetables increases. Further explanations lie in the ongoing mechanisation of farming and higher labour costs to be noted on the market. As of 1990, the region under analysis was responsible for 53% of the production of potatoes in the context of the then area of the European Union. By 2018, the corresponding figure was of just 25%. Markedly the main producer of potatoes in the region is Poland, from which 58% of overall output derives. In the whole European Union, Poland takes third place from this point of view – after Germany and France.

Vegetables Throughout our region vegetable-growing is being engaged in on smaller and smaller areas of land, even as both yields and quality increase. The species structure of the plants grown is changing, with an ever-greater role assigned to “tasty” vegetables and/or those bringing in a good income for those who cultivate them. In decline are the shares of this market accounted for by cabbage, carrots or turnips, while the beneficiaries of the switched attention are tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, cauliflower, broccoli, aubergine, kohlrabi, radishes, spinach and asparagus. The

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increases in levels of production of most species of vegetable mainly reflect greater wealth and ever-more-varied tastes among the region’s inhabitants. Vegetable production in the CEECs is characterised by a move away from suburbs serving as the hinterland traditionally supplying towns and cities in fresh produce. A key factor in such situations was once competitive costs of transport to market, but now areas ever-further from the cities can benefit from the more-favourable natural conditions they have to offer, as well as lower labour costs. This was made possible by a fall in transport costs, just as technology for ensuring the preservation of crops improved steadily. There has tended to be an increase in the level of specialisation of different regions in different kinds of vegetable-growing. For example, in Bulgaria it is possible to note some regions specialising in production for the export of early vegetables further north (tomatoes and peppers in particular). Vegetable-growing regions in this way capitalise on the early starts to the growing season they may experience (Fig. 7.15). The CEECs take a major world share of the production of such vegetables as onions and cabbages. In 2018, the region accounted for 52% of all the cabbage grown in the EU. The two main players in this respect are Romania and Poland, together supplying 86% of all the cabbage grown in Eastern and Central Europe. Carrots are cultivated in a number of different varieties and as both vegetable and fodder crop. The species is used raw or in different processed forms and in the manufacture of juices. Like cabbage it is a by-volume vegetable that is a dominant element in Europe in those terms. Demands as regards climate are not especially exacting, though the species does best where soil has a slightly-acid reaction. Turnips also resemble carrots in being cultivated for both human consumption and animal fodder. The plant is widespread across the temperate zone and is in fact a subspecies of napa cabbage. While cultivation with human consumption in mind

Fig. 7.15  Change in areas of farmland planted with vegetables in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

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centres around the edible bulbs, the growing of turnips for fodder focuses on the leaves, which have a greater dry mass and more protein. Given their better tolerance of cold, turnips may be grown in place of carrots in circumstances of a cooler climate. However, the species is vulnerable to drought and does less well on light and permeable soils. As of 2018, the CEECs accounted for 22% of the EU’s overall production of carrots and turnips. Poland is the main producer, and takes second place in the EU for these root vegetables (after the now-exited United Kingdom). Poland at the same time accounts for 59% of the output of these species achieved by all the CEECs taken together. Onions are widespread around the world, though the species experiences its most favourable conditions in the temperate zone. It is mainly sensitive to the presence of too much or too little water, as well as soil of an acid reaction. The CEECs together take a 19% share of EU onion production. Poland is again the region’s chief producer of this crop, taking third place in the whole European Union after The Netherlands and Spain. However, Romania is also a major grower, ensuring that the region’s two large countries together account for 80% of its onion-growing. Garlic is a perennial and, while classed as a vegetable, is mainly applied in cuisine as a kind of condiment or herb. It is particular popular in cooking around the Mediterranean. Garlic finds a use in the pickling of cucumbers, while also being added to enhance the flavour of meat and soups. It is considered to possess healing/ medicinal properties. The fact that it comes in a number of different varieties allows for its cultivation under a wide range of climatic conditions. It proves resistant to lower temperatures, though does need fertile soils that are not too heavy. Good results with garlic-growing are often achieved where levels of insolation are high, though there should also ideally be abundant May and June rainfall. The CEECs grow about 18% of the garlic grown overall in the European Union. However, within that total as much as 78% is actually grown in Romania, as the EU’s second-largest producer after Spain. The leek is a biennial species related to onions and garlic. Its requirements as regards warmth are limited, and indeed it is rather frost-tolerant. However, it does need high humidity, with a vulnerability to drought at germination time. Good results will also mainly be achieved where there is plenty of sunlight. Over the last 3 decades, quantities of leeks (and other onion-family crops) grown in the CEECs have increased very dynamically. Currently the region takes a 16% share of the output of vegetables in this group. Poland is the largest producer – taking third place in the EU after Belgium and France. It is Poland that accounts for more than 91% of the production of onion-family vegetables across the whole region. The tomato comes in many different varieties adapted to a range of climatic conditions. Its fruits are mainly red in colour, but can assume various different shapes and sizes. They are eaten raw or added to various dishes. Tomatoes are also turned into juices, purees and pastes. Their cultivation requires a fertile soil that is rather porous, as well as a place sheltered from wind and sun. The CEECs currently take a 12% share of all EU production, with the south-eastern part of the region assuming greatest importance in this respect. Nevertheless, Poland is the main producer,

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followed by Romania. Together, these two countries account for 79% of the overall production of the species in the region. Cucumbers and gherkins are plants of the cucumber and gourd family that include the cucumber grown widely in all climatic zones, if in several different varieties. The fruit is eaten raw, or else pickled, fermented or marinated. The nutritional value is famously limited, though the taste can be satisfying and – in certain forms at least – the vegetables can aid digestion. Gherkin is a term often applied to ground-growing cucumbers of small size. The CEECs produce around 32% of the EU’s cucumber crop, with Poland being the major producer (of 59% of the cucumbers and gherkins grown in the region). That puts the country in second place in the whole EU, after Spain. Lettuce and chicory are rather close relatives within the daisy family which are consumed for their leaves. The CEECs take only a 3.5% share of the EU’s output of these species. And here it is Poland that is by far and away the main producer of these salad vegetables within its region – as it accounts for a 43% share. A relatively high level of output also characterises Slovenia, with its 20% regional share. Sweet varieties of pepper – mostly numerous cultivars of the species Capsicum annuum – are consumed as vegetables. The main growing within the EU is done in the region under study, with Bulgaria being the main producer. Cauliflower and broccoli are basically further variants of cabbage. They are much prized for their taste and nutritional composition. In the case of cauliflower it is the fleshy stems that are eaten. The crop is grown successfully where soil is fertile and there is sunlight. Broccoli proves somewhat less demanding from this point of view, and can also be cultivated in a cooler climate, being more frost-tolerant. However, this vegetable grows less well in more-acidic soils. As of 2017, the CEECs were accounting for 16% of overall production of cauliflowers and broccoli across the entire EU. Markedly the main producer in the region is Poland, which accounts for 76% of output in this case. This leaves it in third place in the Union after Spain and Italy. Aubergine or eggplant is the name given to a species of the family Solanaceae. Much warmth is needed if it is to be grown, leaving the microclimatic conditions as rather specific ones. Across the CEECs, the production of this crop has grown markedly, to the point where the region accounted for 18% of overall production in the EU. Furthermore, Romania is far and away the region’s main grower of aubergines, given that it accounts for almost 91% of CEEC output. This also puts it in third place in the European Union, after Italy and Spain. Pumpkins, marrows and gourds are all in the cucurbit (gourd and cucumber) family. Pumpkin serves as a vegetable or else is used as fodder. It is more suitable for cultivation in warmer areas where levels of insolation are high. It is a thirsty crop, but can cope with poorer soils. Marrows are kinds of squash of smaller dimensions. They are of limited nutritional value and so are mainly prized for their taste. They can be eaten raw, fried, baked or boiled. On the other hand the growing of bottle-gourds is engaged in primarily for the supply of fruit with edible pulp. In a temperate climate, these are grown only rarely, given the thermal requirements, even as this crop is tolerant from the point of view of soil quality.

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While the European Union production of crops of this group increased in the analysed period, there was a major decline in the CEECs. By 2018, the region accounted for around 10% of overall production in the EU. Markedly the largest producer in the region is Poland, which accounts for 53% of overall production. Another relatively major producer of squashes and related vegetables is Bulgaria, which accounts for 14% of all production. Spinach is one of the vegetables cultivated most widely, very much prized for its leaves with their high contents of vitamins, protein, dietary fibre and carotenoids. The leaves can be consumed raw or cooked. The growing of spinach is not a costly endeavour, the growing season being a mere 60 days – possible through most of the year. This is a matter of significance as the fresh leaves are considered to contain far more of the most valuable nutrients present. However, fertile, non-acid soils are a requirement. In spite of these various advantages, the CEECs supply just 2.4% of the total amount of spinach grown across the EU.  The main producer here is anyway Hungary, which grows as much as 60% of the region’s spinach. The region also engages in the growing of (still smaller amounts of) vegetables like asparagus and artichokes. In the case of the former, the edible part is the young stem of a plant hailing from the Mediterranean region but now cultivated over much of Europe, and on other continents too. This species likes fertile soils, but it needs them to be dry and slightly alkaline. Plentiful sunlight is a further requirement. As of 2018, the CEECs were growing just 5.2% of the EU’s asparagus crop. Within that total, the key producers are Bulgaria and Hungary – together accounting for 73%. The region is even less significant when it comes to (so-called globe) artichokes, given that just 0.13% of the EU total is grown here. Within that tiny share, as much as 88% originates in Romania, though Lithuania also grows the vegetable in somewhat greater quantities. In no other countries in the region does this species play any kind of significant role.

Fruit So called hard fruit is the sub-category of the greatest (and still-growing) economic significance to the CEECs. This means apples and pears, but also the stone fruits like cherries (sour and sweet), plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines. The CEECs together form one of the world’s most important regions for growing these crops, and the region literally has the largest area anywhere given over to the cultivation of the different species and varieties of apple. The prevalent produce takes the form of apples for consumption fresh, however a further issue of great significance is the use of apples in both juice- and jam-making. Recent years have also produced a dramatic increase in the level of interest in cider. As of 2018, the CEECs accounted for around 42% of overall EU production of apples. In the whole world, Poland is third only to China and the USA in apple-growing, making it easily the key producer in both the EU and the region including the CEECs (accounting for 29 and 68% shares respectively) (Fig. 7.16).

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Fig. 7.16  Change in the area assigned to fruit cultivation in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Pears are also eaten as they are, even as they also find their way into various processed food products. As the requirements regarding warmth are somewhat more exacting, pear-growing does not take place as far north as the cultivation of apples. Pears also require a fertile soil. Over the last 30 years or so, the CEECs have actually been producing fewer and fewer pears  – and by 2018 the region’s share of overall EU output was at just around 7.7%. The main producers are Poland (again), but also Romania – and together the two countries account for around 76% of all the pears the region harvests. The quince is a fruit made highly palatable by cooking, and gaining various uses including in jam-making. A fertile soil is needed, and this must always be moist. This is combined with a need for large amounts of light, in a fruit-tree species that is not very frost-resistant. Given these demands, it is perhaps not surprising that quince-growing has been in decline in recent decades, in the wider EU and also in the CEECs. The latter currently accounts for 29% of production within the former. The EU’s number-one grower is Spain, but that is followed by Romania, whose share of the CEEC total is at some 63%. A further major player in this respect is Hungary, which grows around 26% of all the EU’s quinces. The production of sour and sweet cherries goes mainly for the making of preserves. The former species arose in the first place through hybridisation between the sweet or bird cherry and the dwarf cherry, and on this basis it is a more-tolerant tree that can therefore be grown further north. The species does best on light soils, hence its relative drought-tolerance, even as it is vulnerable to frosts. The best results are obtained in sunny spots. As noted above, the fruit goes into jams, juices, wines and liqueurs, with only a small share of output assigned to consumption in the raw state. Cherry wood is also a valuable resource, being both hard and easy to work. Uses include the manufacture of furniture and musical instruments, though a characteristic pleasing aroma also assures its value in the smoking of meats. As of 2018, as

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much as 91% of the EU’s sour-cherry production was taking place in the CEECs. The number-3 producer in the world (after Russia and Ukraine) is Poland, which accounts for 60% of production in the EU as a whole. Elsewhere, Hungary stands out rather for supplying around 25% of the overall crop. Sweet cherries gain much more widespread use in the fresh-fruit state, though they also go into jams, wines and drinks. As of 2018, the CEECs were responsible for 35% of overall output in the EU, with the largest producer – Romania – taking third place in the Union after Italy and Spain. Many sweet cherries are also grown in Poland and Bulgaria, with the effect that the three countries referred to supply 92% of the overall production of this fruit in the region under study. Different types of plum and sloe are also sold regularly in the raw state or dried (e.g. as prunes). Otherwise they may go into the production of alcoholic beverages. The CEECs together take a 62% share of the overall production of such fruit in the European Union. The world’s number-2 producer (after China) is Romania, which accounts for 48% of output in this category across the EU as a whole. Apricots, peaches and nectarines are the stone-fruits regarded as most demanding from the point of view of thermal conditions. They are usually dried or assigned to the production of alcoholic beverages or other processed forms. As of 2018, the CEECs were the source of about 10% of all the apricots produced in the EU. This kind of growing is mainly a feature of the region’s south-eastern corner, with the main producer being Romania – the supplier of 50% of all the apricots the region grows. Further relatively major producers are Hungary and Bulgaria, together accounting for 39% of the production. Peaches and nectarines in turn represent varieties of the same species of fruit tree, and they differ from apricots in mainly being consumed in the fresh (raw) state, only more rarely being turned into jam, juice, compotes or liqueurs, or else being dried to produce a cake-baking ingredient. The cultivation of peaches and nectarines demands plenty of sunshine and warmth – on soils that should be nutrient-rich as well as being light. Growing in a temperate climate can be held back by the appearance of spring frosts. While output of peaches and nectarines increased across the area of today’s EU, the region encompassing the CEECs experienced a decline in the 1990s. So only around 3% of current EU production actually originates in the region under study. The growing of these types of fruit concentrates mainly in the SE, with the region’s main producers being Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, as together accounting for 78% of all production. A large amount of fruit of these species also comes from Slovenia. Of lesser significance where the breakdown of agricultural output in the region is concerned are various small fruits and berries. This is in part a reflection of the major outlays of labour needed with such species, as opposed to in the case of harder and larger fruits. Strawberries are naturally a regional favourite under widespread cultivation, and continuing to display an upward trend. The growing season is short, though the soil requirements are not very exacting. While apparently ubiquitous, strawberries from the CEECs represent a mere 19% of the European Union output (even as they take a 55% share where raspberries are concerned). In both cases Poland is the key

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producer, and in fact no state anywhere in the EU grows more raspberries (with Poland taking a 50% share of Union-wide production). In the case of EU strawberry-­ growing, Poland is only surpassed by Spain, though its share of overall EU output looks less impressive. Within our region, however, the Polish share in the production of strawberries stands at 80%. Currants are mainly of the red and black species, which grow best in moist soils and prove rather frost-resistant. The fruit generated mainly goes into jams, juices, compotes, wines and liqueurs  – with a (surprisingly) small share actually being consumed in the raw state. What is more, the growing of these kinds of fruit in the EU has declined greatly (even if the process is slower in the CEECs). Hence the region’s capacity to provide more than 78% of all the currants grown in the EU. Poland is again the world’s number-2 producer (after Russia), which obviously ensures the country lead place in the EU. As much as 75% of overall EU production in fact comes from Poland. Gooseberries are related to currants, and tend to find similar uses. The bushes nevertheless have stricter requirements when it comes to the fertility and humidity of soils, and they also show a preference for mild acidity. Unlike currants, gooseberries are being grown in steadily declining quantity in the CEECs, which today account for around 12% of EU output. The lead position in the region (and in fact a 93% share) is again taken by Poland, which is third only to Germany and Russia in the entire world. Blueberries are an edible fruit eaten raw or processed into preserves. The CEECs produce 23% of the entire EU crop, with Poland clearly the major producer in the region. The country supplies 95% of the region’s output, thereby placing it second in the EU as a whole after Spain. A relative is the cranberry, which supplies edible fruits also made over into jellies and sauces served with game or turkey. The species is also used in the manufacture of cosmetics and medicines. However, production in the European Union is in decline, and concentrated almost entirely in the CEECs. The main producers of cranberries in the EU are Romania and Latvia, from which as much as 92% of overall production derives. Grapes are a popular crop in the region and are present wherever the natural conditions allow. The limit value for such vine-growing is a harvest-period (i.e. in the CEECs a September) temperature above 12 °C. That harvest is likely to be good where there is the sunny late-summer and early-autumn weather most typical for the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the soil will need to be well-drained, and the site sunny. Hence the famous link between vine-growing and south-facing slopes. Requirements as regards soil are on the other hand limited, while the plants are drought-resistant to the point where sites unsuitable for other kinds of crop can be planted up. Grapes are mostly grown for winemaking, though desert grapes are consumed as they are, while other varieties are grown for drying – to make raisins, sultanas and so on. Grapes also go into juices, jams, vinegar, seed oil and further types of alcoholic drink. Residue from the pressing of grapes joins the leaves in fodder for animals. And the nature of the grapes grown can differ quite markedly in line with even limited differences in natural conditions and weather present from place to place but also year to year.

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The CEECs generate just 8.5% of the tonnage of grapes grown in the EU, and the northern limit for cultivation is basically reached along the southern slopes of the Sudety and Carpathian Mountains. Clearly the largest producer in the region is Romania, where vineyards are mainly situated on the south-facing Carpathian slopes, in Transylvania and Dobruja. Romania is able to account for around half of the region’s production. A further major operator in winemaking is Hungary, which is known for types of wine grown around Tokay and Eger, as well as by the shore of Lake Balaton. In fact, however, the whole of Hungary engages in vine cultivation, albeit with lower-quality plants on the less-fertile soils. Hungary produces 23% of the grapes originating in the CEECs, with the next place in the ranking from this point of view taken by Slovenia. In Croatia as of 2012, some 29,000 ha was under vines, making this the country’s key cultivated fruit (The Agriculture… 2015) – if mainly a matter for small farms growing to meet their own needs. According to I. Pohajda (2013), while most (i.e. around 150,000) Croatian farms have a registered vineyard area, in more than 95% of cases the area involved is of 0.5 ha or less, hence “hobby” status and meeting the needs of the farm and its neighbourhood. In contrast, winemaking for the market is concentrated into the hands of some 30 enterprises, 35 production Cooperatives and around 250 individual-level producers. The warmest parts of the region also allow for the cultivation of watermelons, as a member of the cucumber family. These are warmth- and light-loving plants that require large amounts of water, even as they are drought-resistant to some extent. Optimal effects are achieved in fertile soils. A particularly marked increase in output was noted in the 1990s, and the region under study currently accounts for some 26% of the EU total. Watermelon-growing is concentrated in our region’s south-­ eastern and central parts, with decidedly the most major producer being Romania (accounting for 63% of the total). After that, it is Hungary that supplies most of this fruit, with its 21% share of overall production in the region. To be mentioned among the remaining fruits the region grows are two main kinds of nut, i.e. walnuts and hazelnuts. The walnut is a thermophilous and light-­ demanding boradleaved tree that is even present in the wild state in the Balkans. The fruit is a rich source of nourishment, while the wood is prized by furniture-makers. The most effective cultivation is again achieved on fertile soils. The CEECs together supply about 39% of all walnuts produced in the EU, with the major producer again being Romania (accounting for 27% of the EU total, and around 70% of all that is grown in the studied region). In our part of Europe, interest in growing hazelnuts was seen to rise in the analysed period. Indeed, while the increase in the level of production has been long-­ term, the last decade saw the upward trend in the region maintained – to the extent that output actually doubled. At present, the CEECs under study account for around 6% of the hazelnuts grown EU-wide, while the popularity of this kind of crop-­ growing is very much determined by CAP payments. Poland is this region’s main producer, accounting for 65% of the regional total, while Croatia is worth mentioning among the remaining states, being responsible for a further 17%.

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The significance when it comes to EU production of other fruit is indeed limited, with just 4.4% of its melons grown here, 1.5% of the overall crop of figs, 0.63% of the sweet chestnuts, 0.48% of the persimmons, 0.31% of the almonds and – 0.05% of the kiwi fruits. Melons are species of cucumber with large, round edible fruits mainly eaten as they are, in the raw state. The years since the 1990s have brought a decline in melon production in the CEECs, with this helping to account for a decline in the region’s role vis-à-vis that of the EU from 30% in 1991 (of course at a time prior to accession) down to 4.4% in 2018. The region’s main producer of melons is Romania, which accounts for 80% of the total. Almost the entire remaining involvement of the region in melon-growing is attributable to Hungary. Figs are common fruits of the mulberry family that are quite widespread around the Mediterranean. They are consumed raw or after processing, for example representing a cake or jam ingredient, and sometimes also going into compotes or wines. The fig tree also gains widespread use as a windbreak tree surrounding vineyards. EU-wide production of figs has fallen in recent decades, while in our region production is very largely focused in countries of the former Yugoslavia. Indeed, as many as 96% of all figs produced originate in Croatia, with the rest being grown in Slovenia. Sweet chestnuts are in essence fruit trees of the beech family. The “nuts” can be eaten fresh and raw, after drying, after roasting or in various preserved forms. In Hungary and Slovakia they are made into a paste used in both cakes and meat dishes. Markedly the region’s biggest producer is Bulgaria (56%), while Slovenia takes a major share of the rest – being responsible for 24% of regional output. The Japanese persimmon or kaki (best known in some countries by the trade name” Sharon fruit”) grows on a tree cultivable in southern parts of Europe. The fruit can be eaten raw or after drying. Interest in cultivating this species in the countries now forming the European Union grew post-1989, though it was only in the first years of the twenty-first century that it reached our region’s only grower  – Slovenia. And even as of 2018, the only other EU countries to really engage in the cultivation of the persimmon are Spain and Italy. Almonds are eaten as they are or else processed. By far our region’s main producer of them is Bulgaria, from which some 88% of all those produced derive. Edible kiwi fruits are produced by several different woody plants of the genus Actinidia. Given the way they may be stored for rather a long time without more major loss of nutritional value, kiwi fruits are above all eaten in the fresh state, also in fruit salads. Only more rarely are they turned into jams, juices, liqueurs and sparkling wines. The CEECs began to grow this species from 2003 onwards, and clearly the major producer here is Slovenia, which accounts for 76% of the regional total. Bulgaria is responsible for most of the remaining production. There are parts of the studied region – mainly warm areas of Croatia – in which small quantities of citrus fruit are grown. These are mandarins, clementines, oranges, lemons and limes. Mandarins have by the far greatest significance among the citrus the region produces. They differ from oranges in size terms, and (often) in allowing for easier separation of fruit from peel. They are mainly consumed in the raw state,

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though part of the production is earmarked for preserves, mainly jams. Clementines arose through hybridisation between mandarins and bitter oranges. Oranges are mainly used raw, as well as in juice-making, and more rarely in the manufacture of marmalades and candied peels for cake-making. Their cultivation requires a high temperature, sunshine and a large amount of water. Lemons are the citrus fruits most resistant to low temperatures. However, they require light soils and regular precipitation. Limes are less vitamin-rich and less sensitive to unfavourable habitat conditions. Lemons and limes are mainly used in the production of juices, drinks, citric acid and ethereal oils. The production of lemons and limes in Croatia has declined, much more than in the remaining areas of the EU. However, this was never a major region for the production of citrus fruit in Europe, and even today Croatia only takes a 1.6% share of EU mandarin and clementine production, a 0.007% share when it comes to oranges, and 0.02% shares of the production of lemons and limes.

Drugs and Spices The only stimulant produced on a larger scale in the CEECs is tobacco. However, quality is very much dependent on natural conditions, and a general statement might be that cultivation is possible in a temperate climate, where there is meetings of requirements regarding a fertile if light soil, considerable amounts of heat and sunlight, a lack of ground frosts in late spring and early autumn and stability of humidity achieved without many of the downpours capable of damaging leaves. The growing season should be of 150 days or more. The many varieties adapted to local conditions are of diverse properties when it comes to the size and flexibility of leaves, as well as the nicotine content. Tobacco grown on more permeable soil is lighter and serves in the production of cigarettes, while the crop produced in more compact soils is heavier and used in pipes. Given the need for planting by hand and working of the soil, tobacco-growing is a labour-intensive option. Alongside American varieties, Brazilian or Aztec tobacco is grown for its enhanced amounts of nicotine – as used for example in the manufacture of snuff. In the last few decades, there has been a decline in the amount of tobacco produced among the CEECs – something that can be seen as pointing to the changed significance of the agriculture and food sector in the region. In 1972 (which marked a kind of peak of development for this much-subsidised sector in the context of the communist-era economy), the CEECs accounted for no less than 53% of all the tobacco grown in the area equivalent to today’s EU.  In contrast, the year 2000, which more or less brought an end to the restructuring of agriculture, and its adaptation to the requirements of the free-market economy plus EU Common Agricultural Policy, saw our region responsible for just 21%. In subsequent years, the level of production fell yet further, with record lows hit again and again. By 2018, the level was down to just 14% of what it had been at the time of the 1970s peak. Equally, as the decline in output to be noted in Western Europe since the start of the new century has been even more intense, the paradoxical effect is that the share of EU

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output accounted for by the CEECs increased through the 2000–2018 period – from 21 to 32%. As a general rule, tobacco cultivation can be said to take place mainly in the sunniest areas. However, it is not just the level of production of tobacco in the CEECs that has been changing, as recent decades have also brought change when it comes to the shares accounted for by different varieties. Above all, there has been a steady decline in the share taken by the so-called Aztec tobacco. Furthermore, tobacco-growing in the region has gone through a significant transformation where its distribution and centre of gravity are concerned. From the 1960s onwards, the major producers were Bulgaria and Poland. Bulgaria in fact led, through to the early 1990s; though in any case the overall share accounted for by the two countries taken together was of 67% in 1963 and of 79% in 1970. However, the transformation of the early 1990s had a particularly unfavourable impact on tobacco-­ growing in Bulgaria. So it was that, in 1994, Poland for the first time grew more tobacco than any other country in its region, even as the share accounted for by the two countries together had fallen to 58% by 1995. However, Bulgaria then rebuilt its levels of production, to the point where post-1996 it was again responsible for the largest harvests anywhere in the region. Before it acceded to the EU in 2006, Bulgaria took a dominant position in the region, in 2003 and 2004 achieving a record ca. 54% share of all production. Then, post-accession, the production of tobacco in Bulgaria fell back once more, allowing Poland to resume its position as regional leader, as it were by default, given the fact that production of tobacco there had stabilised. Currently, the country stands out as markedly the leading producer of tobacco in the CEECs (with a 59% share). Even in the EU as a whole, Poland comes second only to Italy from this point of view. Among the remaining countries, the main producers are Bulgaria (with a 15% share) and Croatia (13%). Bulgaria’s tobacco cultivation is concentrated in the southern part of the country, where the specialisation is in aromatic oriental tobaccos (which are costlier, and low-­yielding). In contrast, in Croatia it is varieties of American origin that prevail. The common hop is a perennial species belonging to the hemp family which is grown for its cone-shaped fruits. In essence these are used familiarly as a spice in the brewing industry; but also in medicine and in the manufacture of cosmetics. Success with the growing of this crop is achieved in sunny places and on fertile soils of somewhat alkaline reaction. The CEECs together take a 23% share of the EU total. The region’s main producers – together supplying 79% of all output – are the Czech Republic and Slovenia. The two countries join Poland as the three following on behind Germany alone as principal producer in the European Union. Only of much lesser significance in the region is the growing of herbs and spices  – never an activity engaged in on any kind of mass-production scale, and rather local in significance. That said, the key point here is of course the lucrative nature of what can be grown even over a very small area. Hence the share in terms of the value of what is produced is far higher than the share of the area of arable land. Furthermore, in the majority of cases, the species grown in our region for this purpose do not have very specific requirements when it comes to natural conditions – hence the possibility of their being cultivated in various different areas. Even

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preservation measures are not too special once plants have been harvested, while what is produced is light enough to make even very long-distance transport a feasible and straightforward option. Crops in this group include the opium poppy, whose seeds are consumed, while the oil derived from them has both technological and medicinal applications. The residue remaining after pressing can serve as nutritious fodder for livestock. Output of this particular crop is increasing in the EU (within its present border), as well as across the CEECs. In fact, the region under study generates 54% of all the poppy seeds produced in the Union. Very clearly the key producer from this point of view is the Czech Republic, which accounts for 54%. Indeed, in the entire world, that country is second only to Turkey. Poppies are also grown in relatively large numbers in Croatia and Slovakia. Many members of the umbellifer family are also included in this category, not least caraway and cumin, coriander, aniseed, fennel, dill and samphire. The seeds and dried fruits are what gain use in consumption. It is the leaves that are consumed in the case of thyme, marjoram, rosemary, peppermint and bayleaf. The region under study is an important producer of the (carrot-family) umbellifers in particular, with a 75% share accounted for within the EU. Most of the species referred to in fact originate around the Mediterranean, hence a somewhat higher level of production in warmer southern parts. The highest level is achieved by Bulgaria, Hungary and Lithuania. From this point of view, Bulgaria is in fact the leader in the entire EU, while Hungary and Lithuania only (also) come below Spain in the ranking. It is from these countries alone that as much as 63% of the overall production of umbellifer crops takes place. Those in search of a stronger taste will often turn to white mustard, which our region does produce, as well as various types of strong pepper, produced from dried and ground fruits. White mustard is a member of the cabbage family whose seeds are added as a spice in mustard, marinades, meat and other dishes, as well as serving medicinal purposes. Young plants can also serve as animal feed. Post-1989, this region’s production of mustard actually rose, so at present 47% of total EU output is accounted for. Decidedly the leading producer of white mustard in the region is the Czech Republic, which produces 53% of the regional total. From this point of view, the country is only outranked by France. A rather large amount is also produced in one further CEEC, i.e. Slovakia. Peppers are imbued with their strong flavour thanks to the presence of capsaicin in the fruit. While in fact an analgesic, this also irritates the skin and mucous membrane, in turn generating a sensation of heat there. As of 2018, the CEECs accounted for as much as 92% of overall EU production of dried hot pepper, as well as 17% of the harvest where fresh hot pepper is concerned. Clearly the most major producer of the former in Europe is Romania, which takes a 62% share. Among remaining EU Member States, Hungary is responsible for a high level of production – on 24%. Romania is also markedly the region’s leading producer of fresh hot pepper, accounting for 53% of the total. In turn, it is from Hungary that around 26% of the production of this kind of spice derives.

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Another strong spice is peppermint, derived from a plant that is not demanding and has a level of frost-resistance sufficient to allow for cultivation all around the CEECs. However, it still does best on fertile soils and in sunny sites. This is nevertheless a plant whose cultivation is becoming less popular around the EU, even as the situation in Bulgaria has actually been the reverse. In the first years of the twenty-first century, production increased there, to the point where a 95% share of output within the EU was achieved in 2010. This dominance was not quite maintained, with Bulgaria currently producing around 56% of the Union’s peppermint. Chicory is a plant of the daisy family that supplies leaves and root tops for consumption. Herbalists make use of it, it can form a spice, and the ground and roasted roots may represent a key component of roasted grain drink (as a substitute for coffee). However, the period since the 1990s has brought a steady decline in the amounts of chicory root produced in the CEECs  – to the point where the region accounts for just 3.3% of the output achieved by the European Union as a whole. Within that total, Poland is markedly the most major producer, responsible for 75%. The rest of the production comes mainly from Croatia. Fungi have long formed part of the traditional cuisine in Central and Eastern Europe, but always tended to be picked fresh from the countryside. Only rather recently has commercial cultivation begun, above all of common mushrooms, oyster mushrooms and truffles. And the production of mushrooms in the CEECs has increased far more rapidly than elsewhere in the EU. While the region accounted for 13% of the EU total as 2001, that figure has already reached 27%. Poland is leading the way, as it is responsible for no less than 83% of the region’s production. That leaves it as second only to The Netherlands within the European Union.

Crops Grown to Produce Sugar The crop grown to produce sugar in the region, as in the rest of Europe, is sugar beet. Levels of production of sugar from the saccharose present in the roots of this crop species depend on the price relationship with sugar cane, which can enjoy an advantage given the lower costs of labour in countries in which it is cultivated. In turn, beet-sugar can gain the advantage where transport costs are low – given that the crop may often be grown close to major sources of demand. It is on this kind of basis that trading conditions for sugar produced from beet are determined, though even then the market for sugar in the EU is not a free one as production quotas are in place, and do have an impact on the behaviour of farmers. As of 2016, the highest shares of production had been achieved by France (31%), Germany (23%) and Poland (12%). Sugar beet is a rather frost-resistant crop, though it does require 5 months without ground frosts, a growing season of duration 180 days or more, and a soil that is fertile but not heavy. Good results tend to be obtained were rainfall is spread out rather evenly through the growing season, albeit with a sunny summer of average temperature 20 °C or so, and a dry autumn. In any case, this is a labour-intensive

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crop, as various tending measures – and even harvesting – may often need to be done by hand. As was suggested above, a key location factor for the growing of sugar beet is the presence of a beet factory in the vicinity. That in turn reflects the bulky nature of this root crop, which leaves transport over longer distances uneconomical. The opportunity to use leaves and pulp as fodder for livestock encourages location of the latter industry in the vicinity of areas where sugar beet is grown. Further by-products may be molasses (black treacle), which can be used in spirit distilling, as well as yeast. The CEECs take a 19% share in the overall production of sugar beet in the EU. And Poland is the Union’s third-largest producer, after France and Germany; while it accounts for 62% of the regional total.

Crops Grown for Their Oil The most important oil-producing crop in the world is the soybean (or soya bean), which within our region is mainly confined to the south. Its high protein content ensures its status as an important component of animal feed, as well as a key food for human beings. Extracts from this crop go into a great many different food products, the effect being to raise their nutritional value. But soya is above all used in the production of oil. The region of interest here supplies 37% of the soya grown in the EU, with the leading producers being Romania (second only to Italy anywhere in the EU) and Croatia. Together, the two countries referred to account for 68% of the soya beans grown in the region. Oilseed rape and turnip rape (or field mustard) are the region’s key oleiferous (oil-producing) crops. Cooking fats – like margarine – are also made from them, while rape oil goes into biofuels (biodiesel). The pressed remnants can provide fodder for animals, while the flowers are also important as they are frequented by bees and turned into honey. Post-1989, there was a marked increase in the level of production of both rape and field mustard across the area that is today’s EU, as well as in Central Europe – even as there were major fluctuations in trading conditions where rapeseed was concerned. Indeed, price fluctuations are capable of altering the area under this crop markedly from 1 year to the next. A distinct increase of interest in growing rape followed on from the CEECs’ incorporation within European Union structures. Thanks to Community farm policy, the growing of rape became a far more viable proposition economically, and this was above all thanks to increased demand in the manufacturing of biofuels (Fig. 7.17). The CEECs currently contribute 41% to the overall EU harvest of this crop. The largest producers of rape and turnip rape are Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic – from which (altogether) 64% of overall regional output derives. Poland, as the region’s leading producer of rape, comes third in the EU after France and Germany.

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Fig. 7.17  Changes in the area planted with rape in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Of comparable significance is the production of the edible oil that derives from sunflower-growing. This is used as an edible fat and in margarine-making, but also in technological contexts, e.g. in the manufacture of soap. The seeds also serve in smaller amounts as a vegetable. Furthermore, as a by-product, this species gains use in animal feed as residue after seed-pressing, along with leaves and stems. It is easy to grow, but does prefer more fertile soils and sunny spots. It is drought-resistant, and, given that kind of resilience, the crop is mainly cultivated in areas too dry to allow other oil-producing crops to be grown. In the period under analysis, the production of sunflower seeds rose more in our region that in the remaining part of the EU as it is construed today. As of 2018, the CEECs were taking a 72% share of the total production of sunflower seeds in the Union. It is in our region that the EU’s three main producers of sunflowers are to be found, i.e. Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary (which together account for as much as 68% of union-wide output). Romania and Hungary are also some of the key exporters of sunflower oil anywhere in the world (Fig. 7.18). The peanut is a plant of the pea and bean family that differs from other members in being cultivated primarily for the production of oil. In smaller amounts, the nuts are also eaten raw as a vegetable, or else roasted and salted as a snack. Peanut butter can also be made from them. The Balkans once represented one of the world’s more major peanut-growing regions, but there then came a time when the activity started to decline and even vanish. As of now, the region takes just a 12% share in EU peanut production. The leading grower here is Bulgaria, but in the EU it takes third place in this respect – after Greece and Spain. An oil-yielding plant of limited importance in the region is safflower. The seeds are used in the production of the oil referred to, while the flowers provide a dye used in paintmaking. Cultivation was commenced with in Hungary in the early 1990s,

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Fig. 7.18  Changes in areas planted with sunflowers in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

but the area involved remains small. Thus, while even here the effort is of local reach only, the country is still the only producer in the EU other than Spain. The only crop yielding oil that derives from plants grown long-term (sometimes very much so) is the olive; and this species is confined to the southernmost areas of our region, where a subtropical maritime climate is able to penetrate. The land involved is mainly unsuited to other kinds of crop, with varied relief. The species is characterised by both a wide-ranging root system and leathery leaves, and together these adaptations allow it to persist through dry and hot periods, even where slopes are present, and soils shallow and stony. However, the cultivation of olives requires major inputs of labour at harvest time, with output mostly going into the production of the valuable, delicate olive oil. However, olives as fruit may also be dried, salted or marinated. All that said, our region takes just a 0.24% share of the overall production of olives across the EU. Within that total, the absolutely dominant producer is Croatia, which takes an 88% regional share. The remainder of the production originates in Slovenia. Oil is also a by-product of the growing of certain plants otherwise known mainly for the way they generate fibres, such as flax or hemp. Large-seeded varieties of flax offer far greater opportunities for oil-production, which involves pressing of the seeds. These varieties also tend to be more resistant to high temperatures and a dry climate, with the production of linseed oil therefore playing a more major role in the southern part of the region. An important property of the oil obtained from flax relates to the way it dries rapidly. This leaves it as a component valuable in the production of paints, lacquers, oilcloths and so on, as well as – in smaller quantities – soap. Only a small amount of linseed oil is actually consumed. In the region, the 1990s brought a far more rapid decline in the level of production in the CEECs than elsewhere in Europe. Currently the region supplies around 12% of all the linseed

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produced in The EU. The largest producer is Poland, which accounts for 45% of the overall total regionally. Oil produced from hemp is also usually a by-product, such that cultivation mainly dedicated to the production of oil is a rarity. Hempseed oil has similar properties to linseed oil, but is of far more limited regional significance. It is mainly used to make soap and fuel, just like linseed oil. Only a small amount of what is produced is consumed. While the area today making up the EU witnessed a major increase in the level of production of hempseed oil in the 1990s (primarily as a reflection of a new use as an additive to biofuel), among the CEECs the level of output fell markedly at the same time. The region’s share in the production of this oil thus declined to as little as 0.40%. Its leading producer of hempseed oil is Hungary, with a 78% regional share. Small quantities of the plant are also grown in Romania and Poland. The cultivation of cotton in this part of Europe is much hindered by the cool climate. In consequence, the species is grown as an oil-yielding plant only, and anyway confined to places with a growing season longer than 200  days. It also requires a high level of humidity in the phase of development, as well as dry weather at harvest time. Cottonseed oil is used in the food industry, in the manufacture of margarines and other cooking fats. Remnants of pressed seeds go into animal feed or manure. In the period under analysis, cotton production declined in both the EU within its present borders and the CEECs. However, reference to the EU in fact denotes just three countries, i.e. Greece and Spain as the main producers, with third place in the Union now taken by Bulgaria, on account of Romania’s total withdrawal from cotton cultivation at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Even in Bulgaria, the significance of cottonseed production is extremely limited, given that the country accounted for just 0.3% of overall output as of 2018.

Crops Grown for Their Fibre The world’s most important crop grown for its (durable, low-cost and diverse) fibres is cotton – a species adapted to a variety of different climatic conditions. However, this is mainly a crop for Bulgaria and southern Romania (into which areas it was introduced by the Turks). At the present time, production of this group has more or less been abandoned. As with the production of cottonseed, so also the growing of this species for its fibres is continued with by just three countries in the EU, with the clear leaders from this point of view being Greece and Spain, as joined by just one country from among the CEECs, i.e. Bulgaria. However, where fibre production is concerned, the share of the EU total is still-smaller, at just 0.21%. Though cotton does not have especially refined needs when it comes to the soil, a fundamental limitation in the region is an excessively long cool period during the year, as well as insufficient sunshine. A further obstacle is rainy weather as the plants are maturing, which has the effect of darkening the fibres. Overall, the natural conditions here ensure that the valuable long fibres are basically not obtained in cultivation of the species.

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Far greater significance as a fibre-generating crop is achieved by flax, which grows best in a cool and rather moist climate. Flax shows considerable tolerance when it comes to soil conditions, but a downside is the extremely labour-intensive nature of both the cultivation process and the way in which the fibres are obtained. Consecutively, the harvested crop is dried, threshed (or rippled), moistened for the purpose of retting, broken and scotched, before the fibres are combed and sorted. Nevertheless, while linen fibres are far more expensive to produce than those of cotton, this can be justified by the more-extensive nature of the product and its resistance to damp. Linen can therefore be an ideal material for making thread, string and rope. In contrast, its use in the manufacture of cloth is rarer and rarer. As recently as in the 1970s, Poland was a leader in the production of flax and linen. However, it lost out more and more in terms of profitability as linen was compared with artificial fibres, cotton or wool, and the result was a dramatic decline year after year. Other countries in the central part of our region faced rather similar circumstances, not least the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary. Indeed, while the period under analysis actually brought a marked increase in the production of linen in the EU as a whole, the disappearance from the CEECs was almost total, so that the significance is much more limited than in the case of the manufacture of linseed oil. So currently it accounts for just 0.073% of the overall production of linen fibres and tow in the EU. In any case, the effort to generate these products in the CEECs is distributed very differently from that involving the cultivation of flax to make linseed oil. While the seeds are mainly produced in Poland, the main producers of linen and tow are Latvia and Romania, together accounting for 57% of regional output. Remaining somewhat more major producers are Bulgaria (with 17% of the regional total) and Slovakia (16%). Hemp fibres – which are obtained from the stems of the plant – are similar in their properties to flax fibres and are used to make rope, lines, sacks, paper, and canvas for sails. The processing of the harvested crop also resembles that applying in the case of flax. The seeds used to produce oil or bird-food most often represent a by-product. Where amounts of moisture are high and soil fertile, it is possible to grow these Cannabis plants even where the growing season is of as few as 120 days a year. That provides for the possibility of cultivation even in the northernmost areas of our region. However, the cool climate in the Baltic countries does have an impact, in that yields are lower than further south. As with flax, so also with hemp, both the cultivation of the plant and obtainment of fibre from it are time-consuming and expensive, leaving the end product largely uncompetitive in terms of price. This is why the production of hemp in our region remains small in scale – and has indeed declined quite markedly in the last 3 decades. Notwithstanding this fall, the fact that flax production has collapsed even more visibly means that hemp is anyway the most important fibre-producing crop in our region. And while the CEECs grow flax above all for its seeds and to make oil, hemp plays a much more major role where fibres are concerned. Currently, our region supplies a 14% share in overall EU production (while the comparable figure for 1989 would have been at close to 100%). As with flax, the distribution differs in line with the designation, with easily the main producer of hemp for fibres being Romania (accounting for 75%), as compared with Hungary playing the key role when it comes to seed production.

Chapter 8

Livestock-Rearing

The agricultural output that takes animal form is by definition a secondary one, given that it involves animals in the processing of products of plant origin. This is in some sense less efficient than direct human consumption of plants for nutrition, though animal products are of greater nutritional value, above all from the point of view of their protein and fat content. Key animal products do not merely take the form of meat, as there is also milk, as well as fibres, eggs, skin and fur. It is worth recalling here that more major factors influencing species diversity among livestock animals (especially those raised for meat) take the form of customs and religious practices. As it happens, these play less of a role in the region under study that they do, for example, along the Deccan Peninsula, or around the Middle East. Most of the animals reared in the region provide meat, though milk also of course comes from cows, as well as goats and sheep in far more limited quantities. Hides, skins and fur are also among the products provided by a majority of animals that are farmed, while fibres derive from sheep, rabbits and goats in the main. Different kinds of poultry supply both meat and eggs, though the latter derive to a very great extent from hens. Also of a certain amount of significance in the case of poultry are the feathers that can be plucked from these birds. Bees in turn provide honey and wax, while most livestock animals supply manure as a form of fertiliser by-product. In the region, the keeping and raising of farm animals is primarily a matter of the supply of meat and milk; as well as eggs, hides and honey to a far more limited extent. Within the EU, the largest numbers of head of livestock are present in Spain, Germany, France, the UK (now exiting) and Italy. In turn, Germany and Spain have more pigs than any other countries, France, Germany and the UK more cattle, the UK again more sheep, and Greece and Spain more goats. When the livestock situation in the whole EU is set against that of the CEECs, the latter can be seen to feature a somewhat greater level of balance. The share in terms of livestock units taken by the key large species – cattle and pigs – is rather lower here (at 68.3% as opposed to 74.1% in the whole EU). Sheep and goats also account for smaller shares, while © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_8

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that accounted for by poultry is markedly larger. Also relatively greater is the role of such further animal species or breeds as horses, donkeys, mules and rabbits (Table 8.1). Although the share accounted for by cattle is lower in the region than is average for the whole EU, what is involved here is even so around half of the total number of livestock units, making this clearly the key component of the overall herd of animals. The share in general is lowered because of the relatively small shares cattle account for in the livestock structure characterising Hungary (at 25%) and Romania (at 33%). Hungary is the region’s only country in which there is a greater number of pigs (expressed in terms of livestock units at least) than there are cattle. The shares cattle account for in Poland, Bulgaria and Croatia are quite close to the regional average. Elsewhere (including in all of the Baltic countries), markedly over half of all livestock units are present in the form of cattle (Fig. 8.1). Pigs come second to cattle when it comes to countries’ structure for number of head of livestock. An average, almost ¼ of all livestock units are in this form. The smallest share in this case characterises Slovenia (with just 13%). In contrast, shares of the overall herd of livestock accounted for by pigs are high in the central part of the region, most especially in Hungary and Croatia (a figure of 30% in each case), as well as in Poland (28%). The third most important element of the structure expressed in terms of livestock units takes the form of poultry. Moreover, differences in shares from country to country are not too marked, even as figures do range from Hungary on 37%, to Poland on 24%, and Slovakia on 21%. The proportion of all livestock constituted by poultry is lowest in the Baltic countries (Estonia 6.8%, Latvia 11%, Lithuania 14%), as well as in Croatia and Slovenia (around 14% each) (Table 8.2). Other livestock species are characterised by more varied distributions. Thus the shares taken by sheep in the structure are high in countries in the southern part of the region, i.e. Romania (19%), Bulgaria (12%) and Croatia (10%). In contrast, in

Table 8.1  Number of (million) head of the main livestock species in the CEECs as of 2016 Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

Cattle 0.57 0.46 1.38 0.25 0.84 0.41 0.69 5.97 2.05 0.45 0.49

Pigs 0.62 1.16 1.48 0.27 2.89 0.34 0.66 11.11 4.71 0.59 0.27

Sheep 1.36 0,62 No data No data 1.16 No data 0.16 No data 9.88 0.37 No data

Source: Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

Goats 0.24 0.08 No data No data 0.08 No data 0.01 No data 1.48 0.04 No data

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Fig. 8.1  Number-of-head structure for main livestock species in the CEECs in 2016 (as expressed in terms of livestock units) Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data Table 8.2  Changes in livestock populations among the CEECs (11 of the EU Member States) Animal species Cattle (head) Chicken (‘000 head) Goats (head) Horses (head) Pigs (head) Sheep (head)

1995 18,374,130 226,488 1,992,095 1,798,043 44,387,612 17,186,579

2000 15,352,290 221,065 2,195,885 1,775,216 38,485,553 13,060,128

2005 13,958,384 311,303 1,848,248 1,495,572 37,212,003 12,307,187

2010 13,604,378 346,151 1,637,634 1,294,141 30,980,281 13,567,580

2015 13,588,739 328,003 2,037,651 972,351 25,441,863 13,911,919

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Poland, Czechia and Lithuania their share in terms of livestock units does not exceed 2.5%. In the CEECs, a characteristic feature where livestock structure is concerned is the continued tangible presence of draft animals like horses, donkeys and mules. Numbers of these are around 50% higher here than in other EU Member States. Today, however, this is primarily an effect of the situation in the region’s southern part. There, numbers of small, economically-weak farms are large, while more-­ varied terrain can sometimes hinder mechanisation of farm work. A share of livestock accounted for by draft animals that is above-average for the region continues to characterise three countries, i.e. Romania (6.0%), Bulgaria (4.9%) and Slovenia (3.0%). The proportion of all livestock constituting goats is now much lower than it was several decades ago. At 0.86%, this is very close to the mean value for the whole EU (of 0.88%). Where spatial distribution is concerned, this is seen to be rather similar

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Fig. 8.2  Structure by livestock units in the CEECs and countries of the “Old EU” in 2016 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

to the situation regarding sheep. It is Poland that reports the smallest share of goats among livestock (just 0.05%), while the highest observed values characterise our region’s south-east, with Romania on 2.8% and Bulgaria on 2.4%. Finally, it is rabbits that account for the smallest proportion of livestock, even as there are relatively most of these animals in Croatia and Latvia (where the share is 0.2% in each case) (Fig. 8.2).

Cattle While milk could theoretically be obtained from almost all mammals kept as livestock, bovines in fact represent the main source. While some parts of the world specialise in the raising of beef cattle, in the CEECs it is breeds of dairy cattle that clearly prevail. The production of veal (mainly from bullocks) and of beef plays a much less-major role, even though efficiency is rather high. A small and steadily-­ declining part is now played by general-purpose cattle, while are mainly still a feature of small farms meeting own needs only. In turn, the deployment of cattle as draft animals is a phenomenon to be met with from time to time in the southern part of the region. Natural conditions have a direct impact on cattle-raising, as regards the choice of breed; as well as indirectly when it comes to the amount and type of feed available for the beasts. A generalisation would be to say that the temperate zone is optimal for cattle, given a milder climate that allows for the supply of fodder, with a long growing season ensuring that pastureland achieves rather high levels of productivity. And this kind of land use allows profit to be taken from areas in which cultivation of the land would prove problematical. This would for example be true of areas with varied terrain and less-fertile soils which would need to be designated for rotation. Equally, the need for milk to be kept cool denotes that its production in the

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context of a commercial operation is mainly favoured where there is a large market for the supply on hand; or at least a dairy able to process and otherwise deal with the milk appropriately. The CEECs have just 15% of the EU’s cattle, in this way taking a 12% share of the Union’s overall production of beef, as well as an 18% share in its production of (cow’s) milk. Markedly, the highest share of all the region’s cattle (45%) are in Poland, which at the same time takes 61 and 48% shares of CEEC beef and milk production respectively. In turn, a relatively major producer of cow’s milk is Estonia. Where density of cattle kept is concerned, Slovenia is found to have as many as 79 per 100 ha of farmland. Given the relatively large size of Poland, its corresponding figure of 42 is impressive-looking. The domestic water buffalo is obviously present in far smaller numbers, often serving as a draft animal, though also in a position to supply meat, hides and milk. The species certainly produces less milk than the standard cow, though that is milk much richer in fat. The CEECs have just around 3.0% of the buffalo present in the EU, and these animals produce 0.6% of the total amount of meat obtained from the species, as well as 4.5% of the milk. Unsurprisingly, the raising of buffalo is a matter for the region’s southernmost part – mainly lowland Bulgaria. The only country to have more of the animals – and produce more buffalo milk – than Bulgaria is Italy. The latter also surpasses Bulgaria when it comes to the supply of buffalo meat; and so does Greece. The countries in the region have displayed rather uniform trends when it comes to changes in numbers of head of different livestock. The 1990s and early 2000s witnessed steady declines, as communist-era farms specialising in the raising of livestock closed down, while EU requirements and quotas as regards milk production had to be met. That tended to mean stability of numbers of cattle (principally dairy cattle) since accession to the EU, or else a slight upward trend (Fig. 8.3).

Fig. 8.3  Changes in numbers of cattle in selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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Goats, Sheep and Fur-Bearing Animals Cattle are joined as suppliers of milk by goats and sheep, both of which prove better able to adapt to more-difficult natural conditions. Various climates can be adapted to, while needs are less exacting when it comes to food, so these two animals can both give satisfactory results in areas too dry – and/or land too steep – for cattle. For the above reasons, the keeping of goats and sheep in most of our region’s countries has been pushed out to pastures in areas absolutely unfavourable to other forms of agricultural land use. Goat-keeping in the region was once a rather widespread feature, with milk, meat and hides all provided. However, the practice has almost entirely disappeared in recent decades. Currently, only a low share of all livestock is constituted by goats, and that mainly in the region’s southern part. Equally, the CEECs are seen to account for about 16% of the EU’s overall population of this species, with 19% of the Union’s goat meat produced there, as opposed to just 4.7% of its goat’s milk. The largest national herd of goats is in Romania (which accounts for 72% of the animals found in the entire region). That allows Romania to supply 75% of the region’s goat meat. Across the EU, it is only in Greece and Spain that the populations of goats are higher. Equally, the region’s leading producer of goat’s milk (with a 45% share) is Bulgaria. A relatively high level of production of milk is also achieved by Croatia. Sheep are of markedly greater significance – and are present over a far greater area of the region – than goats. They supply meat, milk and hides, though the key goal of raising sheep here is the production of wool. And the quality of that product depends on the breed of sheep on the one hand, and on climate conditions on the other. The cool climate here ensures that most sheep kept have a rather thick fleece often going into sheepskin products. The wool as such is far less-prized on world markets then the thin, long and fluffy wool that Merino sheep produce. The latter are only present much more rarely in the region under analysis. Mutton is not a popular feature of the cuisine in most of the CEECs, though locally it may assume greater significance. But, paradoxically, the market price can be high here – comparable with that achieved for beef of good quality. While sheep-raising is indeed of greater significance than the equivalent practice with goats, the concentration in the southern part of the region is almost the same. Elsewhere in this part of Europe the significance is local at best. Overall, then, the CEECs account for just 15% of the population of sheep around the EU, with the share of the EU production of mutton and lamb being even lower than that – at 12%. In contrast, the role in the overall production of sheep’s milk is greater, with a 24% share; even as the significance to the Union of the production of wool is made clear by just a 6.1% share. Clearly the largest population of sheep in any of the CEECs is maintained by Romania (69%). Furthermore, that country provides 73% of the region’s sheep meat and 87% of its sheep’s milk. Nowhere in the EU in fact has more sheep, expect the United Kingdom and Spain; and nowhere but Greece makes

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more of the milk – which is mostly use in the manufacture of cheese. In contrast, the region’s major suppliers of wool are Hungary and Bulgaria, which together account for 65% of the region’s output. A further 10% of wool in the region comes from Croatia. Despite a degree of fluctuation, the numbers of goats here have remained roughly similar through the whole period of agricultural transformation. Thus there were 1,640,000 of the animals in 2010 – compared with 2,200,000 in 2000 – and further stabilisation seems to have taken place (even with a slight upward trend to be noted over the last decade). Where sheep are concerned, changes in the number of head have been far greater. Through to the early 2000s, numbers of sheep in the region declined relentlessly from 31.9 M in 1990 to as few as 11.5 M in 2002, i.e. by more than half. Subsequent years saw the overall size of the herd rebuilt somewhat, such that by 2018 there were some 14.4 million head (Fig. 8.4). A limited role in regional wool production is played by rabbits. Depending on the breed in question, these animals are kept for their meat or their fur. Nearly always, the raising is done in closed conditions, with both quality and bulk feed supplied. Competing for the fur market with rabbits are foxes, mink and coypus first and foremost. The CEECs have some 35% of all the rabbits in the European Union, while accounting for 24% of EU production of rabbit meat. The rearing of animals for their fur is very much a concentrated and specialised endeavour. Most production is achieved on a very small group of farms, which are subjected to regular attacks by animal-rights activists. The result has been a steady stream of closures of fur farms. Nevertheless, after Italy in first place, it is three CEECs that top the EU ranking for fur-farming, i.e. Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. Together these account for some 83% of all the region’s fur-bearing animals.

Fig. 8.4  Changes in overall populations of sheep and goats as livestock in the CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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Pigs Unlike other livestock animals, pigs are bred and raised almost solely with the single aim of supplying meat and fat. The production of pigskin is of marginal significance. Pigs are characterised by the most favourable ratio between the amount of feed consumed and the weight put on as meat. On the minus side, the feed in question does need to be richer nutritionally than that supplied to cattle, for example. For this reason, pigs tend to be raised in closed confines. Where smaller-scale pig production is engaged in, feed may take the form of the by-products of crop growing, as well as household refuse. Where operations are on an industrial scale, the fodder in turn takes the form of grain, potatoes or other root crops grown especially as animal fodder. Pig-keeping is relatively widespread across the region, as the production of pork to meet a farm’s own needs requires neither a great deal of space nor any higher level of specialisation; while the relationship between financial outlays and income is a rather favourable one. It further allows the surplus workforce to be gainfully involved in some activity on a small farm during the winter. Beyond that, the keeping of pigs does not require any defined natural conditions, hence a further factor accounting for the rather universal nature of the activity. It is true that a warmer and moister climate will be helpful when it comes to the production of pig-feed, but on the other hand pigs kept in such conditions prove more vulnerable to parasites and disease. Overall, natural conditions do less to affect the locations of pig-breeding efforts, with this being more a matter of the level of demand for the meat and the availability of feed. In the north of the region, the latter comes first and foremost in the form of potatoes and other root crops, as well as barley, rye and milk. Equally, in southern and central parts (e.g. along the Danube), it is maize that constitutes the primary food of pigs. The CEECs account for 16% of the EU pig population, and the region’s role in the actual production of pork is on the same level. Poland is the leader when it comes to pig-keeping, with 48% of the EU’s animals. The country in turn accounts for 57% of the pork the CEECs produce. Numbers of pigs per 100 ha of farmland are 79 in Poland, as compared with 55 in Hungary. Recent decades have brought a steady decline in pig populations going even beyond the periodic fluctuations to be noted in all of the region’s states. This links up with changing consumption patterns in society, not least with the constant propounding of a healthy lifestyle that anticipates reduced consumption of animal fats and red meat. This leaves consumption of vegetables and plant products on the rise, with pork also giving way to poultry and fish (Fig. 8.5).

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Fig. 8.5  Changes in the pig populations of selected CEECs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

Poultry Among the many species of bird (or fowl) kept in the region, the one to which by far the greatest significance needs to be attached is the hen or chicken, as a descendant of the original jungle fowl. The species supplies eggs and meat, which are products easy to dispense and not requiring any more complicated processing. Irrespective of flock size, the birds mainly feed on grain, as well as various on-farm by-products. On the other hand, industrial-scale battery farming of hens makes use of the by-­ products and wastes of the food industry. For these and other reasons it is in the raising of hens that we achieve the highest value of the product in relation to the financial outlays that go into producing it. Moreover, the rate of increase in mass of meat is greater in broilers (hens of live weight 1–2 kg) than in any other kind of livestock. As not too much space is required, even industrial-scale production can be engaged in over just small areas – e.g. in the vicinity of absorbent markets for what is produced. The CEECs support about 26% of the hens present in the EU as a whole, while they are responsible for 21% of the EU-wide production of hens’ eggs, and 24% of the output where chicken meat is concerned. Poland in fact has more birds of this species than any other country in the EU, while the level of production of the meat is second only to that achieved in the UK. In that light, Poland is found to support half of all the hens present in all the CEECs taken together. It likewise supplies 44% of all the eggs the region produces, as well as 51% of its chicken-meat production. Among remaining” poultry” species, those of greatest significance include ducks, geese, guineafowl and turkeys, whose raising plays a relatively major role in the CEECs. The region accounts for 35% of the ducks bred for consumption in the EU, for 92.2% of the geese and guineafowl, and for 21% of the turkeys. However,

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the shares the region takes in the actual production of meat from these birds are lower – at 31, 86 and 15% respectively. This clearly attests to the still-limited efficiency of production in this sphere. While ducks and turkeys are mainly earmarked for meat production, rather more diverse use is made of geese – given that these also supply a valuable fat, as well as feathers. The largest population of domestic ducks in the region is present in Hungary, as followed by Poland and Romania. Together, these three countries concentrate 83% of the region’s farmed ducks. Indeed, after France as top producer, these three countries take the subsequent positions in the hierarchy for the European Union as a whole. In contrast, when it comes to output of duck meat, the clear leader in the region is Hungary, with its 61% regional share. Apart from France, no other EU Member States engages in a higher level of production of meat from this species. The EU’s largest populations of geese and guineafowl are to be found in Poland and Romania – the two states together accounting for 88% of these birds present in the entire region. Absolutely the key EU players in the supply of goose meat are Poland and Hungary – together responsible for producing 84% of this meat. Poland is also the leader where turkeys are concerned, with 73% of the birds in the region. Indeed, in the whole EU only Italy and France have more turkeys. Poland’s share in the region’s production of turkey meat is rather lower, at 65%, while another 25% of that production is achieved by Hungary. Of far more limited significance is the rearing of pheasants, pigeons and ostriches – grown for their meat, eggs and valuable leg-skin in Poland, among other countries. The CEEC most concentrating this production of meat from the less-­ popular species of fowl is Bulgaria, which accounts for 1.2% of overall production in the EU.

Insects Silkworms are raised to produce natural silk. However, as this is a process with high attendant costs, the production of silk cannot compete on price with the cultivation of cotton, wool or flax, and even more so with synthetic fibres. For that reason, no major share of production is accounted for, even as silk still has a certain economic significance given its luxury-good status. Nevertheless, it is the CEECs that in fact account for 89% of the overall production of silk achieved in the EU. An important location factor when it comes to the rearing of silkworms (which are in fact silkmoth caterpillars) is the present of a low-cost but also skilled workforce. Romania thus occupies a dominant position anywhere in the EU when it comes to the production of silk – given the 84% share that it attains. Extending across a greater range in the region is beekeeping. Honeybees also play a very key role in agricultural production in general, not only because they are the producers of honey and wax (albeit with these products having largely given way in terms of economic relevance to sugar, as well as plant waxes or paraffin wax); but also above all because they pollinate crop plants. The CEECs can in fact

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be seen to constitute a key region for beekeeping, not least as home to around 47% of all the hives in the European Union. The share taken in the Union-wide production of honey as such is similar, though the role played in the production of wax is more limited – the figure noted being 19%. The greatest numbers of beehives are present in Romania, Poland and Hungary. It is in these three countries that we find 63% of all the hives present in the region. Among the Member States of the EU 17 only Spain has more hives than Romania and Poland. This is also the only EU country that outdoes Romania, Hungary and Poland when it comes to the production of honey. The combined share achieved by these three leading producers in the CEECs is 66%. Bulgaria and the Czech Republic are in turn the largest producers of beeswax, with the share of the whole region’s output being 84% in this case. Most of the rest of the wax from the CEECs is produced in Slovakia. However, growing use of plant protection agents in recent decades has had a negative impact on populations of honeybees. Indeed, intensive spraying at the time plants are in flower can have the effect of killing off entire swarms of bees.

Chapter 9

Means of Production in Agriculture Farm Machinery

From the time human civilisation first emerged, people made efforts to ensure their own work might be substituted for by that of animals, and later also by ever-more-­ sophisticated mechanical devices. The hoe gave way to the oxen-drawn ard or scratch plough, with this then being replaced by the multi-furrow plough moved by tractor. The sickle or scythe gave way to the reaper, and later to the combine harvester. Tractors both reduce working time and save farmers physical effort, while also allowing for faster and deeper ploughing of fields and curbing then need for draft animals to be kept. Other machine implements mechanised labour on the farm, which therefore become both lighter and more efficient. Steady improvements in machinery and other equipment have tended to displace animal muscle in farming, though there remain certain farms on which human and animal labour have continued to play the leading role. And sometimes there is just no way a machine can take the place of a human being or draft animal. Progress with the mechanisation of agriculture has been taking place before our very eyes. At the end of the twentieth century, the sight of a horse drawing a plough or cart was widespread in the CEECs and aroused no interest (other than in certain visiting foreigners). Today, however, the greater part of all farm work is being done by machines, with the result that both the efficiency of work and commercial viability of agriculture are raised. The fullest stage of mechanisation yet achieved is automation, whereby machines and agricultural equipment are even able to operate without steady human supervision. However, this requires considerable skill and specialist knowledge, which a farmer may gain on training courses, even as the process also of course requires appropriate financial outlays. The level of equipping of farms in tractors, machinery and farm implements depends on the level of socioeconomic development of a given country. The higher this, the greater the degree of mechanisation. The degree to which farms in the CEECs are equipped from the technical and technological points of view varies greatly, and reflects, not only the level of economic development achieved by the given country in the region, but also the transformation that has taken place, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_9

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including via a process of privatisation. For, in considering on-farm mechanisation, it can be considered that this is very low in the countries (e.g. Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary) that experienced a fragmentation of farmland, with a large number of small farms arising. The latter almost invariably lack machinery and equipment. So, for example, the 2010 Agricultural Census of Bulgaria revealed that around 370,000 farms had no machinery whatsoever; with only some 40,000 being equipped to some degree. A tractor was present on 34,322 of the farms. In contrast, in countries that retained an agrarian structure with no more-major changes (such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia), agricultural mechanisation is found to be on a relatively high level even comparable with that present in Western Europe (Figs. 9.1 and 9.2). From the point of view of farms being outfitted in tractors, the most favourable situation characterises Slovenia as well as the Czech Republic – even though these two countries differ markedly in terms of their agrarian structure. Slovenia is a predominantly mountainous country with a large share of small farms. In turn, in Czechia there is a prevalence of large or very large farms. Agrarian structure relates to numbers and sizes of tractors (as measured in terms of their horsepower). In the Czech Republic these will tend to be the tractors of considerable power to which large pieces of machinery can be attached, with a view to large areas of farmland being worked. In contrast, in Slovenia, the tractors tend to be small ones that allow work on variable terrain, including in areas with steep slopes, to be carried out. The small number of large farms in Czechia denotes a need for a relatively small number of powerful tractors, while the large number of small, individually-owned farms in Slovenia translates into a large demand for small tractors.

Fig. 9.1  The percentage shares of farms equipped with machinery, 2013 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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Fig. 9.2  Numbers of items of farm machinery per 100 ha of farmland, 2013 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

A good case in point for differences in numbers and power outputs of tractors in relation to farm size and location is provided by Poland, where more than half of all farms do indeed possess a tractor. However, the history of mechanisation is an interesting context present in Polish agriculture, but also exemplifying the situation elsewhere in the region. Farms covering only small areas, very much fragmented into plots often separated by some distance, combined with agrarian overpopulation and the presence of an excessive labour force to slow down the mechanisation of work in the countryside. Furthermore, small farms were simply unable to afford the purchase price of farm machinery, to say nothing of the excessive subsequent costs associated with maintenance and fuelling. Polish on-farm mechanisation was therefore mainly a matter for the large State Farms and Cooperatives in receipt of considerable funding from the communist state. Peasant farms thus continued to operate on the basis of the work doable by people and livestock. Thus, as of 1950, there were just 0.12 tractors per 100 ha of farmland in Poland. It was only in the 1970s that a wave of economic development came together with new investment in industry and increasing imports to raise the level of availability of farm machinery and mechanical implements. At this stage, farming at the level of the individually-owned farm proved rather rapidly capable of making up for lost time. Thus, by 1979, there were around 3 tractors per 100 ha of farmland in Poland, with the upward trend continuing  – to the point where today’s figure is at around 9. Poland’s EU accession exerted a further very favourable influence when it came to agricultural mechanisation. As early as in the preaccession period, farmers enjoyed the chance to use financial support specifically aimed at modernisation (under both PHARE and SAPARD). Post-accession the

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possibilities for investing in means of production opened up still further, though it is true to say that they were taken advantage first and foremost by the country’s larger and richer farms. Ostensibly the most-favourable situation when it comes to farms’ equipping in tractors characterises the country’s south – in which the greatest numbers of the machines are located, such that 1 tractor on average serves about 7 ha of farmland. It nevertheless needs to be appreciated that most of these are old tractors of limited power output. For many owners it was a matter of prestige to have a tractor, just as it was to possess a combine harvester. This explains a definitely excessive number of the latter machines when the situation is looked at from a per 100 ha of land point of view. While there are fewer tractors in the north of the country, these are machines of higher power that can work the generally-larger farms present there (Fig. 9.3). The least-favourable situations when it comes to farms being outfitted in machinery and mechanical implements are to be noted in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary – and this is as a direct result of the privatisation process. While the communist-era farms were in operation, the level of mechanisation was actually relatively high. However, the fall of the system and consequent emergence of huge numbers of small, poor, individually-owned and run farms resulted in far less adequate equipping of units with the means of production they needed. Tiny farms lack the funds to devote to mechanisation that their predecessors had possessed, with the result that it was not just the case that further development came to a halt. Rather, things tended to go backwards as much machinery and infrastructure from before simply fell into ruin or became fatally degraded (like for example certain systems of field irrigation).

Fig. 9.3  Numbers of tractors per 100 ha of all agricultural land in Poland, 2002 Source: author’s own elaboration referring to data from Statistics Poland. (In the Powszechny Spis Rolny Agricultural Census of 2002)

%

23

10 8 6 5 0 0

100

200 km

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Fertilisers and Plant Protection Agents Plant nutrition mainly involves mineral components taken up from the soil via root systems. A typical division of these is between macroelements (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and calcium) and microelements (iron, molybdenum, manganese, zinc, copper and chlorine). In contrast, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen – also essential ingredients in the lives of plants – are obtained both via the leaves and through the roots. A farmer may enhance the nutrient status of soil by manuring, or by applying fertilisers, with the aim being to raise crop yields. Nevertheless, the overuse of fertilisers is not precluded, and its effect is impairment of the crop obtained, in both qualitative and quantitative terms. Furthermore, the harmful effects do not remain confined to the soil to which the sources of nutrients (artificial or natural) are added, instead finding their way into the entire natural system  – in particular harming groundwater and surface waters in terms of their quality. The components supplied to soil should therefore be in the appropriate amounts that will secure plants’ optimal growth and development. A lack or excess of a certain soil nutritional component makes itself felt, not only in a yield of lesser size and quality, but also in terms of appearance (as a plant may be deformed, discoloured, wilted, desiccated, and so on). An iron deficit for example gives rise to thin and short stems, as well as yellow leaves. In contrast, a shortfall in the amount of nitrogen produces unfavourable change in the root system, while also limiting flower- and fruit-formation. At the other extreme, where nitrogen is present in excess, vegetation grows too luxuriantly and the appearance is also not as it should be. During farming’s early phase of development, people sought to enhance mineral levels in the soil by burning natural vegetation. There were also other well-favoured places, like the Nile Valley, where nature itself produced continued enhancements of soil quality via the delivery of silt in the context of normal flow or flooding along rivers. Winds were also capable of delivering (but also removing) nutritious dust. As time passed, farmers realised there were other ways of helping soil to produce better harvests, for example by incorporating material of plant, animal or mineral origin. By classical times, manuring and compost-making were understood and being pursued, while river or lake muds and sediments were also used, leaf litter from forests, ash, lime and gypsum. It was nevertheless only with the first delivery of artificial fertilisers that a first agricultural revolution was made possible – in the key sense of harvests being noticeably increased in size. It was in the seventeenth century that experiments began to try and determine the nature of plant nutrition. These came up with the finding that the atmosphere is the main source of the carbon present in plants, while it is soil that supplies water and the nutrients originally termed ash components. In 1840, German chemist Justus von Liebig published results of his work on the growth of plants, noting how their proper nutrition demanded a series of mineral components taken up by them from both the soil and the air.

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The new theory of plant mineral nutrition encouraged an acceleration and intensification of work to determine how the soil might then be enriched in these kinds of mineral components. In 1842, British chemist J.B. Lawes devised a method for the production of superphosphate (as the first artificial fertiliser – obtained by reacting sulphuric acid with bones), while the very next year the first plant manufacturing this fertiliser was founded, again in Britain. Germany followed on in 1860 with the production of potash fertilisers. Other popular fertilisers came on to the market at the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. And today it is impossible to imagine a high-­ powered and commercially-viable agricultural economy without the application of fertilisers. However, this at the same time poses a certain threat to human health and the natural environment. Today’s society is more and more aware of the unfavourable phenomena linking up with the use of artificial fertilisers and plant protection agents, so pressure is now mounting on farming for it to return to natural methods of supplying nutrients and producing healthy, organic food. This is all a reflection of the overuse of chemicals in agriculture in the most-developed countries, with these certainly increasing yields, but also standing accused of lowering the actual quality of the food produced. Artificial fertilisers may be synthetic substances produced by the fertiliser industry, or else industrial wastes or refined minerals. It is possible to draw a distinction between single-component fertilisers (e.g. mainly of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium or magnesium) and multi-component ones that offer mixtures of all the main nutrients. The fertilisers used most often are superphosphate, ammonium sulphate, magnesium sulphate, wapno magnezowe-tlenkowe (calcium carbonate, calcium oxide and magnesium oxide), various polifoska fertilisers (mostly of NPK), saletrzak (main ingredient ammonium nitrate), wapniak rolniczy (calcium carbonate + calcium oxide), granulated urea, ammonium nitrate and sylvinite. The use of mineral fertilisers is characterised by far-reaching spatial differentiation. However, in regions were levels of application are low there may be compensation in the form of greater use of manures of various kinds. The use of fertilisers per unit area is nevertheless one of the key measures used to ascertain the level of development of agriculture in a given area of country. This reflects the way in which the greater use of fertilisers is taken as attesting to intensive and “modern” agricultural management. The chemicals in most widespread use are nitrogenous fertilisers, whose highest levels of application per ha of arable land are to be noted in Slovenia and the Czech Republic. Analysis of changes in level of use over the last two decades point clearly to increases in the intensity of agricultural production in all of the CEECs. However, change has been progressing at differing intensities. An important factor determining the level of use of artificial fertilisers is price, and the influence that exerts on production costs in farming. According to Eurostat data, as of the years 2004–2010, average prices of farm produce on the world market were around 50% higher than in the 1986–2003 period. By comparison, in the same period, the prices of fertiliser rose 150% – mainly on account of the price increases noted for the raw materials used in the production and fertilisers, i.e. above all the crude oil and natural gas that

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Fig. 9.4  The use of nitrogen fertilisers in kg per ha of arable land in 2017 Source: author’s own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

Fig. 9.5  The use of nitrogen fertilisers expressed in kg per ha of arable land Source: author’s own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

are also used to fuel means of transport that help distribute these chemicals (Agriculture … 2017) (Figs. 9.4 and 9.5). Crops face various dangers that can reduce their yields. They are not only at the mercy of various atmospheric phenomena, but are also impacted upon by diseases, pests and the excessive development of the unwanted plants otherwise termed weeds. To at least in part fight against these phenomena, methods of cultivating farmland need to be correct, as do the means of management of surrounding land. Equally, it mostly emerges that the measures involved in this are inadequate, hence

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the need to apply agents safeguarding against various risks that the chemical industry has been able to develop and manufacture. These include pesticides (chemical agents helping to combat plant diseases), herbicides (basically speaking weedkillers) and insecticides (chemicals that help combat pest insects). The use of plant protection agents has its side effects, as traces of toxins dangerous to the health of people and livestock may linger in both crops and the soil. Furthermore, the effort to combat pest insects often harms desirable species also, not least natural predators of pests, and honeybees. Overall, it may be hard to say just how harmful to us the application of agricultural chemicals may be – even more so given the fact that impacts following application may be noted far away in terms of both space and time. This is all reflected in a growing movement in support of the reduced use of chemicals in agriculture, and a return to more natural methods of production in farming. The CEECs still engage in far more limited use of plant protection agents than their Western European counterparts and fellow Member States of the EU. Expressed per ha of arable land, it is Slovenia that makes by far the largest use of fungicides and bactericides, with a level exceeding 4 kg of pesticides overall. The next place in the ranking is taken by Hungary – but there the level is only a quarter as high as in Slovenia (whose high index reflects large areas of pesticide-treated permanent plantations that do not therefore qualify as arable land). Where herbicides are concerned, differences from one part of the analysed region to another are far more limited (Fig. 9.6). The use of plant protection agents varies from place to place, in line with farm sizes and types. For example, according to a study by Polski Klub Ekologiczny carried out in 2002, potato fields on 7500 farms received a mean level of application as high as 3.5  kg of active substance per ha of crop. Highest levels of use in turn

Fig. 9.6  The agricultural use of fungicides, bactericides and herbicides in the CEECs (in kg per ha of arable land) Source: author’s own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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characterised western regions of the country (where the figure could reach 6 kg per ha – as compared with 1.5 kg/ha in the east). These figures are several times above the national average, but can be regarded as reliable. Indeed, as a large group of farmers use no plant protection agents at all (for economic reasons and in line with their limited relevant knowledge), applications are very much limited to a small number of farms – where the levels of use reached can indeed then be high.

The Irrigation of Land The considerable latitudinal extent of the region under study finds its reflection in a diversified climate, and in the level of significance hydrological conditions have for the agricultural economy. A lack of regular precipitation and ever-more-frequent weather anomalies associated with prolonged periods without rain pose serious threats to agriculture. This is most true of the southern and central parts of the region. This is why the cultivated fields to be found there are in need of constant irrigation. It therefore comes as no surprise that the largest shares of land that is irrigated are present in Bulgaria and Hungary, while percentages not much lower also characterise Romania, Croatia and Slovakia. In contrast, low figures for the share of irrigated land are noted for Poland and Lithuania; while there is no such land at all in Estonia and Latvia (Fig. 9.7). Countries in the southern and central parts of the region under study have witnessed an increase in the share of land that is irrigated. However, it needs to emphasised that, in the case of Romania and Bulgaria at least, the irrigation system worked far better under communism than at present. The small farms coming into existence as a result of privatisation lacked the means to maintain a redeveloped irrigation system. Moreover, the lack of necessary skill among new owners of farms resulted in a steady decapitalisation of infrastructure, and ultimately to its devastation. It is Bulgaria that has the greatest problems with supplying water to its agriculture, as the amounts available to each citizen annually are only half as great as in Central Europe. Particularly tangible shortages arise in the north-east of the country, in which it is the cultivation of cereals that predominates. Existing systems and installations serving melioration are in general in a critically bad state, and in essence do not work. Water is becoming more and more expensive, to the point where farmers have no choice but to resign from irrigation services. Generally better-­off for water resources are the mountainous areas in the south of the country, whereas the plain and hilly areas in which crop-growing is concentrated suffer from constant shortages of water (Mondeshka et al. 2006). The irrigation system put in place in communist-era Bulgaria was adapted to serving the large Cooperatives, and is not suitable for the irrigation of the country’s currently-existing individually-owned farms. At the same time, all available scenarios for climate change point to more-protracted periods without rain, as well as prolonged periods of drought on the Bulgarian plains (especially at the peak of the

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Fig. 9.7  Percentage share of all farmland that is irrigated, by NUTS 2 region, 2016. Source: author’s own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

growing season). For this reason too it looks imperative that efficient irrigation systems should be redeveloped to ensure appropriate levels of soil humidity. At the same time, new developments in regard to irrigation are vanishingly limited at the present time, most probably in connection with the fragmentation of land ownership and the lack of appropriate amounts of capital in the farms of very limited commercial viability that have arisen as a result of that process. The systems of irrigation channels built in the 1980s are now largely in ruin and do not perform their appointed functions adequately. At the start of the second decade of this century, potential irrigation was only in place for around 9% of the country’s farmland (Moteva et al. 2014). It was first and foremost cereal crops and vegetables that were watered, as well as land on which permanent crops are present. Actual irrigation as of 2012 was present over just 1.5% of the overall are of arable land in Bulgaria (Velikov 2013).

Part II

Overall Change in the Agricultural Sector and Prospects for Its Development

Chapter 10

Changes in the Role of the Farming Sector in the Economies of the CEECs

The structure characterising agricultural output reflects the action of different factors that are large in number, if capable of being assigned to just two main groups: as shapers of production (and then assignable to either the natural or non-natural categories) or as influencers of the demand for what agriculture is able to produce and supply. This is a sector of the economy playing a major role regionally throughout the period under analysis in the region. However, the CEECs are obviously far from uniform from the point of view of the food sector. As its largest countries, Poland and Romania are especially important, with the added value generated being largest of all in the former. Poland is anyway the region’s major economy overall. As of 1989, its added value due to farming exceeded that in Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia put together. The rather high share to be noted in Romania is specific, given the degree to which agriculture remains a key economic sector for that country. Taken together, Poland and Romania took a 49% share of the region’s added value back in 1989 – and that figure has today exceeded 50% (Fig. 10.1). In fact, Poland’s role in agriculture’s generation of added value in the region declined between 1989 and the moment of EU accession, only to re-increase post-2004, before stabilising in recent times at a level around 30%. Romania’s situation was somewhat the reverse, with the country growing in regional significance in the first years of transition, only to decline steadily from this point of view from the mid-1990s onwards. Today, the relevant figure is only just over 20%. In general (at least pre-pandemic), the economies of the CEECs have been on a continued upward trend, which is reflected in their growing share of the EU’s overall GDP. That said, this remains at a very low level (notwithstanding the trend) – having reached just 8.7%. At the same time, the fact that agriculture continues to play a far more major role in this region than it does in Western Europe is what ensures a contribution to agricultural value EU-wide that is more than twice as great as the contribution to GDP overall. That said, it is worth noting that the decline in the region’s significance at the start of the period of transformation (as opposed to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_10

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Fig. 10.1  Shares taken by different CEECs in the overall generation of added value from agricultural sector Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

in the EU now) was more protracted in agriculture, lasting through to the end of the twentieth century. As of 1989, the added value due to farming in Central and Eastern Europe was at the level of 18% of overall added value for all the countries that are now Member States. By 2000, this was down to 11%. And, despite later growth, the 1989 level has not been re-achieved in relation to farming, even though for the economy as a whole that situation was regained at the beginning of the new century. Thus, while it has been possible to refer to increased agricultural significance of the CEECs within the EU in the twentieth century, the growth continues to be less dynamic than in other economic sectors. As recently as in 1989, the region had almost a 3.5-fold greater role in farming as opposed to GDP when the comparison made was with the countries in the then EU. By 2005, that ratio was of around 2.5, and most recently it was at a level around 2 (Fig. 10.2). In Europe we have long been dealing with a deagrarianisation of the economy. Thus, even by 1989, the added value summed for all the polities that are now the 28 EU Member States was at the level of just 3.4% of their overall GDP. Recently, it has been at 1.5%. The process has in fact been more abrupt for the CEECs, with the proportion as of 2018 being around a quarter of what had been noted in 1989. This is in connection with values equal to 11% in 1989, 6.5% in 1995, 4.4% in 2000 and 2.7% in 2018. As these statistics may imply, in none of the 11 CEECs has the value even with such dramatic change reached the EU average level. And that simply attests to an above-average role for the farming sector in the economies of the countries in question (Fig. 10.3). The lowest such values is noted for Slovenia, where farming generates just 2.1% of GDP.  At the other end of the spectrum are Bulgaria and Romania, where the respective figures are 3.4% and 4.3%. Interestingly, while Slovakia was the “least agricultural” country from this point of view as of 1989 (with a figure of 3.4%), its current situation is close to the average (at 2.4%). As may perhaps be anticipated,

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Fig. 10.2  The role of the CEECs in added values from farming and GDP overall in all of the countries now belonging to the EU Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 10.3  The added-value shares agriculture accounts for in the GDP of the different states Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

the change was greater where the value for the indicator had been high before, hence Estonia has experienced a 15% change, Latvia 19%, Lithuania 24%, Poland and Romania 13% each, and Hungary 12%. In both Estonia and Poland the share was below average for the region already, in the first half of the 1990s. Irrespective of this somewhat disparate role played by the primary sector in the economies of the region’s different states, there are also markedly differing levels when it comes to added value per inhabitant. A drastic decline in the significance of farming to the economies of the EU 17 in the 1990s combined with changes in the relationship between prices of produce and prices of the means of production to

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ensure a decline in added value due to agriculture expressed per person  – from around 480 USD in 1989 to around 410 USD as of 2000. In turn, the first decade of the new century brought a return to increase in the values for the indicator, which reached around 540 USD in 2010, only to stablilise at a level around 570 USD in recent times. Similar trends also appeared in farming among the CEECs, where the values for the index under analysis declined from around 340 USD in 1989 to just around 170 USD in 2000, only to rise again in the first decade of the twenty-first century to around 350 USD. Today’s value for this index among the CEECs is of around 430 USD.  Hence, in the first years of systemic transformation, the countries of the region departed markedly from the “Old EU” Member States, just as figures for the beginning of the present century support the idea that development of the farm sector here has been more dynamic than on average in the EU. As of 1989, the added value in agriculture expressed per inhabitant was 29% lower in the CEECs than in the countries of the EU 17, with the 1995 difference being of as much as 58%. Today, the CEECs are at a level which is lower by just 24%. Furthermore, through analysis of the per-inhabitant added value in agriculture in different CEECs, it is possible to note trends in the direction of less-marked disparities among them. An interesting example here is Slovakia, where the figure for this index (initially the lowest in the region) was subject to a threefold increase post-1989, with the result that the mean for the CEECs is now exceeded. The country in question began its transformation with only rather a limited role for agriculture in the overall structure of its economy. On the other hand, among the CEECs that were above the regional average as of 1989, only Hungary has managed a further increase in the value for that indicator greater than 20%. Remaining countries (i.e. Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Estonia and Czechia) simply came closer to the regional average level, to which they also of course contributed (Fig. 10.4 and Table 10.1).

Fig. 10.4  Added value in agriculture expressed per inhabitant Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT and EUROSTAT data

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Table 10.1  The CEECs as set against the EU 28, from the point of view of the production of selected agricultural raw materials in 1989 and 2018

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Chapter 11

The Level and Structure of Agricultural Production

The share the region comprising the CEECs took within the value of agricultural production1 in the EU as a whole increased from 15% in 2005 to 17% in 2019. However, the role in this played by the different constituent countries is seen to vary markedly, first and foremost in line with the degree to which the farming pursued in the given state is viable commercially. Production in the region’s two largest economies, i.e. Poland and Romania, accounted for as much as 60% of the overall value of farm production in the region, and in fact rose by around 3% points even after 2005. Furthermore, this was mainly the effect of dynamic increase noted in Poland, whose share in fact rose from 32% to 36% (at the same time, Romania’s share was actually in decline – falling to 24% from 26%). This was despite the fact that the absolute values for the index in question increased by 47% (Fig. 11.1). The only CEEC to experience (in comparison with 2005) both a fall in the value of production and a decline in the share of regional production accounted for (from 5.2% to 3.1%) was Croatia. This is probably the probably a reflection of the way in which  – for most of the period under analysis  – the country was not eligible to receive any larger amounts of support for the food sector under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. In the first decade of the new century (i.e. the period in which most of the CEECs joined the EU), the region-wide share of the overall value of agricultural production that was accounted for by livestock remained very similar, and sometimes even slightly exceeded the mean for the area of the EU-28 taken together. As of 2005, the share in question was 43%. Thereafter, the corresponding figure for the whole EU

1  The value of agricultural production referred to in this place and further on in this study concerns goods; and does not therefore take account of the services rendered in farming. Furthermore, the value in question relates to basic current prices and is expressed in millions of euros. It also needs to be stressed that the value quoted for production take no account of the costs of various kinds associated with that production. That denotes a need for this measure to be treated as distinct from others like income from farm production, or added value in agriculture.

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Fig. 11.1  The share taken by different CEECs in the overall value of agricultural production in the region. (Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data)

proved to be relatively stable, while that for the region under study declined to 38%. However, at a more-detailed level, that change proved to be somewhat differentiated spatially, denoting a divergence in the profile of agricultural production from one area to another. As of 2005, the structure as regards production achieved by different countries was more uniform than it is at present. In areas where livestock production is of major significance the share of production structure accounted for either remained at a rather similar level or in fact rose (as in Poland). On the other hand, in countries where the role played by livestock was low, the significance of crop-growing continued to rise. It is in the northern part of the region that the share accounted for by livestock production is higher, with Poland as the country leading from this point of view – reporting a figure in excess of 50%. In turn, it is in the south-east (in Bulgaria and Romania) that the highest rate of decline in the role of livestock farming has been noted; and this has led to a situation whereby the value of crop production is over three times greater than that associated with the raising of livestock (Fig. 11.2). Where the value of plant production in the EU 17 was concerned, the greatest shares were taken by vegetables and garden plants (28%), as followed by cereals (19%). On the other hand among the CEECs it was cereals that played the key role – as of 2005 accounting for 34% of the overall value of production achieved from farmers’ cultivation of plants. By 2019, that share had even reached 38%. In turn, vegetables and garden plants achieved a region-wide share of plant production equal to 19%. This difference points to the greater intensification of growing that has been achieved in the countries of Western Europe. A further example might relate to the production of wine (as a product deriving from plant production). While in the EU-17, wine takes a 12% share of the overall value of plant production, in the CEECs the relevant figure is a mere 1.8%. Only relatively minor changes are seen to have taken place over the last decade, when it comes to the EU-wide breakdown of data for the value of plant production. The shares accounted for by cereals, potatoes, industrial crops, vegetables and

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Fig. 11.2  2005 and 2019 shares of the overall value of agricultural production accounted for by animal production. (Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data)

garden production all rose, as did that noted for wine; while there were declines in the shares attributable to fruit, olives and fodder crops. The structure characterising plant production thus underwent a diversification. For their part, the CEECs have been witnessing a further-reaching remodelling of structure as regards the value of plant production. The shares taken by industrial crops and cereals have risen, while there was a simultaneous decline in the shares attributable to fruit and potatoes. Cereals have remained the decided dominants when it comes to the value attributable to crop production, while the region’s most tangible decline has characterised the share of value taken by fodder crops (Fig. 11.3). The value structure characterising produce of plant origin in the region proves to be diverse in its spatial dimension, with this reflecting the range of different natural conditions that can shape crop-growing trends, and the yields that prove to be achievable. Cereals represent the key category within the analysed structure in most of the countries. As has been noted already, this is a feature capable of distinguishing agriculture within this sub-part of the wider EU. Only in Slovenia, Croatia and Poland does the breakdown of date for the value of production attributable to plants look more diverse, with the contribution made by cereals at a level below one-third. In the hierarchy to be noted for Slovenia, cereals come below fodder crops, the production of wine, and vegetables + garden produce (Fig. 11.4). In comparison with 2005, the share taken by cereals rose most in the Baltic countries, as well as Romania and Bulgaria. It may therefore be concluded that the areas referred to have experienced an extensification of crop production. In turn, in Slovenia, Poland and Hungary it is the reverse process that has taken place, with declining significance of cereals noted in comparison with the overall value of plant production (Fig. 11.5).

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wine

olive oil

other crops potatoes

fruits

potatoes

wine

other crops

CEECs 2019 olive oil fruits

cereals

cereals vegetables and horticultural

vegetables and horticultural

industrial

forage

forage

EU 17 2005 olive oil wine

EU 17 2019

other crops

olive oil

other crops wine

cereals fruits

industrial

fruits

industrial

cereals industrial forage

forage potatoes

vegetables and horticultural

potatoes

vegetables and horticultural

Fig. 11.3  Breakdowns of data for the value of plant production in the CEECs and Member States of “the Old EU”, 2005–2019. (Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data)

Fig. 11.4  Breakdowns of data for the value of plant production in the CEECs as of 2005. (Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data)

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Fig. 11.5  Breakdowns of data for the value of plant production in the CEECs as of 2019. (Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data)

Where industrial crops are concerned, the share of the value of plant production accounted for in the CEECs is above the average for the EU, and also much above the 2005 level. This probably reflects increase profitability associated with the production of this category of crop that receives intensive CAP support. An example is the increased production of rape and field mustard associated with the promotion and popularisation of biodiesel, and the policy entailing the development of renewable energy sources. In most of the countries in our region, industrial crops take second place in the breakdown by type, after cereals. However, exceptions here would be Slovenia, Croatia, Poland and Romania. In Slovenia, industrial crops outrank not only cereals, when it comes to the value of what is produced, but also vegetables and garden plants, as well as fodder crops, wine and fruit. In Croatia, in turn, it is cereals and vegetables that prove to be of greater significance; in Poland – cereals, vegetables and garden plants and fruit; and in Romania – alongside these categories referred to – also fodder crops. In the period since 2005, the increase in the share of value attributable to industrial crops has been accompanied by a deconcentration of this kind of cultivation. The significance attached to the production of such plants is seen to have risen markedly in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, as well as in the Baltic countries – most especially Lithuania and Estonia. In comparison with the EU average, the regional figure here for vegetables and garden plants as a share of plant production is not a high one. The lowest values of all to be noted for this index characterised Lithuania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. In Bulgaria, this was very much influenced by the decline in value noted for this kind

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of production in the last few years. After 2005, the value of the vegetables and garden plans produced in the country declined by 57%, even as the simultaneous increase on the scale of the region as a whole was of 78%. In Bulgaria it was merely a matter of a decade following the EU accession for a country in which production of vegetables and garden plants was higher than anywhere else in the region to become a state with one of the lowest values for this index. This attests to a serious crisis afflicting Bulgarian agriculture that has seen crop production subjected to far-­ reaching extensification. A relatively limited share attributable to vegetables and garden plants is also a feature of the agriculture practised in Czechia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, in which less than 1/10 of the overall value of plant production is accounted for in each case. The last 10–20 years have brought a decline in the share of overall regional plant production taken by fodder crops. This has ensured that these now have a significance below-average for the EU as a whole. Declines in shares have been noted for Romania, Slovenia, Poland and all three of the Baltic countries. In turn, a major increase in the importance of fodder crops within the overall structure has characterised Croatia and Slovakia (where – as of 2005 – the share in question was among the region’s lowest), as well as the Czech Republic. The changes referred to brought about a deconcentration in the value of production associated with fodder crops – this now being spread more evenly across the region. Relatively the smallest shares taken by fodder crops are noted for Bulgaria, as well as Poland and Hungary. The share of the region’s overall value for plant production taken by fruit is not just lower than the EU average. For, in the period since 2005, there has actually been a decline that stands in contrast with the increase noted for EU Member States overall. The largest declines have taken place throughout the south of the region (i.e. in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Slovenia), as well as in Latvia. Until recently, the potato was a very key crop in both the northern and central parts of the region. As of 2005, the relevant share within the overall value of plant production was almost twice as high in the CEECs as was average across the area of the EU-17. Today, the region’s figure is actually very close to the mean for the Union as a whole. Now the potato is only seen to be of above-average significance in Latvia, Poland and Romania. In comparison with 2005, the most-marked loss of value from potatoes characterised the Baltic countries, especially Estonia and Lithuania. Unsurprisingly, the most-concentrated kind of production proves to be that involving wine and olives – as a clear reflection of requirements when it comes to natural conditions. The value of the wine produced in the CEECs remains at under one-sixth of the proportional value within overall plant production that characterises the EU-17. Wine production is mainly a matter for the south of the region, while olive-growing is even more concentrated spatially, not in fact playing any more-­ significant role in the region’s crop structure where the value of production is concerned. The main grower of olives in this part of Europe is Croatia, as well as Slovenia to a much lesser degree. In comparison with that in the EU-17, agriculture in the CEECs displays a higher degree of specialisation when it comes to the value of production of livestock. This

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is first and foremost a consequence of specifics of the data breakdown for meat produced and consumed. Pork proves to be decided dominant, while the share taken by meat from poultry almost equals that of beef. In connection with this, in 2005 the largest shares within the breakdown of data for the value of production due to livestock were taken by milk, and by pig products, with the two together accounting for 61% of the total (as compared with 54% in the EU-17). Milk accounted for a rather smaller share in our region than among the EU-17, even as the share attributable to pigs was larger. By 2019, animal production in the region had diversified further, with the overall share of value due to the two above elements down to 53% (and hence lower than in the EU-17, where the figure had increased to 58%). This change of situation reflected in a decline in the share taken by pig products in the CEECs – from 28% to 21%. In contrast, the value arising out of milk produced maintained its position, accounting for around 32% of the value farmed animals were able to generate. The CEECs are also typified by their above-average significance of poultry within the framework of animal production, hence a share larger than in the EU-17 for the value of derived products (eggs and meat). What is more, unlike in the EU-17, the poultry products other than eggs achieve greater value than the non-­ dairy products deriving from cattle. On the other hand, the value of eggs produced in the region achieves a share twice the size of that noted in the EU-17. Equally, a feature common to both parts of the Union is the way in which poultry products within the structure by value for animal products overall are of growing importance. During the study period, the values of poultry production noted for the CEECs (even excluding eggs) became one of the three most important elements characterising the breakdown of data for animal production by category. This mainly happened at the expense of pig products, which are seen to have been eclipsed when the value of eggs is taken into consideration. In the case of countries of the “Old EU”, poultry production mainly grew in significance at the expense of the share taken by non-­ dairy cattle products – the latter now being of less value in that group of countries than the value of production attributable to pigs (Fig. 11.6). Notwithstanding the above changes, the CEECs continue to stand out most from the EU-17 in relation to the share that is due to non-dairy cattle products. It is furthermore worth noting how the two areas compared have both experienced a major decline in the share in the overall value of animal production that is taken by products deriving from sheep and goats. In general, however, it is possible to suggest that the breakdowns of data for the value of animal production are relatively similar in the EU-17 and the CEECs. In Estonia, Latvia and the Czech Republic, it is the value of milk produced that accounts for the largest share of the value of overall production attributable to livestock. In comparison with the 2005 situation, each of these countries saw an increase in the share of overall production attributable to milk. In turn, in Hungary and Croatia the corresponding share was lower by 2019 than in 2005, meaning that this is no longer the leading component, as it comes below pig products in the hierarchy, as well as (depending on the country involved) poultry-derived products or nondairy products from cattle. Shares taken by milk that are close to the regional

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wool and silkworm

wool and silkworm eggs

CEECs 2019

cattle

eggs

cattle

pigs pigs

milk

milk

sheep and goats

other animals

sheep and goats

other animals

EU 17 2005 wool and

EU 17 2019 wool and

eggs

eggs

silkworm

silkworm

cattle

cattle milk

milk

pigs

pigs

other animals

equines

poultry

equines

poultry

poultry

equines sheep and goats

poultry other animals

equines sheep and goats

Fig. 11.6  Breakdowns of data for the value of animal production characterising the CEECs and “the Old EU” in 2005 and 2019. (Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data)

average in turn characterise Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Bulgaria (Figs.  11.7 and 11.8). Post-2005, the production value generated by pigs and their products tended to remain stable in the region – hence the decline in the share accounted for overall. Only in Croatia and Bulgaria was there an actual increase (albeit small) in the share accounted for by pigs. On the other hand, major declines in this sphere could be noted for Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Lithuania. Today, pigs take top position (account for the largest share of livestock production by value) in Croatia. Their products are also of major significance in the breakdowns of data noted for other countries in the region’s southern and central parts (i.e. Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria). Post-2005, it was only in Croatia and Czechia among the CEECs that it proved possible to note a small decline in the share of production value attributable to poultry (excluding eggs). In turn, the largest increases for this category characterised the northern part of the region, especially Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as

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Fig. 11.7  National-level breakdowns of data for the value of animal production as of 2005. (Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data)

Fig. 11.8  National-level breakdowns of data for the value of animal production as of 2019. (Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data)

Slovenia. In Hungary, these products contribute greater value than any other form of livestock-related production. On the other hand, a position second only to milk characterised this item in the cases of Poland, Bulgaria and Lithuania.

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In different countries of the region, the share of value taken by non-dairy cattle-­ derived products looks quite varied. The significance seems to be greatest in the countries emerging from the old Yugoslavia. Second place after milk itself characterises Slovenia, while in Croatia only production from pigs is on a higher level proportionally. There, more than ¼ of the overall value of livestock production is generated in this way. In turn, Romania offers an example of a country in which the share taken is just one-fifth as high. It was therefore there that the post-2005 decline in the significance of non-dairy cattle products proved to be largest. Most CEECs differ from their EU-17 counterparts in having a far-higher share of the value of animal production taken by eggs. Exceptions here are Estonia, Lithuania and Czechia. In turn, eggs are of the greatest significance in Romania, Slovakia and Poland. Value attributable to other animal-derived products (notably those from sheep and goats) proves to most concentrated in spatial terms. Most sheep and goats are in the region’s south, so it is also there that (non-wool) products derived from them emerge as of greatest significance. Particular cases in point are Bulgaria and Croatia, though it was in fact these countries that experienced the largest post-2005 declines in the shares of value accounted for. Where wool itself is concerned, the largest shares noted were those characterising Romania and Lithuania  – both of which increased production from 2005 onwards.

Chapter 12

Farming Efficiency

There are various ways to measure the efficiency of agricultural production. Land-­ related efficiency for examples sets the level or monetary value of production achieved against the area to give a per-unit-area figure. In turn, efficiency of labour compares the level or monetary value of production with the input of human labour, as for example expressed simply in line with numbers employed or hours worked. Efficiency of the investment of capital can be assessed by reference to the rate of return on capital located in a venture and/or in fixed assets or the development of human capital, while environmental efficiency can be looked at in “footprint” terms, in line with the level or value of production that proves possible as set against the burden imposed on the immediate (or more-distant) surroundings, in terms of pollution emitted, degree of biodegradability of inputs and products, noise produced and so on). Thus, depending on the issues at which the measure of efficiency is targeted, as well as the measures adopted to measure production itself, consideration of efficiency is able to express information of a defined kind, with different objectives served. And each of the types of efficiency mentioned above may – if to a greater or lesser degree – determine the rationale for engaging in a defined type of agricultural-­ production activity. Faced with this kind of complexity inherent in the notion of efficiency, this study has elected to focus on particular, specific aspects of farm production. The efficiency of plant production has been defined by measuring the level achieved annually per unit area of cropland. These are therefore basic yields per hectare. The efficiency of animal production has in turn been expressed by reference to the level of production of the defined product as expressed per unit of the livestock species supplying the given produce or product. These measures allow conclusions to be drawn regarding the level of development of agriculture in the given area. Moreover, they are applied widely, and thus ensure comparability of results with those contained in other studies. The use of level of production as a measure of results is deliberate. While figures obtained in this way do not differentiate in relation to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_12

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quality of produce or product, they are independent of price differences for different products in different parts of the world or region, as well as of fluctuations in these prices over time.

Farming Crop Efficiency In each of the CEECs, most of the crops grown are seen to be being produced much more efficiently than in the past. It is typical for the increase to be more marked in this region than in the remaining part of Europe, but that reflects the much lower level of efficiency present at the start of the period of transformation – as compared with the situation in the “old” Member States of the EU. Thus, for example, yields per ha of land planted with wheat increased steadily post-1989, both in the area of today’s EU and in Central and Eastern Europe. Equally, that increase can be seen to have perpetuated a trend established even before that time. Poland may offer an instructive example of this as, prior to World War II it was possible to harvest between 9 and 17 q per ha of land planted with wheat – as compared with 38.5 by 1989. Post-1989, the lowest mean yields of wheat achieved in the region were of 28.8 q per ha (in 2003). This figure can be set against peak values (for 2017) as high as 50.5 q per ha (Fig. 12.1). Alongside this kind of information, it is further possible to note how – after the first few years of systemic transformation – disparities in wheat yields separating the CEECs and the EU-17 began to decline. The largest gap was of 49% in 1996, while the 2016 figure for the region departed from that in the EU-17 by as little as 17%. The regular increase in yields of wheat in the CEECs from 1989 onwards was basically true of most of the region’s constituent states. However, this was mainly a successful making up for losses borne in the period of transformation of the economy of the 1990s. In each of the 11 states studied, mean yields of wheat in the period 1994–1998 were lower than those noted for 1989–1993. This kind of period of reduced yields lasted longest in the region’s central area – in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Romania a re-increase in yields was only noted from the beginning of the new century. At present, the lowest yields of wheat characterise the northern part of the region (in which poor post-glacial soils predominate), as well as Romania, where agriculture has experienced a crisis reflecting agrarian fragmentation and partial degradation of technical infrastructure. Like wheat, barley manifests considerable variability in yields. In the analysed (post-1989) period, the highest yield noted for this species in the CEECs taken together was of 43.6 q/ha (recorded in 2017). The lowest figure was in turn of just 25.6 q/ha (in 2000). This still denotes that our region’s agriculture is unable to match the average reported for the EU-17. Thus, for example, over the 2014–2018 period yields here were 20% lower. However, accession of a majority of the region’s countries to the EU (in 2004) was associated with a high rate of increase in barley yields, with the result that disparities vis-à-vis the Community average started to decline

Farming Crop Efficiency

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Fig. 12.1  Yields of wheat Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

steadily. Prior to that time, yields of barley in most of the countries had been on the decline. Only in the Baltic countries did yields increase continually from the start of the selected study period, and this is anyway associated with the fact that levels were so low at the outset. Among the other states in the region, Bulgaria experienced the most transient decline in yields. In contrast, the decline noted in Poland proved to be more persistent, though far less severe, and a similar situation also applied in Slovenia (Fig. 12.2). Today, barley resembles wheat in that the lowest yields are achieved in the northern part of the region, and in Romania. Highest values in turn characterise the central area, most especially the Czech Republic and Hungary. It may be concluded that the state agricultural sector prevailing in the communist era was characterised by good results when it came to the production of cereals, and this was still able to transfer through into the first years of the systemic transformation following on from communism’s fall. This then gave way to several, or even 10–20, years of crisis, during which yields fell or were maintained at a low level. This was then the effect of privatisation, the fragmentation of land ownership, a lack of money for investment, and decapitalisation of technical infrastructure and the means of production. Following the years of crisis, the private sector “grew fit” once more – to a tangible degree in the last decade at least. This was naturally helped along by financial means made available under support programmes for agriculture of both domestic and EU origin. Yields of other popular cereal crops showed rather similar trends. This is to say that those noted are somewhat lower than on average among the EU-17, albeit with steady increase characterising the twenty-first century, following on from the decline in the 1990s. The increase proved to be largest in relative terms in the last decade, with the effect that disparities in levels of cereal production in the studied

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Fig. 12.2  Yields of barley Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 12.3  Yields of triticale Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

region on the one hand and in Western Europe on the other grew progressively smaller. In the CEECs overall, the lowest post-1989 yields were noted in 1992 in the case of triticale, and in 2000 where rye and oats were concerned. The highest yields of these cereals have In turn been noted in recent years. In the case of triticale and rye this was 2014, and for oats – 2017 (Figs. 12.3, 12.4 and 12.5). A rather different distribution is to be noted for better and worse yields among the cereals less demanding than wheat and barley in terms of soil and climate. Rather poor effects of growing triticale have been observable in Bulgaria, Lithuania,

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Fig. 12.4  Yields of rye Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 12.5  Yields of oats Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Latvia, Slovakia and Poland. In slight contrast, in the case of rye the low yields are to be noted in Lithuania, Romania and Poland. In turn, high efficiency in the cultivation of oats is a feature of Czechia, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland and Hungary. Summarising for the group of cereals as a whole (albeit with a special focus on those that are not especially demanding agroenvironentally), it can be suggested that efficiency of production is greater in our region’s central part, with yields lower both to the south and the north of there.

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The area of land planted with potatoes has been in decline, even as the role of the species as food for human consumption and animal fodder remains a key one. Post-1989, potato yields increased throughout the CEECs, even as clear (unfavourable) disparities were seen to remain when the comparison was with the achievements in the western part of Europe. The lowest yield of all was the 130 q per ha attained in 1994, while the record high value was the 238 q per ha achieved in 2017. This example shows how marked the disproportions may be where yields of this particular crop are concerned. This is in turn a reflection of weather conditions at the main time of growth of potatoes; though it also very much reflects the “farming culture” on display in the region. When trends for potato-growing are set against those noted for cereals, it can be seen that most countries only experienced more-limited change in the early years of the study period. The decline is only really tangible in the cases of Estonia, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Bulgaria. In the last several years, the highest yields of potatoes were obtained in the region’s central part, in particular in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland and Hungary. The least-favourable results were in turn those achieved by Lithuania and Bulgaria (Fig. 12.6). Both the area of the EU (within its current boundaries) and the region of Central and Eastern Europe witnessed a steady post-1989 increase in yields achieved with sugar beet. The lowest mean figure to be noted for the CEECs appeared in 1992, with a figure of just 262 q per ha. In turn, a record result came along in 2014, when 661 q per ha was achieved. The CEECs in fact reported a more rapid increase in yields of sugar beet than did remaining countries in the (current) EU, with the result that the gap between the region and countries of Western Europe was reduced steadily. As the transformation in the CEECs got underway, yields of sugar beet were below the average for the EU-17, with the disparity being of as much as 42%. On

Fig. 12.6  Yields of potatoes Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

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the other hand, by the 2014–2018 period, the mean figure was only lower by 23%. In absolute terms, average yields in consecutive years have exceeded 130 q per ha, with certain states even achieving 225 q per ha. This shows how “sensitive” to changes in the weather this crop may prove to be, with key aspects being the nature and distribution of precipitation, as well as sunshine totals. In addition, yields of course depend greatly on how good the sown material is, and when it goes into the ground (Jaskulska et al. 2017). As with potatoes, so also in the case of yields of sugar beet, most CEECs did not note any more-protracted worsening of results in the first years of the study period. The longest such periods of declining yields  – lasting through to the end of the twentieth century – were those observable in Croatia and Romania. A shorter period of falling yields in turn characterised Bulgaria. The growing of sugar beet is closely linked to the distribution and financial condition of the sugar industry, as well as the possibilities for cheaper sugar to be imported. In some of the region’s states, sugar factories were simply closed down, with the effect that sugar-beet cultivation was abandoned altogether in certain areas. This was, for example, true of Estonia in 1998, while in the cases of Bulgaria, Slovenia and Latvia, the same phenomenon more or less coincided with the period following EU accession (2007 in Slovenia, a year later in the other two countries). Interestingly in that context, as of 1994–1998 Slovenia was achieving the region’s highest yields of sugar beet; while a decade later (in the 2004–2008 period), it was only in 5th place among the CEECs. In turn, where Croatia was concerned, the opportunity to increase exports of sugar to other EU states in the late 2000s and early 2010s ensured an increase in the area planted with sugar beet. In the 2012–2013 period alone, the production of the crop rose by nearly 10% there, with sugar then achieving a status as one of the country’s key agricultural products for export. In recent years, the region’s highest yields to be noted for sugar beet have characterised Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland and Slovakia (Fig. 12.7). In 1989, yields of rape achieved in the CEECs were only 6% lower than across the area of the EU-17 countries. However, following a long period of decline, 2003 brought the lowest figure to be noted at any time in the post-1989 era. At this point, yields of rape were 44% lower than their counterparts achieved in the countries of the EU-17. However, from the time of EU accession onwards, most of the CEECs began to make good their losses, achieving steady increases in their yields of rape. Nevertheless, only in the present decade has it been possible to speak of a clear reduction in the disparities between rape yields to be noted in east and west. Thus far, the peak effects were reported in 2014 (Fig. 12.8). Achievements in vegetable-growing in the CEECs prove markedly different from one country to another, as well as in line with the species. Results are very much conditioned by the level of specialisation and intensification of production. In extremis, cabbage yields in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Estonia are all higher than the average for countries of the EU-17, even though the lowest yields characterising the growing of this crop in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia and Lithuania look far less favourable. In general, yields of cabbage have been on a slow rise in both the EU as a whole and our region. Thus the lowest figure noted was the

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Fig. 12.7  Yields of sugar beet Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 12.8  Yields of rape Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

222 q per 1 for 1992, while the record high was of 309 in 2014. Nevertheless, the trends for yields have differed greatly from one country to another. In Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria, the efficiency present at the start of the period (in the early 1990s) has not been built on further. In contrast, the two countries achieving the lowest yields of cabbage at the outset (Croatia and Estonia) have been recording levels more than 2½ times as high as that in recent years (Fig. 12.9). After a period of decline noted during the first several years of the study period, yields of onions in the CEECs began to follow an upward trend. The lowest level (of

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Fig. 12.9  Yields of cabbage Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

122 q per ha) was therefore noted in 1992, while the highest was the 192 q per ha characterising 2014. However, this overall increase in yields regionally conceals a variety of different trends. For example, by the end of the study period, Estonia had still not managed to rebuild yields to those seen at the beginning of the period. The value of 97 q per ha the country achieved in 1993 was only exceeded once – in 2008. In contrast, Croatia managed a more-than-fourfold increase in yields of onions over the study period. That said, a key feature with the crop of onions is that – unlike in the case of cabbages – our region continues to be seen in a very unfavourable light compared with the EU-17. Yields during the study period were at only just over half the level noted in Western Europe, with improvements only proceeding rather slowly. Low values have in particular been noted in the Baltic countries, as well as the south-eastern part of the region (Fig. 12.10). An interesting example is offered by the results obtained for the cultivation of tomatoes. Here too, it is possible to note improved yields in the region under study. However, the increases are actually slower than those taking place at the same time in the EU-17, notwithstanding a twofold difference between these areas. Disparities of this kind in fact worsened markedly at the beginning of the study period, as yields of tomatoes simply declined across the CEECs. The low point came in 1997, when our region reported 118 per ha for this crop. After that, most of the change noted was in a favourable direction, to the point where 2018 brought a record figure for tomatoes in the region – of 341 q per ha. Nevertheless, the amount of catch-up with Western Europe that is required remains very large. While changes and trends for tomato yields are very much differentiated from one area to another, it is still possible to distinguish two main groups of countries.

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Fig. 12.10  Yields of onions Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 12.11  Yields of tomatoes Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

The first group, which achieved a very considerable increase in yields, comprises Croatia, Poland and Hungary. There – in the course of less than 3 decades – the improvement was a several-fold one, to the point where Hungary has recently been achieving yields above the average for the EU-17 countries. The second group is formed by the remaining countries, in which yields again in general increased, albeit in an unstable way, and to only a limited extent. Today, low yields for the crop of tomatoes are first and foremost a feature of the Baltic countries, as well as Romania and Czechia (Fig. 12.11).

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Fig. 12.12  Yields of carrots Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 12.13  Yields of cucumbers Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Other examples only serve to confirm the very specific and individualised causes of spatial differentiation in vegetable yields. These require detailed analyses and an effective recognising of the production conditions holding sway in particular countries – a matter that extends beyond the remit of this study. In this case, however, it is possible to seek some kind of general principles. And the more-limited intensification of plant production in the CEECs can be taken as ensuring that, while there are distinctly positive trends to be noted when it comes to the yields of particular vegetables, the gap separating the region from the other part of the EU remains a very large one (Figs. 12.12 and 12.13).

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It is yields of fruit that emerge as most dependent on climate conditions. These crops are therefore most favoured in the south of the region, where the growing season lasts longest and there is a great deal of sunshine. It therefore comes as no surprise that the highest yields noted for most species of fruit relate to Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Yields of applies, which can be cultivated throughout the CEECs, are still very much dependent on weather conditions. A particularly crucial period is that during which apple trees are in blossom and thus setting their fruit. The frosts that are quite possible here at the end of April and beginning of May can do much to negate all the hard work and effort that orchard-keepers put in. While Poland is the leader in the production of apples anywhere in Europe, spring frosts there are major factors determining levels achieved in any given year. In 1987, Poland’s largest region of orchards (located somewhat to the south of Warsaw) was hit by sharp frosts that froze some 70% of all the fruit trees. For at least a period, fruit-producers were hit by a major economic shock in this way. In truth, some positive sides to the event may be noted from a longer-term point of view, as many old orchards were grubbed up at that point, with their places taken by more-productive varieties of apple. Notwithstanding the major year-on-year fluctuations in yields noted for the CEECs (of 19% on average across the 1989–2018 period), and still bearing in mind the falls noted in the first part of the study period, it can be concluded overall that yields obtained in the CEECs are on the rise, to the extent that there is a steady reduction in the distance separating them from the “Old EU” (or EU-17). The lowest figure for yield was noted in the region under study in 1995 (77 q per ha). In contrast, 2018 brought a record high values of 204 q per ha (Fig. 12.14). Overall, the region’s yields of apples can now be said to be at about half the average levels noted for the EU-17. However, the trends for change differ markedly

Fig. 12.14  Yields of apples Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

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among the CEECs. While Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria have failed to re-achieve the level reached at the beginning of the study period (with Estonia’s peak of 52 q per ha recorded as long ago as in 1993 and Bulgaria’s peak figure of 206 even dating back to 1989), Poland, Croatia and Hungary have managed a steady increase over the whole period following their initial decline in yields. Decidedly the largest harvests of apples per ha were those achieved in Slovenia – the only country in the region in which yields exceed the EU-17 average. A still-­ greater advantage of Slovenian orchard production applies in the case of yields of sweet cherries, which are almost five times as high as those in the EU-17 region as averaged. Furthermore, high yields of applies can be seen as a feature in the whole central part of our region – comprising in particular Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. On the other hand, the smallest harvests of apples per ha planted with the species were to be noted in the three Baltic countries – and were thus the direct result of climatic conditions less favourable for the cultivation of the species. In regard to the production efficiency achievable with different stone fruits, the situation in the CEECs proves to be disparate, and very much dependent on the species grown. As an example, one might compare the efficiency noted in growing plums and sweet cherries. In the former case, it is only possible to speak of a slow bridging of the gap separating the CEECs from Western Europe when the post-­ accession period was reached. As of 2014–2018, the difference in average yields of plums was still relatively large  – at 45%. In turn, rather different circumstances characterised the yields of sweet cherries the CEECs were able to manage. In this case, it was possible to note an increase as soon as in the early 1990s. However, both the turn of the century and the turn of the decade brought a distinct stagnation, and even a small decline, in the efficiency of cherry-growing. Equally, as yields of sweet cherries fell markedly among the EU-17, twenty-first-century results achieved in the CEECs looked better, with the differences in recent years continuing to increase. Where the two species of fruit are concerned, the best production results of all have been obtained in Slovenia and Romania, as compared with the worst in the northernmost states comprising the Baltic countries. The evaluation of the CEECs’ production efficiency regarding soft fruit is again a diverse one, with type of cultivation being a key factor – as the examples of strawberries and raspberries can make clear. In the former case, the 1990s brought a marked decline in yields; and, while the region rather quickly began to witness a steady re-increase for strawberries (continuing through to the present day), there is still in fact no full return to the level achieved at the very beginning of the analysed period – with record 1989 yields of strawberries never regained. In the early 1990s, those yields in the region were not even at 30% of the average noted for this kind of fruit in the case of the EU-17. And in later years, those differences only increased further. Recently, mean yields noted for strawberries in the CEECs have been at less than 20% of analogous values for Western Europe. On the other hand, as time passes, there is ever-greater recognition of the taste and healthfulness value ascribable to the strawberries the CEECs produce, often using traditional methods that entail smaller financial outlays, but greater inputs of labour. Such valuable features

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are not encapsulated by the quantitative methods used (here and elsewhere) to measure efficiency of production. In turn, the lowest yields of strawberries characterise the northern part of the region – i.e. the Baltic countries and Poland. Unlike strawberries, raspberries were the subject of markedly increased yields from the early 1990s onwards, with the twenty-first century therefore bringing a stabilisation at a constant high level. However, while the first years of EU membership for the CEECs brought the aforementioned increased yields of raspberries, the trend to be noted in recent years is once again downward. The highest yields in the region are at present those achieved in Bulgaria and Poland. Meanwhile, across the EU-17, the time since the mid-1990s has seen a constant, dynamic increase in the efficiency with which raspberries are produced. In connection with this, differences in mean yields for the species achieved in respect of the “Old EU” have increased from 27% for 1994–1998 to as much as 69% for the 2014–2018 period. The differences noted previously were as they were, but maintenance of the current trend for raspberries will mean that differences in yields obtained in the parts of the EU compared here will come to resemble those applying to strawberries. This is leading – straightforwardly enough – to a situation in which the Community area is divided more and more distinctly from the point of view of the type, objective and specialisation of soft-fruit growing. Thus Western Europe is ever-more specialised in the intensive production of soft fruit, targeted at quantitative efficiency; while the CEECs specialise more and more clearly in production engaged in on the basis of more-traditional methods, in which the targeting is at the efficient obtainment of valuable features of quality (Table 12.1).

Livestock Efficiency Animal production has been withdrawn-from steadily in smaller, less commercially-­ oriented economies that have lost out in competition with entities specialising in the raising of livestock. In this connection, both the region as a whole and its separate countries have experienced declines in the populations of some livestock species, with the result that levels of production have stagnated or even gone down. Such a trend has concerned defined directions of faring activity and given rise to a change in structure. For example, over the analysed 1989–2018 period as a whole, there were declines in levels of production of both milk and pork, even as production of these increased on the scale of the entire European Union. Still-larger declines in production characterised beef and lamb/mutton. In turn, in the case of poultry, the region’s dynamic in the direction of increased production was at above the average level. Nevertheless, structural changes in agriculture exerted their significant influence, not only on the amounts of different products of animal origin generated by the CEECs, but also on the spatial distribution and efficiency of this production. Withdrawal from the raising of livestock in areas with less-favourable natural

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Table 12.1  The position of the CEECs and EU in terms of the efficiency of production of selected crops through the study period

Produce Wheat Barley Triticale Rye Oats Peas Beans Green peas Potatoes Cabbage Onions Tomatoes Carrots and turnips Cucumbers and gherkins Cauliflowers and broccoli Apples Plums and sloes Strawberries Raspberries Cherries Sugar beet Rape

Efficiency of production compared with the EU-17 2014– 1989–1993 2018 −28.3% −24.5% −25.3% −19.9% −21.3% −24.2% −31.6% −36.8% −31.8% −20.6% −55.2% −11.4% +12.6% −14.5% −33.3% −12.0% −43.8% −44.2% +2.3% −11.5% −57.4% −57.9% −63.6% −59.1% −50.1% −48.1% −82.1% −73.3%

Change in efficiency of productiona The CEECs +27.9% +34.7% +13.4% +20.6% +18.1% +21.2% +115.0% −10.6% +36.2% +11.5% +29.6% +73.2% +39.2% +130.4%

EU-17 +21.4% +25.7% +17.7% +30.5% +1.4% −38.6% +183.2% −32.2% +37.0% +28.9% +31.1% +54.4% +33.8% +54.5%

+8.1%

+10.6%

+13.3%

+10.8%

−55.6% −40.4% −71.8% −37.2% −13.6% −41.9% −20.3%

−52.6% −45.4% −80.5% −69.1% +46.3% −23.0% −15.9%

+50.9% +51.6% −1.6% +12.6% +41.2% +96.7% +31.3%

+41.3% +65.6% +42.2% +128.8% −16.6% +48.4% +24.5%

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data Difference in the mean for the 1989–1993 and 2014–2018 periods

a

conditions, or on farms not adapted to this structurally and economically, has often worked to further concentrate and specialise this kind of production, with the obvious attendant increases in efficiency. For farms that cover larger areas and are more specialised enjoy much greater opportunities to intensify, with better results therefore obtained. Overall then, while populations of livestock species have declined in the region, there has been a simultaneous rise in the efficiency with which produce of animal origin is generated. The result has been greater efficiency, and a steady limiting of the gap separating the region and its states from agriculture in the “Old EU”. That said, in some countries of the region, falls in numbers of the main livestock species were so large that even increases in efficiency could not offset them fully. In

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the Czech Republic, for example, reductions in the number of head of pigs and cattle ended the country’s self-sufficiency in meat production, necessitating a resort to imports (Svatos and Smutka 2012). The reason for the end put to livestock-­rearing on many farms was limited commercial viability. In the case of pigs, a root cause was the rising cost of feed, accompanied by price fluctuations and the onset of the importation of cheaper pork. On the other hand, insufficiency when it came to the production of beef was the result of a fall in numbers of beef cattle combined with favourable prices noted for this meat internationally. The effect was enhanced exports of cattle and calves for slaughter abroad. Stocking with animals expressed in terms of livestock units per 100 ha of farmland is quite differentiated spatially, albeit still at a lower level than is characteristic for Western Europe’s intensive agriculture. While the CEECs report an average figure of 47 per 100 ha, the mean value for the EU-17 is as high as 88. However, among the CEECs there are obviously above-average values by regional (or even EU) standards  – with Slovenia leading (on 105 livestock units per 100  ha), followed by Poland (66), Hungary (52), the Czech Republic (51) and Croatia (48) (Fig. 12.15). The breakdown of data for animal production in the region also reveals considerable differentiation, ensuring that the shares different countries take in the production of milk or meat expressed per inhabitant differ rather from what the level of stocking of the given animals would indicate. The highest level of production of milk per inhabitant (in fact above the average for the EU-17 of 337 kg) is to be noted in the three Baltic countries (Estonia 603, Lithuania 561 and Latvia 510), as well as in Poland (374 kg). Above-average values for this index are also noted in Slovenia (303 kg) and the Czech Republic (298 kg). These figures compare with the CEEC-­ wide average of 296 kg. Where trends for milk production per inhabitant are concerned, the period of decline at the beginning of the period was short-lived, but tangible and harmful. The

Fig. 12.15  Stocking expressed in terms of livestock units per 100 ha of farmland in 2016 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

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years 1989–1995 brought a decline from 363 kg (about 1% above the mean value noted for the EU-17) to 265 kg (21% below the value for the 17). The only increase at that time was the none noted for Romania, whose 1989 level of production of milk per inhabitant was the region’s lowest. The most-limited decline was in turn that noted for Slovenia. Leaving aside temporary reductions in milk production per inhabitant of the region in the 2005–2010 period (in large measure linked with these countries’ adjustment to the milk quotas in the EU they were acceding to), the post-1995 situation in the CEECs featured a slow but steady increase in per-capita production. Nevertheless, in connection with the generally limited dynamic associated with this increase (as i.a. curbed as CAP rules were applied), the situation resembled that with meat, in that in proved impossible for the countries in the region to catch up with their Western European counterparts. At present, the level of production of milk expressed per inhabitant in the CEECs is some 12% lower than in the EU-17. However, it is worth pointing to diverse trends for the statistic from one country in the region to another. While, as of 2018, some 4 countries were producing less milk per inhabitant than they had done in 1995 (markedly so in the cases of Slovakia and Bulgaria), the largest post-1995 increases could be seen in Latvia, Estonia and Poland. That said, no state had proved able to fully make good the losses arising between 1989 and 1995. Indeed, the only country with a net-positive outcome over the period as whole is Romania – the only country to avoid losses of the aforementioned kinds. All this said, it needs to be recalled how – for more than 30 years (post-1984) – the dairy sector in the EU operated within the confines of milk quotas seeking to limit excess production. Such activity also affected milk producers in the CEECs. The quota system in fact came to an end in 2015, so the time may finally have come for milk production in the region to build beyond what it was (in statistical terms at least) at the start of the period of transformation (Fig. 12.16). Differences in the efficiency with which milk is produced depend first and foremost on the level of intensification, of which aspects include the selection of dairy cattle, the means of feeding and quality of feed, and (to a lesser extent) the natural conditions. The highest-producing dairy cattle will be those that receive painstaking care – and that will be a hallmark of a farm’s advanced degree of specialisation in this. Among the CEECs, the mean amount of milk produced from dairy cattle has been increasing steadily, with the periods over which cows continue to supply milk also extending. In the first years of systemic transformation, there was both a fall in numbers of cows and in their level of production of milk. Thus, production as of 1989 was 28% lower than in the EU-17, compared with 39% by 1995. The largest declines in output were noted in Estonia and Lithuania. On the other hand, there are four countries in the region which were already producing more milk by 1995 than in 1989. Of these, the one showing by far the largest increase was Romania. And by 2000, it was only in Bulgaria that the situation remained less favourable than in 1989. In general, in the twenty-first century, reductions in numbers of head of cattle occurring throughout the region were counteracted by an ongoing increase in

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Fig. 12.16  Overall production of milk per capita Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

animals’ efficiency at supplying milk. What is more, the gap separating our region from the EU-17 was reduced steadily, such that by 2018, the Western member states were only ahead by 25%. While the region’s post-1995 trend for increased milk production per cow appears as a steady one, the rates from one country to another did differ. It was in the south-east (where cow’s milk is relatively speaking of the most limited significance) that milk yields of cows rose least. Below-average increase also characterised Croatia and Hungary. Elsewhere, the level doubled, while in Estonia it even tripled. Overall, these changes enhanced disparities across the region, and today milk production is lowest in Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. At the other extreme, figures for Estonia, the Czech Republic and Hungary actually exceed the average characterising the EU-17 (Fig. 12.17). The breakdown of data for milk produced in the CEECs resembles that for the EU-17 in the clear predominance maintained by cow’s milk. In most cases, other kinds of milk are of nothing more than “trace” importance. Nevertheless, when the recent situation is set against that of 1989, the two parts of the EU under study here are both seen to have experienced slight increases in the shares attributable to the milk obtained from goats and sheep. Markedly the smallest share among the different kinds of milk is that taken by buffalo-milk. Thus the specific nature of the breakdown of the data for milk production among the CEECs is first and foremost one in which differences or disparities are limited. The two least-important components, i.e. milk from goats and buffalo, represent just 0.35% of the overall amount of milk produced, while the corresponding figure for the EU-17 is as high as 1.6% or so. In turn, the share taken by goat’s milk in the region under study is 2.4% – as compared with a lower figure (of around 1.6%) in Western Europe.

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Fig. 12.17  Mean annual milk production per cow Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

The widest diversity of types of milk produced is found in the south of the region, i.e. in Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. The proportions of milk other than from cows in these countries are at the levels of 14, 12 and 3.0% respectively. In Romania, cow’s milk is augmented to a relatively large degree on the market by sheep’s milk, while in Bulgaria the latter accounts for about 7.0% of milk produced. Milk from goats in turn takes highest shares in Bulgaria (4.2%), Croatia (1.9%), Slovakia (0.91%) and the Czech Republic (0.40%). In turn, buffalo-milk is mainly produced in Bulgaria, where it accounts for a respectable 1.1% of all milk produced (Fig. 12.18). It is also in the south of the region that the most major changes in the breakdown of data for milk produced have taken place compared with the 1989 situation. Bulgaria noted the most-marked decline in the significance of sheep’s milk, while in Hungary the role played by cow’s milk increased. In turn, in Romania and Croatia it was the reverse process that was in operation, with the former seeing an increase in sheep’s milk at the expense of that from cows, while the latter experienced an increase in the share taken by goat’s milk. That said, it should be emphasised that the changes involved were minor. The highest values for the index expressing the amount of meat produced per inhabitant (which exceed the average for the EU-17 equal to 97 kg) are to be noted for Poland (118 kg) and Hungary (107 kg). Third place in the region is taken by Lithuania (on 89 kg). However, values for the indicator analysed declined markedly in all 11 CEECs during the 1990s. As of 1989, the combined value was still almost the same as in the EU-17 – at 88 kg per inhabitant. However, as of 2000, that figure had fallen to just 66 kg, and was thus around 30% below the analogous figure for Western Europe. The period’s most-limited decline in the level of production of meat per inhabitant characterised Poland, while the most-severe negative change afflicted the Baltic countries. In Estonia and Lithuania there was something like a

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Fig. 12.18  Breakdown of data for milk produced in the CEECs and in the EU-17 in 2018 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 12.19  Overall production of meat per capita Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

2.5-fold decrease in the production of meat per inhabitant across the decade under analysis. In Latvia, the corresponding decline was almost fivefold (Fig. 12.19). Nevertheless, subsequent years saw production of meat bounce back in the region to some extent, though thus far it has never taken agriculture in the CEECs back to the level it had had at the end of the communist era. As of 2018, 81 kg of meat were produced per inhabitant in the region – a figure 16% below the average reported for the EU-17. In five of the CEECs, the production of meat per inhabitant declined further over the 2000–2018 period, and this was particularly the case for Slovakia and Bulgaria, where there was nearly a halving. On the other hand, Croatia and Latvia noted a near-doubling of the value of production from the 2000 level. Other dynamic increases were experienced by Lithuania, Poland and Estonia, even

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though it was only in Croatia and Poland that farming actually managed to build on the level of production of meat per inhabitant achieved in 1989. In the early 1990s, both a majority of the countries that would be within the Community by 2018 and the region of Central and Eastern Europe, had levels of pork production that exceeded the production due to all remaining livestock used for meat taken together. However, the structure characterising production at that level has undergone major change since that time, as the activity is still concentrated, but now in the dual directions of pork and poultry. In reality, the latter kind of meat derives very much from the large-scale rearing of hens. In the EU as a whole, these two categories account for 74% of all meat produced (as compared with 80% in the region focused on here). The marked increase in the share in the EU attributable to poultry mainly took place at the expense of beef, whose production largely contracted as a result of the epidemic of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or “Mad Cow Disease”, potentially causing Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or CJD in people). The disease of cattle spread through Western Europe in the 1990s – with the threat to people becoming most clear from 1996 onwards. In the CEECs, the breakdown of data for meat produced is seen to have changed more than it did in the EU-17. Between 1989 and 2018, the share of all meat assuming the form of chicken increased there from 16 to 35%, just as the corresponding change for the EU-17 was from 16 to 23%. Beyond that, the share of all meat that was of avian (bird) origin increased over the study period from 18 to 41% in the CEECs, as opposed to from 20 to 28% in the countries of the “Old EU”. The CEECs thus have a specific structure to the meat they produce which differs from that in other EU Member States, and which has reflected major change during the transformation period. The increased significance of poultry among the meat produced in the CEECs corresponded with declines in the shares attributable to pork and beef. While the shares taken by these two species were 57 and 21% respectively in 1989, the lower figures for 2018 were of 45% and 12%. This reflected lower profitability of producing pork, as well as a change in prevalent models of nutrition that saw emphasis shift to the consumption – and hence also the production – of poultry. In the meantime, in the EU-17, there was a decline in the share of meat taken by beef from 26 to 18%, even as the share attributable to pork there grew from 48 to 51% (Fig. 12.20 and Table 12.3). In 1989, the region of the CEECs stood out from Western Europe in a greater share taken by pork, with the share of beef smaller. By 2018, the changes detailed above ensured that the breakdown of data for meat production in the region above all has a larger share of chicken, with both beef and pork plating a less-significant role. A diversification can also be said to have taken place. Overall production of all types of meat outside the three top categories increase from a 5.7% share in 1989 to an 8.4% share in 2018. In contrast, the corresponding figure for the EU-17 declined from 10% to 8.2%. Thus, among the 16 types of meat under study, those in which the share of production is greater in the CEECs than in the EU-17 are chicken (35%), duck (1.8%), rabbit, goose and guineafowl (0.7% each) and horse (0.2%). The breakdown of data for meat produced in the region does manifest its spatial differentiation. Equally, there is no country in which pork and poultry are not the

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turkey

goose and guinea fowl

CEECs 1989

other birds rabbit game

other

duck

goat

duck chicken

other birds turkey

mule

sheep

ass

rabbit

buffalo

other mule

cattle

buffalo

cattle

game

CEECs 2018

goose and guinea fowl

horse

ass

horse chicken

pig pig

goat sheep

other birds

turkey goose and guinea fowl

EU 17 1989

turkey goose and guinea fowl

duck

other birds

duck

mule ass pig

rabbit

horse

game other

buffalo mule horse ass

chicken

buffalo

goat

EU 17 2018

cattle

cattle

chicken sheep

game other

rabbit

goat sheep pig

Fig. 12.20  The breakdown of data for meat produced in the CEECs and EU-17 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

two main types of meat produced. Immediately after the communist-era economy met its end, pork was taking the largest shares (above the regional average) in Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. Poland was then second among all current states of the EU in terms of the production of this meat (after Germany). Equally, since the time in question, all four countries have been through declines in the share of overall meat production attributable to pork. Poland is the only country within that group in which absolute amounts of pork produce rose in the 1989–2018 period – ensuring that this is today the region’s number 1 producer, and the fourth in the EU after Germany, Spain and France (Figs. 12.21 and 12.22). Efficiency in the production of pork as expressed per pig increased over the 1990–2018 period in both the EU as a whole and the CEECs. However, in the region under study, that increase was of 66%  – denoting a faster rate than in Western European agriculture. The increase in efficiency of meat production noted for the region’s pigs for fattening was not a constant process, as a decline in this respect could be noted between 2000 and 2005. Only post-accession was a more dynamic increase in the efficiency of pork production noted, with this by 2018 reducing to just 5% this particular gap between our region and the countries of Western Europe (Figs. 12.23). The EU-17 average value for the efficiency of production of pork was exceeded by Polish breeders of the livestock in 2015, with their Hungarian counterparts following suit in more-recent years. In turn, the largest increases in efficiency above

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Fig. 12.21  Breakdown of data for countries’ production of meat in 1989 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

Fig. 12.22  Breakdown of data for countries’ production of meat in 2018 Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

and beyond 1989 levels has characterised Slovenia and Croatia, as well as Estonia, Romania and Poland. The example furnished by pork resembles those involving other kinds of meat in revealing major differences from one area to anther when it comes to both efficiency of production and the trends noted for it. This is most likely linked to the keeping of particular breeds, the ways of supplying food and quality of

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Fig. 12.23  Annual production of pork meet expressed in relation to the number of pigs Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

feed supplied, the level of knowledge and experience of those raising the livestock, and the level of intensification at which this is carried out. Pork’s largest share of all meat produced is to be noted in Estonian farming, the level there exceeding that for all the other kinds of meat put together. Estonia is also the only CEEC in which the share of pork amongst all the different kinds of meat is actually greater than in the countries of Western Europe. Relatively large shares attributable to pork are also typical for meat production in Croatia (49%), Poland (48%) and Hungary (48%). Equally, in Lithuania and Slovenia, changes in the breakdown of data for meat production moved in a different direction. While pork’s share of all meat was already low, it declined further – to the point where the share has been below 30% of all meat produced in each of these countries. However, in this respect these states stand out markedly from others in the region, with the top places taken either by poultry (basically chicken), or beef in the case of Slovenia. Throughout the CEECs, the importance of poultry has risen, with the dominant role within this category of course taken by chicken. The largest shares for the category currently characterise Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria. In Lithuania, chicken production outdoes that noted for all the other species bred for their meat taken together. In turn, the Slovenian situation is one in which chicken took a very high share even back in 1989. On the other hand, where Slovakia is concerned, the more major role for poultry reflects dynamic development in this direction – at the expense of the production of pork and beef. Slovakia increased its share of all meat accounted for by chicken from a mere 10% or so in 1989 through to almost 50% as of 2017. An almost similar rate of increase of this kind cold also be seen in Lithuania.

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Relatively the most limited shares of meat production attributable to chicken are those reported for Croatia (23%), Estonia (26%), the Czech Republic (31%), Hungary (32%) and Poland (33%). Nevertheless, the region under study can be considered to have specialised in producing chicken, as only in Croatia is its share of all meat produced currently below the average for the EU-17. Poland offers an instructive example. From the mid-1990s onwards, Poland became the region’s leading producer of chicken. And all the more so after its 2004 EU accession, with the country’s role in the production of the species growing steadily. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Polish agriculture was able to supply more than half of the region’s entire output of this kind of meat. Among all countries of the Community, it came second only to the UK from this point of view. However, although Polish agriculture was producing 4.5 times as much of this kind of meat in 2018, as compared with 1989, the domestic share of all meat attributable to chicken has remained below the regional average level. A general rule would be that countries where the share due to chicken is rather low produce larger amounts of other types of “poultry”. While turkey meat plays a markedly more-minor role in meat production among the CEECs, the dynamic increase in its significance that has taken place is nevertheless noteworthy. Recently, the highest shares for turkey have characterised Hungary (7% of all meat produced), Croatia (4.7%), Poland (4.1%) and Slovenia (3.8%). It is only in the first two of these countries, that shares noted for turkey go beyond the average for the EU-17. In the case of Hungary, the increased significance of turkey has been a feature of the last three decades as a whole. In contrast, in Croatia and Slovenia, the upswing in production was an early feature, with stabilisation occurring over most of the study period. In turn, in Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, the production of meat from turkeys continues to be a matter of largely marginal significance. In terms of amounts produced, duck is the third most important “poultry” species. As in the case of turkey, production of this meat has risen steadily, but is concentrated in spatial terms. Production of this meat is of greatest significance in Bulgaria (where a 10% share of all meat is taken), as well as in Hungary (9%) and the Czech Republic (2.2%). Hungary is the regional leader where the production of duck is concerned, and indeed over the last three decades production there has grown threefold. Indeed, in the whole of the EU, Hungary is only surpassed by France where the production of duck is concerned. Poland takes third place. Where other bird species are concerned, the least significance in overall meat production (also still in decline) is that to be attached to goose and guineafowl. Even so, our region’s agriculture does include the key producers of these meats in Europe. Thus, in the EU as a whole, Poland, Hungary and France (in that order) are the leading producers of meat from these two species of bird. However, at the start of the period of economic transformation, Hungary was in fact the lead producer. But it was Polish agriculture that took a dynamic step forward with its production, hence the change of status with the second decade of the twenty-first century. That said, when seen from the domestic point of view, the share of all meat produced in Poland that can be attributed to goose and guineafowl is actually below the average figure

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for the CEECs. In these terms, Hungary can still be seen as a key producer, since 2.5% of all the meat that country generates is in the form of either goose or guineafowl. Other kinds of bird meat (e.g. pigeon) play a vanishingly limited role overall within the region. Only in Bulgaria is there even a trace figure of this kind (with 0.006% of all meat accounted for). Equally, the production in question is somehow a newish feature, as it only began to characterise Bulgaria at the end of the last century. Yet, by 2018, the only countries in the EU to produce more meat of this species were France and Cyprus. Beef takes third place (after pork and poultry) when it comes to the share of all meat produced among the CEECs. However, it is the leading meat product in Slovenia, Croatia and the Baltic countries. Equally, Slovenian agriculture is the only one in the region to manifest a breakdown of data for meat in which the share attributable to beef is ahead of that of pork. Beyond that it joins the agriculture practised in Croatia, Latvia and Lithuania in being characterised by a share in meat production attributable to beef that exceeds the EU average. It is nevertheless worth noting how  – post-1989  – the three Baltic countries experienced the largest loss for the share of all meat accounted for by beef. Meanwhile, the lowest-of-all shares noted for beef are the 2.9% seen in Hungary, Slovakia’s 6.8%, Bulgaria’s 6,9% and Romania’s 8,6%. On the other hand, meat from buffalo (as another species of bovine alongside cattle) is of limited significance in Bulgaria only (with a 0.64% share). Through to the end of the twentieth century, Bulgaria was nevertheless the largest producer of this kind of meat anywhere among the countries making up today’s EU. Production declined thereafter, however – to the point where the 2018 figure was well under one-tenth of that noted for 1989. Currently, Bulgaria is well below Italy and Greece when it comes to amounts of buffalo-meat produced. Lamb and mutton are not popular meats in the CEECs. However, within that region, the production is concentrated in the south – to the point where the shares in overall amounts of meat produced reach 6.2, 4.1 and 2.3% in Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia respectively. Furthermore, in Romania, Slovenia and Croatia, the shares taken by meat from sheep in the overall structure have increased. On the other hand, Bulgaria has seen the reverse process. Of still-less significance than lamb and mutton is goat meat, whose production is also concentrated in the south, first and foremost in Romania (0.83%), Bulgaria (0.64%) and Slovenia (0.27%). Rabbit meat remains of very limited significance, even as its largest shares in the overall structure for meat produced are to be noted in Czechia, Slovakia and Bulgaria. Horsemeat is in turn something of a niche interest, whose level of production within the CEECs has remained at a similar level for some decades now (even as the EU as a whole has witnessed a major decline). Horse takes the largest share of all meat produced (of 1.5%) in the case of Croatia, while the corresponding figure for Romania is of just 0.53%. These are almost therefore trace amounts. The region’s largest producer of this kind of meat is actually Poland – which even takes second place in the EU as a whole (after Spain). However, Polish horsemeat mainly goes for export – above all to Italy, as well as France and Belgium.

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Game also accounts for a small proportion of the meat produced in the region. The largest share it takes in any country is the 0.40% noted in Romania, as followed by the Czech Republic (on 0.24%) and Poland (0.18%). Where trends are concerned, it can be noted that – since the 1990s – the kind of meat (or origin of meat) in question has assumed a degree of extra significance – to the point where it is also becoming tangible when it comes to meat production in both Slovakia and Lithuania. Perhaps counterintuitively, Poland is the only state in the region reporting a decline in the share of overall meat production taken by game. The country nevertheless remains the region’s leading producer of game, and is also a leader in the EU as a whole – taking third place after Germany and Sweden (Tables 12.2. and 12.3).

Table 12.2  The position of the CEECs taken together and set against the EU from the point of view of the efficiency of production of selected animal products in 1989 and 2018 Efficiency of production compared with the EU-17 Index 1989–1993 2014–2018 Milk yield of cows −27.7% −24.7% Pork produced per pig −26.9% −5.0% Beef produced per head of −29.2% −23.9% cattle Lamb and mutton −34.6% −23.9% produced per sheep Chicken meat produced −26.7% −8.5% per bird

Change in efficiency of production 1989–2018a CEECs EU-17 +71.3% +64.4% +65.8% +27.5% +9.8% +2.2% +9.8%

−5.6%

+94.5%

+55.8%

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data Difference in the mean for the 1989–1993 and 2014–2018 periods

a

Table 12.3  Production of meat by species (thousand tonnes carcass weight), 2016 Country Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

Cattle 7 44 72 9 28 18 42 501 58 8 36

Pigs 66 80 220 43 432 31 60 1963 337 48 23

Sheep No data 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 8 1 0

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on EUROSTAT data

Goats No data No data 0 0 0 0 0 No data 0 0 0

Poultry 106 64 157 No data 508 30 104 2268 391 No data 64

Chapter 13

An Identification of Directions of Change in Agriculture in the CEECs

The Transformation of Farms’ Ownership and Size Structure The period of the last 25  years has brought very major ownership change in the farming sectors of the CEECs – as a reflection of the privatisation of State Farms and Cooperatives, as well as the return of assets taken from their owners during communist times. The process brought change to all structural components within the farming sector, from size structure, via trends for what was actually being produced, to the numbers of farms in existence. The most visible result of privatisation and restitution in the agriculture of the region under study was a worsening of the situation where land fragmentation was concerned, as M. Hartvigsen (2013, 2014) has emphasised. And this has been true of both the ownership of land and the forms of use to which it is being put. In the subject literature focused on spatial organisation, it is typical to find the fragmentation of land regarded as a key land-use problem (Bentley 1987; King and Burton 1982; Van Dijk 2003). This reflects the way in which additional costs are generated; accessibility is impaired with travel times increased; the use of larger machines is prevented and work in the fields hindered; plot boundaries are lengthened disproportionately with boundary zones typically going un(der)utilised; a dense(r) network of field tracks needs to be put in place to allow access; land registration is rather needlessly made more complex; and it is not unheard of for conflicts between owners to arise. Bearing in mind form of land ownership and form of land use, it is possible to distinguish between three categories of relationship between them, i.e.: (a) the owner of the land does not make use of it, (b) the owner of the land is also its user, (c) the user is not the land’s owner (the land is leased) (Fig. 13.1).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_13

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Fig. 13.1  A schematic representation of relationships between the owner of farmland (W) and its user (U): a – the owner of the land is not its user, b – the owner of the land is at the same time its user, c – the user of the land is not its owner, on account of land having been leased out. (After Van Dijk 2003)

From the theoretical point of view it is then possible to identify several scenarios for the fragmentation of land. The first of these entails ownership being fragmented, with the result that the number of users of the land also increases (hence numbers in categories a, b and c all increase). A second scenario foresees division of ownership, albeit with the land-use structure remaining unchanged, e.g. as land is leased (with numbers a and b therefore on the rise). It is also possible to envisage the fragmentation of ownership simultaneously with ongoing fragmentation when it comes to users (such that numbers b and c increase). The result of the fragmentation of ownership in the countries studied has been a polarisation regarding farm size that triggers a series of other phenomena relating to the use made of land in agriculture. On the one hand, a large group of small and uncompetitive farms have come into existence, while on the other the transformation of the old Cooperatives have given rise to agricultural companies or other legal entities whose productive potential is considerable. A good example would be the size structure of farms in the Czech Republic, where – as of 2007 – over 66% of all farms did not exceed 10 ha in size, but altogether those involved used just 2.2% of the country’s overall area of farmland. On the other hand, farms covering more than 500  ha are just 3.8% of the total, even though they utilise more than 72% of all farmland in the country (Basek and Divila 2008). A key aspect of the Czech transformation in agriculture entailed a privatisation of large agricultural holdings whose initial impact was to worsen the economic situation in the food sector. This came in association with a reduction in the level of use of fertilisers and plant protection agents, a lack of cohesion where land management was concerned, and an increase in the area of land left unploughed and fallow. After 50 years of the “socialisation” of the farming sector, land was returned to owners, or acquired by new private entities. Some state land was leased out. The privatisation process played a very key role when it comes to the current situation as regards land use, as the consequence has been economic and organisational change vis-à-vis production conditions. Certain farms with only small areas under cultivation prove inefficient and are probably condemned to closure in the future. In contrast, the Cooperatives mainly transformed into commercial-law companies, with the result that large production units were able to remain intact.

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The fragmentation of ownership in the Czech Republic and Slovakia did give rise to fragmented land use – but only to a limited degree that posed no threat of the farming sector as a whole becoming dysfunctional. Processes of privatisation threatened the fragmentation of land use, but it emerged that the most optimal and rational form by which to organise production entailed large agricultural enterprises. In this context it is possible to regard the decision to close down all the State Farms (Państwowe Gospodarstwa Rolne) in neighbouring Poland as too hasty and not really thought-through. According to the then proponents of the drastic approach, the Farms (as a manifestation of the communist system) could not adjust and survive in the free-market context. Yet some of those enterprises were actually in a good state economically, and could – with some overhaul – have competed successfully on the market. The State Farms did actually possess specialised and well-­ trained personnel, a considerable fleet of farm machinery and relevant technical infrastructure, and large areas of land at their disposal. They also played an important role when it came to stabilising the rural labour market and (as it were) subsidising various elements of social and cultural infrastructure. Upon their fall, what very largely took their place were areas of poverty and social exclusion afflicted by very high levels of unemployment and a wide range of social ills. In Hungary a clear polarisation of farms has taken place, with small farms of just a couple of hectares on the one hand and large production holdings on the other. Farms of the first category have only a small area of land at their disposal and play only a minor role when it comes to output. They may nevertheless represent a key element in social terms, as they help stabilise the labour market and safeguard minimum income. A similar role is played by the small “social” farms in Poland or Romania, on which the greater part of what is produced serves mainly to meet own needs of those farming and their fellow householders. Farms of the second category are of course rather few in number compared to the family-owned ones, but they have in excess of 70% of all agricultural land at their disposal. The significance of these kinds of farms are only like to grow as time passes, given their possession of their own resources to invest, not least in modern methods of both production and management. This kind of trend gains confirmation in data on EU farm subsidies. In the first years of EU membership, around 90% of all the farm payments in Hungary made their way to just 100 entities (Land … 2013). Owners of small farms therefore drew no benefit whatever from EU subsidies (indeed, an estimated 93% of all farmers were excluded). A common fate was for the farms in question to go bankrupt. As of 2009, the situation had moved on a little, but 8.6% of farms were in receipt of 72% of the overall sum supplied as farm payments. Given the dynamic loss of individually-­ owned farms already referred to, this example can only attest to growing disparities in farm size and economic status to be noted in Hungary, but equally well elsewhere. Ownership transformation in Romania has featured far-reaching fragmentation of both the ownership and utilisation of agricultural land. Out of the large “socialised” farms operating pre-1990 it proved possible to found no fewer than 4 million farms. However, in a clear majority of cases these were entities weak in economic terms, lacking own funds to be invested, proving to be of limited commercial viability for

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this and other reasons, and often at best seeking to ensure self-sufficiency of the farming household in food. As in Hungary, there is a decline in numbers of farms capable of attesting to a concentration of land in all units, albeit with the pace of change being rather slow. The process of attrition among the smallest farms should be expected to intensify, even as a brake on the process may be applied by very marked increases in the prices of farmland. Rationalisation of size structure may also be encouraged actively through land-consolidation programmes. However, it emerges that Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are the only CEECs to have made ready national programmes of land consolidation (Hartvigsen 2014). Programmes of this kind are therefore lacking in Hungary and Romania, even though these states are in particular need of an improved size structure for their farms, given recent changes of ownership. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and to some extent also Hungary, it is possible to speak of marked disparities between the ownership of land and its use, in the sense that most of the agricultural land is managed by large-scale entities, even as the ownership is in the hands of a large group of small-scale owners. However, what would have been in some sense the worst-case scenario of far-reaching fragmentation of land use did not play out, thanks to the widespread possibility of land being leased (Doucha et al. 2005). We may therefore draw a very generalised conclusion that the presence of large farms correlates with the share of land leased – the greater the share in the land-use structure for farms that is taken by large farms, the greater the share of the land that will be the subject of leasehold. It is worth noting how (other than in Poland where the farming system had long continued to be based around family farming) the analysed countries’ efforts to restore or do much to increase the role of typical farms did not enjoy much success. On the market for food there, the entities of key significance are different organisational formats bringing together producers (i.e. holdings, cooperatives, companies, etc.) that have large areas of farmland at their disposal. This is confirmed by the work of A. Zadura (2009) – which shows how the failure of private activity in the agriculture sector arose out of, not only technical/technological and social factors, but also the disappearance of private entrepreneurship. Lacking professional qualifications, the beneficiaries of the restitution of land wanted to sell that land rapidly, with oversupply being the result, followed by an initial stabilisation  – or even a fall – in land prices, as well as an increase in the amount of land being set aside or left fallow. A further indirect consequence of privatisation processes was a reduction in the area of agricultural land. Thus for example in Romania, new owners of land abandoned its cultivation on account of the limited commercial viability of production, a lack of funds to invest, and the fact that other options for activity available to them were likely to generate far more income. A similar phenomenon was at work in Hungary. Furthermore, it needs to be noted just how many of the owners of farms in Romania were elderly people, who eschewed activity in the agriculture sector for that reason alone. Moreover, the closedown of the Cooperatives was associated with a deterioration in the state of technical infrastructure (as maintenance,

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modernisation and management were all lacking). The result was a limiting of possibilities to produce somewhat out of the reach of the individual farmer. According to Balteanu and Popovici (2010), as of 1989 more than 20% of agricultural land in Romania had been encompassed by the irrigation system. Yet by 2006, that proportion had fallen to 3%. The drought arising in 2000 was thus able to reduce cereal output by 40% in comparison with the previous year. Such phenomena were more than enough to encourage many farms to give up farming. Ownership processes slowed down the flow of land within the farming sector, but also out of it and into other branches of the economy. Changes of land designation in a non-agricultural direction were first and foremost a feature of the land surrounding cities, or else of circumstances in which agroenvironmental quality was low. In the first case, once grace periods had come to an end, owners took advantage of the opportunity to acquire land at high price, while in the second they withdrew from productive activity and designated the land for reafforestation. It was reasonable to foresee that privatisation in agriculture would enhanced flow on the market for land. Certainly, compared with during the communist era, that market was a much freer one, while land prices in the CEECs could be thought of as very low compared to those in Western countries. However, farming could not be said to pay very well at all at that stage – mediating against an effort to raise profitability on a larger farm – and all the more so as changes in the designation of land were very much restricted by law. Also contributing to a stagnation on the market for land was low-cost leasing. In the Czech Republic, for example, leaseholding could be achieved for around 1.5% of the official price for land,1 leaving this quite effective in discouraging those leasing land to actually take the next step and purchase. Sales of land were also limited by an abrupt price-rise in the period prior to EU membership and immediately thereafter, all the more so with a longer-lasting prohibition on the purchase of land by foreigners. In Poland, the market for agricultural land was very much conditioned from the supply side. The number of transactions has mainly depended on owners of land being inclined to sell. A high rate of unemployment and uncertainty regarding employment only emphasised the need for security, hence a lack of eagerness to dispose of land seen as a good place in which to locate capital. An unfavourable result of privatisation processes in the CEECs entailed takeovers by members of the so-called nomenklatura, who had hitherto been Board Members of the Cooperatives and State Farms, were derived solely from Communist Party circles and yet enjoyed spectacular success once tenders characteristic for the free market were ushered in – given their special insider knowledge of the farms that had become subject to privatisation. A widespread phenomenon involved the purchase of vouchers or shares relating to privatised farms – from former members of their farming teams. In this way, certain individuals made a smooth and lucrative transition from the old communist-era structures through to the status of owners of large and productive farms. A new economic system proved a fine occasion for

 The price takes account of climatic conditions, relief and soil quality.

1

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these people to advance their economic status further. And the knock-on effect of that was for informal local setups and coteries to embed themselves smoothly and firmly enough in newly-established local-government structures. Through the early 1990s the agricultural economies of CEECs other than Poland were entirely dominated by the so-called “socialised” sector, denoting State Farms and production Cooperatives. In contrast, agriculture based around individually-­ owned farms was of marginal significance only. Subsequent years that saw privatisation pursued, as well as a return of assets seized during the communist era, gave rise to a diversification of land use in agriculture, in relation to forms of both ownership and utilisation. To put things very generally, it may be suggested that the countries under analysis espoused similar concepts when it came to privatisation and the restitution of land assets, even though the effects of these processes were differentiated to a considerable extent from one to another. The privatisation of farmland took place in line with a “Western” model of organisation of agriculture that assigned a core role to the family-owned farm, when it came to the overall system. However, the results ultimately failed to verify this trend. In the Czech Republic, Slovakia and in part also Hungary, large agricultural enterprises (as the most effective form) remained in existence, even as there was a change in the means of management. In all of the CEECs, the onset of the period of transformation led to an abrupt fragmentation of agricultural land and later action concentrated on efforts to reverse that process, i.e. on land consolidation (Rembold 2003; Sabates-Wheeler 2002). Not everywhere was that a success. A major result of the change of ownership was a dynamic increase in the number of individually-owned farms. That process took place in all five of the countries studied (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland), while it was particular intensive in Hungary and Romania. The result that transpired involved the appearance of a large number of small, low-­ viability farms, i.e. something irrational that has had to be followed by 10–20 years of the gradual disappearance of such farms from the countries in question, as well as to an increase in the significance of large production enterprises. In turn, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the fact that land had been privatised did not preclude its remaining under the management of large holdings and companies. To generalise, in the CEECs other than Poland, the situation taking shape is one in which a dominant role is played by large farms that are basically the successors of the old Cooperatives and State Farms of the communist era. Other than Poland, the CEECs experienced “total” changes of ownership, with the disappearance of the enterprises characteristic of the communist era and the appearance of a large number of private owners. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, small-scale owners have been leasing land to large holdings. And, thanks to that, the fragmentation of ownership did not bring about a fragmentation of the use of land. A similar situation applies in Hungary, though there the appearance of a rather large group of family farms allows it to be suggested that the fragmentation in land use was further-reaching than in the Czech Republic. In contrast, the result in Romania was a high degree of fragmentation of both the ownership and use of land, with the result that farming there had both its efficiency and competitiveness impaired. In

Trends for the Area of Land Under Crops

181

Fig. 13.2  Models for the relationship between the owner (W) and user (U) of land as an effect of ownership change in the agriculture of the CEECs. (Source: authors’ own elaboration)

turn, analogous changes in Poland were more regional in character, only encompassing around 20% of the area of the country in agriculture. The result was again fragmentation of both land and use, albeit on a far more limited scale than in Romania (Fig. 13.2).

Trends for the Area of Land Under Crops Bearing in mind the need to point to the main trends characterising transformations in crop-growing that agriculture in the CEECs has been through, a focus here has been the changes in areas planted with selected crops in the different countries through the 1990–2018 period. The particular emphasis has been on the most widespread species or groups of crops. That said, to allow trends to be compared across the whole region, the more in-depth study present here assumed that the crops or groups thereof should be present in each of the analysed CEECs. Naturally, that posed a more major problem, given the latitudinal extent of the region involved – which in turn (as has been noted already) does much to shape diversity when it comes to crop structure and the presence of given species of plant. Thus, when it comes to the main crop grown for its oil, that would be rape and field mustard in the

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13  An Identification of Directions of Change in Agriculture in the CEECs

north of the region, but sunflowers in the south. It was for this reason that universally-­ occurring crops (like wheat and potatoes) had to be augmented by defined groups. Ultimately the analysis took in: • • • • • • • •

cereals in general, wheat, barley, potatoes, crops producing oil (rape and field mustard, as well as sunflowers), crops producing sugar (sugar beet and sugar cane), vegetables, fruit.

Separate research concerned changes in the area in which different species or groups of crop are grown, with these changes then being assigned to one of the categories identified for possible trends. The first feature was a determination of the trend nationally for the 1990–2018 period,2 which was characterised in the following terms: 1. (W) – an increase in the area cultivated with the crop (of more than 10% above the value for the first year), 2. (S) – a stabilisation of the area cultivated with the crop (a change in relation to the value for the first year within the −10% to +10% interval), 3. (U) – a decline in the area cultivated with the crop (beyond −10% in relation to the value for the first year). A second feature was then a determination of variability in the national trend across different time intervals. The analysis thus encompassed five such intervals, i.e. 1990–1995,3 1995–2000, 2000–2005, 2005–2010 and 2010–2015. Two main categories were made use of in the characterisation that followed: 1. a sustained trend (T) – in the case of an increase in the area of the crop (W) over the years 1990–2015 and in all five of the constituent time intervals, or in the case of a decrease (U) a decline in all of the five time intervals, or in the case of stabilisation (S) over the years 1990–2015 a change compared with the initial state that was within the −10% to +10% range in all five time intervals, 2. a non-sustained trend (Z) – in all other cases. The third feature was an assessment of directions of change as compared with the trend for the CEECs overall,4 with the possibilities being: 1. (w) – an upward trend (of more than 10% above the mean for the region), 2  In the cases of Czechia and Slovakia the analysis took in the 1993–2015 period, as opposed to 1992–2005 in the cases of Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia. 3  In the cases of Czechia and Slovakia the first time interval was 1993–1995. Otherwise, it was 1992–1995. 4  The 1993–2015 period was chosen in line with the availability of data for all of the CEECs.

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183

2. (s) – no major trend/stabilisation (within the −10% to +10% interval either side of the mean for the region) 3. (u) – a downward trend (past −10% of the mean value for the region). Analysis of the change in area characterising the main plant species cultivated in the CEECs allowed for the defining of certain general trends characteristic for the region, as well as particular countries within it. the first of these is a sustained trend for loss of area of land planted with potatoes that proves to be typical for all of the CEECs and in general corresponds with the average loss for the region as a whole. It was practically in Romania alone that the decline in the area accounted for by potatoes was slower than the average for the region. The reverse trend was in turn applicable to oil-producing crops (rape and field mustard as well as sunflowers). There were certain CEECs in which the 1990–2015 period as a whole brought a several- or even a 10–20-fold increase in the area under these crops. However, in no case was this truly a sustained trend, as there were periods of loss of area of these crops, as well as increase (Tables 13.1 and 13.2). Changes for other crops analysed were not as clear-cut, though certain general regularities could nevertheless be discerned. For example, where sugar beet was concerned, there was a clear trend for the area planted with this species to decline (in all of the countries except Croatia, where there was a stabilisation). The changes in different periods were usually variable in nature, meaning increases in area across certain time intervals. Indeed, the same could be said about vegetables, whose areas under cultivation in the region declined. Only in Croatia did the level increase, while in Slovenia it was stable. In all the remaining CEECs it was a decline in the area Table 13.1  Trends for the area under selected crops in the CEECs, 1990–2015

Cereals

Wheat

Barley

Maize

Potatoes

Oil crops

Sugar beet

Vegetables

Fruit

Types of crop

Bulgaria

UZs

SZu

UZu

WZs

UZs

WZw

UTu

UZu

UTu

Croatia

UZs

UZu

WZw

UZu

UZs

WZw

SZw

WZw

UZu

Czechia

UZs

WZs

UZs

WZw

UTs

WZu

UZw

UZu

UZs

Estonia

SZs

WZw

UZs

X

UTs

WZw

X

UZs

UTu

Lithuania

SZw

WZw

UTu

WZw

UZs

WZw

UZs

UZu

UZs

Latvia

SZs

WZw

UZu

X

UTs

WZw

UZu

UZs

UZu

Poland

UZs

SZs

UZw

WTw

UTs

WZu

UTs

UZs

WZw

Romania

SZs

SZu

UZw

SZu

UZw

WZw

UZu

UZw

UZs

Slovakia

SZs

SZs

UZs

WZw

UTs

WZs

UZw

UZu

UTu

Slovenia

SZs

UZu

WTw

UZu

UTs

WZu

UZu

SZw

SZw

Hungary

SZs

UZs

SZs

SZs

UTs

WZw

UZu

UZs

UTu

Country

Source: authors’ own elaboration W  – increase, S  – stabilisation, U  – decrease; T  – sustained trend, Z  – non-­ sustained (variable) trend; in – upward trend, s – stabilised, u – downward trend

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Table 13.2  Changes in area of selected crops planted in the CEECs (11 EU Member States) Kind of crop Apples Barley Maize Oats Potatoes Rape Rye Sugar beet Sunflower Wheat Cereals Primary Fruit Primary Vegetables Primary

1995 370,373 4,189,437 5,222,415 1,148,451 2,321,964 1,010,404 2,884,417 838,574 1,877,644 9,116,795 24,843,275 16,18,393 939,040

2000 361,175 3,490,541 5,210,057 1,130,886 1,993,601 1,145,236 2,503,956 600,080 1,757,151 8 760,172 23 663,131 1,525,101 839,290

2005 353,775 3,599,995 5,059,883 1,091,427 1,136,263 1,391,064 1,658,450 541,851 2,283,869 8,910,834 23,553,049 1,366,029 668,782

2010 305,822 3,037,796 4,444,136 1,063,538 810,931 2,954,558 1,264,783 355,163 2,154,107 8,733,826 21,590,300 1,201,490 590,744

2015 311,215 2,782,646 5,498,522 922,122 624,387 2,535,638 905,120 327,426 2,557,198 9,465,768 22,581,158 1,138,547 589,922

Source: authors’ own elaboration based on FAOSTAT data

taken by these plants that was noted. A loss of area was also characteristic for fruit, other than in the case of the increase noted for Poland and the maintenance at the same level that characterised Slovenia. While changes of area under different crops proved to be rather variable in nature (with individual periods of increase also noted), where fruit-growing was concerned the trend for a decline in area was a sustained (i.e. steadily maintained) one in Bulgaria, Estonia, Slovakia and Hungary. Changes in the area accounted for by all cereals and several key species thereof proved to be very varied, to the extent that it proved difficult to make out trends. Generally speaking, where cereals overall are concerned it is possible to refer to loss of area or stabilisation, depending on which country is involved. Beyond that, in the case of barley there was a loss of area of cultivated land in most of the countries – and that contrasted rather with the opposite phenomenon (an increase in area) that proved to be typical for maize. Where Bulgarian agriculture is concerned, there has been a marked and (by the standards of the region) above-average increase in the area under oil-producing crops, i.e. rapeseed and sunflowers, albeit to differing extents. Another increase involved maize, though this corresponded with the average situation noted in the region. The growing of other crops was curbed. In turn, changes in Croatian agriculture have been more disparate in nature, though with symptoms more favourable than those noted for Bulgarian farming. As well as an above-average rise for oil-­ producing plants, there were also others notable by the standards of the region as a whole in the cases of barley and vegetables. At the same time, the area planted with sugar beet stabilised. Where the Czech Republic is concerned, it is possible to speak of extensification of production, given the connection with an increased area devoted to cereal-growing over large areas of monoculture, as well as a reduced role for the cultivation of plants whose role is intensifying, and dependent on greater inputs of labour. Czech agriculture has witnessed an increase in area planted with wheat, maize and oleiferous plants (though in the latter case, the changes were below the average level for the region). Other crops under study (barley, potatoes, sugar beet,

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185

vegetables and fruit) came to be cultivated over smaller areas, even as the changes in question did not appear to be more permanent. Agriculture in the Baltic countries (meaning Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia in this context) has been characterised by similar trends where crop structure is concerned. The area planted with cereals has remained rather stable, though there are periodic fluctuations to be noted. As regards cereal crops, the role of wheat has increased markedly – its area increasing in all three countries by rates above-average for the CEECs overall. Similar to the change seen in other countries is the rise in the area planted with rape and field mustard, even if the increase was somewhat larger here than elsewhere. Other crops analysed were seen to have declined in importance. When set against that in other countries of the region, Polish farming differs most in the way that the area growing fruit has increased. This is clearly a departure of a positive nature in comparison with what has been happening in other CEECs. Also noteworthy is the stabilisation in the area planted with wheat, even as the significance of maize increased. Similar changes characterised agriculture in Romania, though extensification has certainly been noticeable there. The area planted with cereals (including wheat and maize) proves stable, while the increase noted for crops grown to produce oil resembles that in all countries of the region. Crops of other categories have been the subject of downward trends. A country seen to have trends similar to those in Romania is Slovakia, even if one difference is the faster rate of increase in the area planted with maize. In Slovenian agriculture, the trends for crop structure were probably the most favourable ones from the point of view of possible farm income. This reflects the way in which these changes point to intensification, as well as a focus on the more-­ profitable species. The area planted with cereals remained stable, but – for example – the area under barley increased markedly, at the expense of an average loss of area of wheat. Leaving aside the increase in the areas of land devoted to crops that produce oil, other categories changed little – with no more major change noted for either vegetables or fruit – something relatively unusual for the region under study. In turn, In Hungary, it is rather extensification of crop-growing that has been observable. While there is a stable situation as regards cereals overall, changes in the internal structure within this category are visible – at the expense of wheat there has been an increase in the areas under barley and maize. Besides the usual increase in area noted for oleiferous crops, in all the remaining categories (sugar beet, vegetables, potatoes and fruit) the trend was towards a reduction in area.

 Synthetic Conceptualisation of the Crop-Cultivation A and Livestock Structures in the Region as a Whole and Its Individual Countries To sum up the detailed analysis of the distribution and differentiation of crop production through the CEECs, a typology was developed to describe the structure. The equivalent process was also applied to the populations of different livestock species. In this, use was made of the “D’Hondt Method” – involving consecutive quotients.

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This method gains frequent use in assigning parliamentary seats among party lists in the context of elections, in systems focusing on proportional representation (Medzihorsky 2019). There have also been successful attempts to use it in analysing trends for farm production (Kulikowski 1981), and the use of land (Bański 1997). Here, the method is deployed to achieve a synthetic conceptualisation of (areal) crop-growing structure, as well as the structure characterising the number of head of livestock (though in fact as expressed in terms of livestock units) – both in the CEECs taken together, and in the individual countries. It is typical for studies of land use (including crop-growing structure) to apply between six and ten consecutive quotients. And bearing in mind the way that the frame of reference in this work is at whole-country level, the objective of retaining an appropriate level of generalisation of types distinguished was served by applying six consecutive quotients. A given element plays a greater role in the structure if it appears in greater number, as well as in earlier quotients. From among the categories of crop identified in previous analysis (see Chap. 7) – which is to say cereals, legumes, bulbs and root crop, vegetables, fruit, drugs and spices; as well as crops used in the production of sugar, oil and fibres – it is cereals that prevail in the areal structure characterising crop-growing in the EU. Beyond that, there is a greater or lesser role for crops grown to produce oil. Only in Slovenia does the areal structure characterising crop-growing entail a significant inherent role for fruit. Thus it is possible to put forward a general statement that cereals dominate rather more fully in the CEECs than they do in the remaining part of the EU. This would be especially true of the northern part of the region under study. In Bulgaria and Hungary, an area comparable with that assigned to cereals is taken by oleiferous crops. And while many other plants grown have their important role to play in plant production across the region, the usually-intensive nature of this cultivation always tends to ensure lesser significance where the areal structure is concerned. This is especially the case for legumes (which assume relatively the greatest significance in the north of the region), as well as for fruit – whose largest contribution to the structure is in turn made in the study region’s southern part (Table 13.3). The areal structure for the cereal crops cultivated is found to be rather diversified. While wheat prevails in most of our region’s states, its contribution is more limited here than in the case of the EU-17. A clearly-prevalent role for wheat is to be noted in the structures characterising the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Bulgaria. Otherwise, maize is of greater significance to the CEECs than to the EU-17 (to the point where it looks comparable with wheat), albeit with the prevalence being characteristic of the region’s southern part. In contrast, the importance of barley is rather more limited here than in “Western” Europe, though once again the south of the region proves a special case – as areas planted with barley are far more limited there. Thus, for example, in the areal structure characterising Estonia’s cereal-growing, barley proves comparable with wheat, even as the share accounted for by this species is very limited anywhere to the south of Czechia and Slovakia. The most-diversified crop structure is found in Poland, where triticale plays a major role alongside wheat, as well as cereal mixtures and

Consecutive quotient 1 2 Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Oil Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals

Source: author’s own elaboration

Area CEECs EU-17 Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

3 Cereals Oil Cereals Oil Oil Cereals Oil Cereals Cereals Cereals Oil Oil Cereals

4 Oil Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals

5 Cereals Cereals Oil Cereals Cereals Oil Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals

Table 13.3  Types of areal structure characterising crop-growing overall, 2018 6 Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Cereals Oil Oil Oil Cereals Cereals Cereals Fruits

Name of type Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Cereal with participation of oil-producing Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Cereal with participation of oil-producing Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Extreme cereal Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Pre-eminent cereal with participation of oil-producing Pre-eminent cereal with participation of fruit

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13  An Identification of Directions of Change in Agriculture in the CEECs

rye, and even a quite major role for barley. That said, this diversity of structure is largely explicable (and justifiable) when account is taken of the diverse natural conditions present within the borders of what is the region’s largest country, of considerable latitudinal extent (Table 13.4). The areal structure characterising the growing of oleiferous crops throughout the CEECs proves to be a varied one that is also differentiated in spatial terms. Moreover, and as with cereals, there is seen to be a marked difference when the comparison is made with the structure identifiable for farming in the EU-17. The key difference is linked with the role of olives. Their cultivation is (only) of major significance in southern Europe, hence the noteworthy nature of this species within the structure characterising Slovenia. However, even there does not represent the most important element. In this region, the prevalent shares in the structure for oil-producing crops are those taken by rape and sunflowers. As with the two cereal crops that prevail in the region, so here too a reference to latitude is relevant to the way the proportion vary. While the Baltic countries, Poland and the Czech Republic have an extreme rape orientation, in Hungary and Romania the structure is sunflower-dominant. In Bulgaria that is even pre-eminently true. This kind of “rule” for spatial differentiation in crop-growing structure across the region is somewhat complicated by the rather less regular distribution of soya cultivation. The share within the overall structure taken by this species is greater in Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia. Indeed, in the last of the countries mentioned, soya covers a larger area of cropland that any other species in the category (Table 13.5). It is where fruit-growing is concerned that the areal structure for crops in the CEECs departs most from that characterising the remaining part of the EU. Furthermore, in this case there is considerable differentiation (also of a spatial nature). Overall, fruit-growing has the greatest role to play in the agriculture of the southern part of Europe. Both in the CEECs and the EU-17, this is a reflection of the greatest share being taken by vines and grapes. A role comparable with that of olives among the oleiferous plants can be assigned to vines, though the role is still far more limited in the CEECs than in “Western” Europe. Moreover, where the EU-17 are concerned, the main admixture species alongside the prevalent grapes is the almond, whose cultivation is even more concentrated in the southern part of the continent. In contrast, in the CEECs, the preponderance of grape vines is balanced by the temperate-zone dominance of apple trees, as followed by the somewhat more thermophilous (heat-loving) plums and sloes. As with the categories of crop mentioned earlier, the spatial differentiation characterising types of areal structure in fruit-growing among the CEECs shows a clear gradient running north-south. Grapes prevail in countries located to the south of the Western Carpathian and Sudety Mountains. However, a characteristic feature is the way in which a pre-eminently grape trend for structure does not occur in the southernmost parts of the region, but rather in countries with a considerable presence of south-facing slopes. This condition is met most fully in Slovenia and Slovakia, whose northern parts are crossed east-west by belts of mountains, albeit with land generally at a lower level as one heads further south. In turn, where the structure characterising Poland and the Baltic countries is concerned, it is the growing of

Consecutive quotient 1 2 Wheat Maize Wheat Barley Wheat Wheat Maize Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Barley Wheat Maize Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Triticale Maize Wheat Wheat Wheat Maize Wheat

Source: authors’ own elaboration

Area CEECs EU-17 Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

3 Wheat Wheat Maize Maize Barley Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Maize Maize Barley

4 Wheat Wheat Wheat Maize Wheat Barley Maize Barley Barley Mixed cereals Wheat Wheat Maize

Table 13.4  Types of areal structure characterising cereal-growing, 2018 5 Barley Barley Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Barley Maize Barley Wheat

6 Maize Wheat Wheat Maize Wheat Barley Maize Oats Wheat Rye Wheat Wheat Maize

Name of type Wheat-maize with participation of barley Wheat with participation of barley Pre-eminent wheat with participation of maize Maize with participation of wheat Pre-eminent wheat with participation of barley Wheat-barley Wheat-maize Wheat with participation of barley and oat Pre-eminent wheat with participation of barley Mixed with prevalence of wheat Maize-wheat Wheat with participation of maize and barley Maize-wheat with participation of barley

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Consecutive quotient 1 2 Rapeseed Sunflower Olives Rapeseed Sunflower Sunflower Soya Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Sunflower Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Sunflower Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Soya

Source: author’s own elaboration

Area CEECs EU-17 Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

3 Rapeseed Olives Sunflower Soya Rapeseed Rapeseed Sunflower Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Sunflower Sunflower Rapeseed

4 Sunflower Rapeseed Sunflower Sunflower Rapeseed Rapeseed Sunflower Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Sunflower Rapeseed Olives

5 Rapeseed Olives Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Soya Rapeseed

6 Sunflower Sunflower Sunflower Soya Rapeseed Rapeseed Sunflower Rapeseed Rapeseed Rapeseed Sunflower Rapeseed Soya

Table 13.5  Types of areal structure characterising the cultivation of oil-producing crops, 2018 Name of type Rape-sunflower Olive-rape with participation of sunflower Pre-eminent sunflower with participation of rape Soya-rape with participation of sunflower Extreme rape Extreme rape Sunflower with participation of rape Extreme rape Extreme rape Extreme rape Sunflower with participation of rape Rape with participation of sunflower and soya Rape-soya with participation of olive

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191

apples that prevails. It is notably only in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania that an important role in the fruit-growing structure is played by both vines and apple-trees. The countries in question thus represent a specific kind of transition zone between the fruit-growing structure typical for the southern part of the region (where apples do not play a major role) and that typical for its northern area, in which there is no larger-scale cultivation of vines (Table 13.6). In spite of the broad diversity of fruit trees constituting an admixture for vines and/or apple trees in the region’s different countries, there are certain spatial principles to be noted here too. In the south-east of the region, the cultivation of vines is accompanied to a significant degree by stone fruits like plums and sweet cherries. In Slovenia and Croatia, these are augmented to the largest extent by nuts, in this case walnuts and hazelnuts. In contrast, soft fruit plays a key role in countries whose crop-growing structure reveals a prevalence of apples. While in Poland a major role in the structure is played by strawberries and currants, in the Baltic countries it is large shares taken by currants and berries that are a characteristic feature. As among the EU 17, so in the region of the CEECs there is diversified growing of legumes, albeit with peas playing the most major role in both cases. In the EU-17 area broad beans occupy a similar area to peas, even though the former species does not really play a significant role in the region under analysis. Beans and lupins take decidedly larger shares here. It further needs stressing that the different CEECs differ greatly when it comes to the breakdown by area noted for legume crops. Unlike with the types of crop referred to above, the specifics in different countries are more dependent on tradition than on natural conditions. Peas are markedly dominant in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as in Romania. Equally, in Croatia and Slovenia they are of relatively limited significance, giving way to beans. The latter are markedly dominant in the crop structure noted in Latvia, even though in neighbouring Estonia and Lithuania the crop is grown over a much smaller area than peas. Furthermore, throughout the central and south-eastern parts of the region no more-major role is played. There is an uneven distribution when it comes to the growing of lupins (the third most important element to the region’s legume-crop structure). While the cultivation of this species in Poland accounts for a larger area than all of the other legumes, in no other country is the share of lupin within the overall structure of any significance. Likewise, the growing of other kinds of legume only has major significance in one of the CEECs, with no greater role whatever played in any of the others. Examples here might be chickpeas, which are dominant among the legumes grown in Bulgaria; as well as green peas, which are the most-grown of all the legumes where Hungary is concerned. A key role – if also very confined spatially – is played by the asparagus bean, green bean and carob. The shares of these are only more significant in Croatia, with green beans also present in neighbouring Slovenia (Table 13.7). In the case of the vegetables grown in the CEECs, the areal structure is very much differentiated in spatial terms – more so than in the EU-17. In these two compared regions the key crops include tomatoes, present in a further quotient in the CEECs; as well as onions – which here form one of the earlier quotients. In turn, a

Consecutive quotient 1 2 Grape Apple Grape Grape Grape Grape Grape Grape Grape Grape Apple Berries Grape Grape Apple Apple Apple Berry Apple Apple Grape Grape Grape Grape Grape Grape

Source: authors’ own elaboration

Area CEECs EU-17 Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

3 Grape Grape Grape Grape Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple Plum Grape Grape

4 Apple Almond Cherry Walnut Grape Berries Grape Apple Apple Strawberry Grape Apple Grape

Table 13.6  Types of areal structure characterising fruit-growing, 2018 5 Grape Grape Grape Grape Grape Apple Grape Currant Berry Currant Apple Grape Grape

6 Plum Grape Plum Hazelnut Apple Currant Apple Others Apple Apple Grape Grape Grape

Name of type Grape-apple with participation of plum Pre-eminent grape with participation of almond Grape with participation of sweet cherry and plum Grape with participation of walnut and hazelnut Grape with participation of apple Apple-berry with participation of currant Grape with participation of apple Apple with participation of currant and other fruit Apple with participation of berry Apple with participation of strawberry and currant Grape with participation of plum and apple Pre-eminent grape with participation of apple Extreme grape

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193

Table 13.7  Types of areal structure characterising legume-growing, 2018 Area CEECs

Consecutive quotient 1 2 3 Pea Pea Bean

4 Pea

5 Others

6 Name of type Lupine Pea-bean-lupin-­ mixed EU-17 Pea Broad Pea Others Broad Pea Pea-broad bean bean bean-mixed Bulgaria Chickpea Chickpea Pea Chickpea Chickpea Pea Chickpea with participation of pea Croatia Bean Cow pea Bean Green Green Carob Mixed with bean pea prevalence of bean Czechia Pea Pea Pea Pea Pea Others Pre-eminent pea with participation of other legumes Estonia Pea Bean Pea Pea Bean Pea Pea with participation of bean Hungary Green Pea Green Pea Green Green Green pea with pea pea pea pea participation of pea Latvia Bean Bean Bean Pea Bean Bean Pre-eminent bean with participation of pea Lithuania Pea Bean Pea Pea Bean Pea Pea with participation of bean Poland Others Lupin Others Lupin Others Pea Lupin-mixed with participation of pea Romania Pea Pea Pea Pea Pea Pea Extreme pea Slovakia Pea Pea Pea Pea Pea Pea Extreme pea Slovenia Bean Green Pea Bean Green Pea Mixed with bean bean prevalence of bean, green bean and pea Source: author’s own elaboration

largest difference between the breakdowns by area for the two regions lies in the fact that cabbage occupies a large area of cropland in the CEECs, even as it fails to find a place among the most-popular vegetables in the EU-17. Moreover, in the CEECs such most-popular vegetables include hot pepper and carrots as well as rape, while in “Western” Europe, key further species are cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce and chicory. While lettuce + chicory indeed represents a key element of the crop structure to be noted for Slovenia (where the pairing accounts for the largest area of any vegetable grown), cauliflower does not have the most important role in any of the 11 states analysed. As the areal structure characterising the vegetable crops grown in different countries of the region is also highly differentiated, there is a prevalence here of different mixed-type variants. It is most typical for a key role to be played by cabbage, with this only lacking from all 6 quotients in the case of the Czech Republic (even though lesser significance can be said to apply to Slovakia and Bulgaria as well). In contrast, areas for cabbage that are the largest associated with any vegetable apply to

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the Baltic countries, as well as southernmost states in the region, i.e. Croatia and Romania. The onion proves to be of equal significance, though in its case it is hard to point to any particular spatial regularities. It is not present among any of the first six quotients describing either Estonia or Hungary, while the largest area assigned to any vegetable characterises this species in Slovakia, with a very important role also being played in the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria. In turn, tomato-­ growing does show a degree of spatial concentration in the southern part of the region. It accounts for a larger area than does any other cultivated vegetable in Bulgaria, while also playing an important structural role in all of the southern CEECs. Moreover, this has traditionally been a popular crop across the entire area of what was once the Kingdom of Hungary – hence the status as an exceptionally key element in both modern-day Hungary itself and Slovakia. A still-greater concentration is to be noted for paprika, which is not a significant item within the crop structure of most countries in the region, in its northern part in particular. Hot pepper (otherwise chilli) is one of the more-important elements to vegetable-growing in the Czech Republic and Romania, while sweet paprika is relevant to Bulgaria and Croatia. In turn, carrot-growing is of greater significance to the structure in countries of the region’s north. This is a key element to the structure in Baltic countries and in Poland, as well as in Hungary, where more space is occupied by this species than by any other vegetable. Among the other species, cucumbers and gherkins sometimes play the most important role, and can be seen as an important element of the crop structure characterising Poland (Table 13.8). A description of “not very diverse, but differentiated spatially” might be applied to the areal structure of the drugs and spices grown in the CEECs. In comparison with the states of the EU-17, the region stands out in the more-limited prevalence of poppies and tobacco, as well as the greater significance between the two of the former, when it comes to the area under cultivation. From among the other species yielding spices and drugs, a key structural element is mustard, along with such umbellifers as anise, fennel and coriander. Unlike in the agriculture of the EU-17, in only a small part of this region does the cultivation of hops play any more major role. In general, the CEECs feature a mixed type of structure where the growing of drugs and spices is concerned, with different shares of the various species accounted for. A mixed and relatively evenly-spread structure prevails in the central and southern parts of the region, with the former (along with Romania) associated with a leading role for the production of poppy seed. In turn, in the southern part, a more major role – relatively speaking – is played by tobacco (in Bulgaria and Croatia in particular), as well as umbellifers (especially in Bulgaria and Romania). In contrast, mustard is a more or less important element in almost all of the region’s countries. Moreover, in Bulgaria, hot peppers have a key role to play, while Hungary specialises in several other less-popular spices (Table 13.9). Some CEECs manifest a very distinct specialisation in the growing of these kinds of plants, and this is seen to be linked to the level of development of particular branches among the agricultural and food-processing industries. An example here might be Slovenia, in which the clearly-dominant item among the drugs and spices is the hop, whose cultivation in other CEECs does not in fact occupy larger areas of

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Table 13.8  Types of areal structure characterising vegetable-growing, 2018 Area CEECs EU-17 Bulgaria Croatia

Consecutive quotient 1 2 3 Cabbage Onion Tomato Other Tomato fresh Other Tomato fresh Cabbage Other fresh

Other fresh Onion

Chilli green Onion

5 6 Other fresh Carrot

Name of type Mixed

Cauliflower Lettuce

Mixed

Other fresh Cabbage

Mixed

Czechia

Other fresh

Chilli dry

Onion

Estonia

Other fresh

Other fresh

Cabbage Carrot

Hungary

Other fresh Other fresh

Other Carrot fresh Cabbage Carrot

Onion

Other fresh

Lithuania Other fresh

Cabbage Carrot

Onion

Other fresh

Poland

Cabbage Onion

Carrot

Other fresh

Mixed with prevalence of cabbage Other Hot pepper-­ fresh mixed with participation of onion Other Mixed with fresh participation of cabbage and carrot Tomato Carrot-cabbage-­ tomato-mixed Cabbage Mixed with prevalence of cabbage Cabbage Mixed with prevalence of cabbage Cucumber Mixed

Cabbage Tomato

Onion

Chilli dry

Cabbage

Other fresh

Cabbage

Tomato

Carrot

Onion

Latvia

Other fresh Romania Chilli dry

Chilli green

4 Chilli dry Onion

Other fresh

Chilli dry

Other fresh

Cabbage Other fresh

Slovakia

Onion

Tomato

Onion

Slovenia

Lettuce

Other fresh

Cabbage Lettuce

Source: authors’ own elaborations

Cabbage

Tomato

Mixed with prevalence of hot pepper and cabbage Mixed with prevalence of onion and tomato Mixed with prevalence of lettuce

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Table 13.9  Types of areal structure characterising drug- and spice-growing, 2018 Area CEECs

Consecutive quotient 1 2 3 4 Poppy Tobacco Mustard Poppy seed seed

EU-17

Tobacco Poppy seed

Bulgaria

Anise

Croatia

Tobacco Poppy seed Poppy Poppy seed seed

Czechia

Hungary

Poppy seed

Tobacco Hop

Tobacco Anise

5 Anise

Tobacco

Mustard Tobacco

Tobacco Poppy seed Mustard Poppy seed

Mustard Tobacco Poppy seed

Tobacco Poppy seed Anise

Lithuania Anise Anise Poland Tobacco Tobacco Mustard Romania Poppy seed

Anise Anise Anise Tobacco Tobacco Tobacco Poppy Anise Mustard seed

Slovakia

Mustard Poppy seed Hop Hop

Slovenia

Mustard Poppy seed Hop Hop

Mustard Hop

6 Name of type Tobacco Mixed with prevalence of poppy seed and tobacco Poppy Tobacco-poppy seed seed with participation of hop Pepper Mixed with prevalence of umbellifer and tobacco Poppy Tobacco-poppy seed seed Mustard Poppy seed with participation of mustard Others Mixed with prevalence of poppy seed Anise Extreme umbellifer Tobacco Extreme tobacco Poppy Poppy seed-mustard seed with participation of umbellifer Poppy Mustard-poppy seed seed Hop Extreme hop

Source: authors’ own elaboration

land at the present time. Even in the Czech Republic – a country renowned for its long brewing tradition – hops cannot be viewed as playing a more major role within the category of crop plant under analysis. Thus concentration within the structure noted for drug- and spice-growing is first and foremost a feature of the region’s northern countries. For example, the structure present in Poland is dominated by tobacco, while that in Lithuania is oriented towards umbellifers. Where the other two Baltic countries are concerned, plants in this category do not play any major role whatsoever. While the fibre-producing crops do not play a more major role in the region’s overall crop-growing structure, they do offer an interesting example of polarisation of trends relating to it, on the scale of both the whole EU (the CEECs versus the EU-17), and within the region. Only two kinds of plant within this category are of greater significance, so there is no differentiation to such a dual structure. Spatially speaking, there is a clear contrast only partially explicable by reference to natural conditions. While among the EU-17 states it is flax that is the fibre-generating crop

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197

that dominates in areal terms, in the CEECs this only supplements the cultivation of hemp to a limited degree. Hemp is certainly the basic crop grown for its fibre where the region’s central part extending from the Czech Republic via Hungary to Romania is concerned. At the same time, flax is the decided dominant in the northernmost part of the region (Estonia and Latvia) as well as in the far south (Bulgaria), and in Slovakia. In Lithuania, as well as Croatia and Slovenia, the growing of plants to produce fibres does not now occur on any larger scale. Poland is the only country in which hemp- and flax-growing is in relative balance (in terms of area planted) (Table 13.10). The main crop within the “bulb and root” category proves to be the potato, and this is true of both the CEECs and the EU-17. From among the CEECs, it is only in Slovenia that other plant species in this category represent a major admixture within the structure. In turn, among the plants grown for their sugar content it is sugar beet that predominates throughout the EU and in different countries of our region. However, it is worth recalling that, in the cases of Bulgaria, Slovenia and Estonia, the cultivation of crops in this category has been resigned from altogether. The structure characterising the livestock population in the CEECs resembles that in the EU-17, though a major difference reflects the greater role for chickens, at the expense of cattle. More-marked differences arise from country to country within the region, though most of these concern the proportions between the three main structural components. Cattle represent the main, most-important component to the overall livestock population in almost all of the CEECs, though an exception would be Hungary, in which the leading role relates to pigs. A pre-eminently cattle-type structure is apparent in the northern countries of Estonia and Latvia. A clear prevalence of cattle is also to be noted in Lithuania and the Czech Republic. In contrast, in the south of the region the role of cattle within countries’ data-breakdowns for livestock is diversified less uniformly. While Slovenia has a clearer dominance of cattle than any other CEEC, the livestock farming pursued in Romania is seen to have a mixed structure, with only a slight predominance of cattle (Table 13.11). In a similar way, pigs represent a key structural component, but one that nevertheless shows a high degree of spatial differentiation. Equally, Hungary is the only country in which pigs prevail over cattle, though in Bulgaria they take the place, not only of bovines, but also of chickens. The same is true of Romania, though there pigs account for a far smaller share of the livestock population than do cattle and chickens. In turn, in Croatia and Poland, pigs and cattle are comparable structural elements. Pigs are of most limited importance in the Baltic countries, as well as Slovakia and Slovenia. Chickens prove to be of greatest significance within the populations of livestock raised in Slovakia, as well as the south of the region. But in general, the birds represent a key structural component in most of the CEECS barring Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia – in which cattle are decidedly dominant with no chicken appearing in any of the 6 consecutive quotients. Other animals appearing within the analysed structure are basically just sheep – as within the breakdown of data for Bulgaria, where the species actually plays a rather limited role.

Consecutive quotient 1 2 Hemp Hemp Flax Flax Flax Flax Hemp Hemp Flax Flax Hemp Hemp Flax Flax Flax Hemp Hemp Hemp Flax Flax

Source: authors’ own elaboration

Area CEECs EU-17 Bulgaria Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Poland Romania Slovakia

3 Hemp Flax Flax Hemp Flax Hemp Flax Flax Hemp Flax

4 Hemp Flax Flax Hemp Flax Hemp Flax Hemp Hemp Flax

5 Flax Flax Flax Hemp Flax Hemp Flax Flax Hemp Flax

6 Hemp Flax Flax Hemp Flax Hemp Flax Hemp Hemp Flax

Table 13.10  Types of areal structure characterising the growing of fibre-producing crops, 2018 Name of type Pre-eminent hemp with participation of flax Extreme flax Extreme flax Extreme hemp Extreme flax Extreme hemp Extreme flax Flax-hemp Extreme hemp Extreme flax

198 13  An Identification of Directions of Change in Agriculture in the CEECs

Consecutive quotient 1 2 Cattle Pig Cattle Pig Cattle Cattle Cattle Pig Cattle Cattle Cattle Cattle Pig Cattle Cattle Cattle Cattle Cattle Cattle Pig Cattle Chicken Cattle Chicken Cattle Cattle

Source: author’s own elaboration

Area CEECs EU-17 Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

3 Chicken Cattle Chicken Chicken Pig Pig Chicken Cattle Cattle Chicken Pig Cattle Cattle

4 Cattle Cattle Pig Cattle Cattle Cattle Pig Cattle Chicken Cattle Sheep Pig Cattle

5 Cattle Chicken Sheep Pig Chicken Cattle Cattle Pig Pig Cattle Cattle Cattle Cattle

Table 13.11  Types of structure characterising livestock populations, 2018 6 Pig Pig Cattle Cattle Cattle Cattle Chicken Cattle Cattle Pig Chicken Chicken Pig

Name of type Cattle-pig with participation of chickens Cattle-pig with participation of chickens Cattle-chicken-pig-sheep Cattle-pig with participation of chickens Cattle with participation of pigs and chickens Pre-eminent cattle with participation of pigs Mixed with a prevalence of pigs, cattle and chickens Pre-eminent cattle with participation of pigs Cattle with participation of chickens and pigs Cattle-pig with participation of chickens Mixed with prevalence of cattle and chickens Cattle-chicken with participation of pigs Pre-eminent cattle with participation of pigs

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Chapter 14

An Attempt at Scenarios for the Future of Agriculture in the CEECs

The future represents more and more popular subject matter for research, first and foremost in the face of widespread fear or concern as regards trends for climate change. However, other key issues of a more sociological, cultural and economic nature related to the ageing society and issues with handovers between the generations. Rural studies tend to focus in on analysis of the variability characterising future socioeconomic phenomena, as well as evaluation of possible directions and trends as regards different sectors of the economy and differing spatial scales (Hogan and Young 2013; Shucksmith 2012; Paul 2013; Ekands and Praestholm 2008). These kinds of study are above all of a social/societal profile, looking into changes of social and demographic structure (Goux-Baudiment et al. 2011; Kimura 2010; Scott et al. 2011). In general, work relating to the farming sector is focused on identifying and assessing possible changes of climate (Bański and Błażejczyk 2006; Gregory et al. 2005; Iglesias et al. 2009; Kozyra and Górski 2004; Mader et al. 2008). As an earlier part of the present work emphasised, there is no branch of the economy as dependent on climate and atmospheric phenomena as agriculture, with the effect that farmers have no option but to seek out new solutions and methods of production. Unfortunately, however, out state of knowledge on the possible consequences of climate change for food security and socioeconomic conditioning is fragmentary. And where it does exist, it related primarily to selected regions and/or individual cases (Dalla Marta et al. 2015; Kazandijev et al. 2011; Salinger et al. 2000). Increased productive potential in the zone of temperate climates will most probably allow for – and usher in – far-reaching change when it comes to ways of managing land. The structure describing crops planted will most likely change in line with a (further) decline in the role played by both potatoes and rye, whose ranges will be able to extend far to the north. Should optimistic assumptions come true, it will be possible to have grass-eating livestock grazing out of doors year-round. In turn, twice-yearly harvests of some crops may prove possible. Opportunities to supply more fodder will arise out of possibilities to sandwich the cultivation of given © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_14

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crops with both forecrops and aftercrops. At the same time, it will be necessary to square up to the possible even-more regular occurrence of extreme weather phenomena, which may put production at high risk from time to time, possibly erasing the chances “improved” climate might offer for increased production. Certainly, temperature rise in the south is likely to be associated with a further reduction in precipitation totals, with the so-called steppification then ensuing. Attempts to continue as before in the face of the change will risk degrading the environment, with valuable natural features lost in the process, and rational management made even more difficult. Future changes in agriculture in the CEECs that reflects climate change are actually just part (if an important part) of wider issues that bring together anticipated processes and phenomena in the economic, socio-demographic, political and regulatory sphere. And only if account is taken of all of these will a full depiction of the region’s future agricultural economy prove possible. Upcoming programming and strategic decision-making in various spheres of life will need to be based firmly on scientifically-characterised natural, social and economic phenomena. One of the potential elements in any research procedure is that seeking to plan events by reference to a variety of proposed alternative solutions or scenarios that can be deemed more or less probable (Gierszewska and Romanowska 2009). These may be assembled in line with very varied principles, but in essence it is possible to identify four approaches as these are being drawn up (Kuhlman et al. 2006). The first of these entails an extrapolation of current trends, the second an wish to draw on expert knowledge, the third an integrated approach to the description of future reality, and the fourth an innovative solution making use of the three approaches referred to. Scenarios may be exploratory or anticipatory in nature, where the former approach entails the logical formulation of sequences of events that lead to a possible future, albeit with account taken of key trends at work in the surroundings. In turn, in the latter case we take on board one depiction of the future or another (a kind of “vision”), and then look at events capable of impacting upon reality in such a way that the depicted future scenario is actually arrived at. In this study, it is the first type (of the exploratory scenario) that is made use of, with estimates therefore made of the likelihood that defined trends will arise, and taken together with view on the impacts exerted should this happen – in this case when it comes to the farming sector in the CEECs of the future. The further development of this train of thought involved the identification of five spheres whereby impact on agriculture is indeed exerted. It was then acknowledged that each of these spheres might contain indications as regards anticipated events, processes and phenomena. What are involved here are the spheres that can be termed economic, legal and financial, political, socio-demographic and natural. Within each of these the key events and phenomena analysed were those viewed by experts as doing most to influence and impact upon the farming sector that will present in the CEECs in the future (Fig. 14.1). The method applied provides for the development of four types of scenario:

14  An Attempt at Scenarios for the Future of Agriculture in the CEECs

203

Fig. 14.1 Spheres encompassing factors that impact upon agricultural sector. (Source: authors’ own elaboration)

• optimistic – whereby account is taken of trends most favourable to the development of agriculture; • pessimistic  – in contradistinction to the above and with the least-favourable trends in farming taken account of; • most-probable – otherwise definable as most realistic; • “surprise” – whereby chance is taken account of, as well as least-probable trends for change in the agriculture sector (as resigned from in the context of the present study). Given the nature of the work, a major role in the generation of the scenarios in question has been played by the knowledge and experience of the experts chosen, as they identify and appraise the factors that are to shape the agricultural sector over the next 10 years. The experts in question represent relevant academic centres in six of the CEECs, and their research interests centre around social geography, including in particular rural geography and the geography of agriculture.1 The procedure by which scenarios were developed was of three stages, though each stage comprised a number of steps. The first stage involved the identification of the key events, phenomena and factors expected to shape the future of farming in the CEECs. The experts were able to propose four components each, for each of the 6 spheres of impact on the agriculture sector referred to above. The second stage then entailed an assessment of the impact on the farming sector in line with three possible trends, i.e. upward or downward, or else the absence of a trend taken to denote stabilisation. The first step in the above stage then saw assessments made of the impacts with each of the three possible trends, with the scale applied being from −5 (a very negative impact) to +5 (a very positive impact). A second step then entailed an indication of the probability of occurrence of defined trends, albeit with

 Expert 1  – Antonin Vaishar (Mendel University, Brno, CZECHIA), Expert 2  – Ioan Ionas (Bucharest University, ROMANIA), Expert 3  – Jezsef Lennert (Institute for Regional Studies, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, HUNGARY), Expert 4  – Jerzy Bański (Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences, POLAND), Expert 5 – Boian Koulov (National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, BULGARIA), Expert 6 – Donatas Bruneika (Vilnius University – LITHUANIA). 1

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the value for the probability within each component needing to add up to 1. A third stage saw scenarios formulated. In line with the optimistic version, it was trends most favourable for agriculture that were taken account of within each indicated component. In turn, under the pessimistic scenario what were selected were the least-favourable trends. That left the most-probable scenario, which involved – in relation to each component – trends selected that attained probability values.

 henomena and Factors Shaping the Future P of the Agriculture Sector The experts identified a diverse range of economic conditioning, albeit with two main groups to the fore. One of these related to the demand for what agriculture produces, as well as the associated issues of competitiveness on the market for food and opportunities for export. The second group in turn linked up with the sizes of entities engaged in production, plus the possibilities for these to grow further, and also therefore scale up production. The nature of what is produced on a farm obviously links up with this group of factors. The experts drew attention to the way in which the development of agriculture in the CEECs will depend, not only on the possibility for farms as production units to be expanded, but also on the related automation, capitalisation and modernisation of the production processes. The features in question are thus those typical for industrial-scale farming and mass production, yet activity of this nature does not really coincide with the trends we observe at present in Western agriculture, or indeed the farm policy of the EU as it is being shaped  – given the emphasis of the latter on diversified on-farm activity, environment-friendly means and methods of production, healthy food, and even a reduction where the generation of certain types of produce or products is concerned. It is thus possible that this distinct approach taken by the experts, when it comes to proposed forms and methods of production, reflects the need to address the CEECs’ lagging behind for some decades in regard to both the productivity and efficiency of the agriculture sector. What are at stake here in particular are disparities persisting through to the present time when it comes to yields, the efficiency of labour and the mechanisation of production (Table 14.1). Where socio-demographic conditioning is concerned the focus is around three matters, i.e. (1) the level of employment on farms, (2) changes in the age structure of the rural population, and (3) migration out of rural areas. In the individual cases, attention was paid to the level of education of farm owners in areas in which social exclusion seemed to be taking hold. There was something of a consensus among the experts regarding the need for employment in farming to fall, even as the impact of

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205

Table 14.1  Identification of economic factors and assessment of their influence on the future of the agriculture sector as perceived by the experts Expert Factor Expert 1 Limited creation of added value

Modernisation of agriculture

Major dependence on EU subsidies

Foreign competition

Expert 2 Size of farms

Capitalisation of farms

Farmers’ professionalism

Employment in agriculture

Expert 3 Change in GDP per capita

Employment rate

Automation in agriculture

Production of renewable energy

Trend Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease

Impact −5 −3 +2 +4 +2 −5 −5 −3 +1 −3 −1 +2 +4 +1 −1 +5 −1 −4 +3 +1 −2 +2 +1 −3 +3 +1 −2 −3 −1 +1 +4 −2 −4 −2 −1 +2

Probability 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.5 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.1 0.8 0.1 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.1 0.6 0.3 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.5 0.4 0.1 (continued)

this on the development agriculture could not be evaluated with the same degree of unanimity. A very negative assessment was ascribed to the problem of the ageing rural society typical across Europe – whose probability of continuation was very high, according to the experts. Needing to be assigned a similarly high probability

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Table 14.1 (continued) Expert Factor Expert 4 Industrialisation of agricultural production

Size of farms

Level of GDP in the country

Food export

Expert 5 Market demand

Supply of industrial inputs

Domestic resources

Land availability

Expert 6 Prices of agricultural products

Grain and other agricultural production in Eastern Europe Production costs (salaries, fertilisers, fuel...)

Growth of niche consumer markets in Lithuania and abroad

Trend Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease

Impact +4 +1 −3 +4 −2 −4 +5 −2 −5 +3 +1 −3 +5 +2 −5 +4 +1 −2 +5 +2 −1 +5 +1 +3 −4 +2 +4 −4 +1 +1 −2 +1 +3 +3 +1 −2

Probability 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.8 0.1 0.1 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.2 0.5 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.6 0.2 0.2

Source: author’s own elaboration

is the phenomenon of sustained outflow of population from rural areas, which is again assessed very negatively (Table 14.2). When it came to the natural conditioning likely to be exerting its impact on agriculture in the upcoming decade, it was on more-ecological farming that the experts focused, as well as the shaping of optimal soil conditions, changed climatic conditions and water management. But that said, the experts differed considerably in the way they assessed both the trends for and the impacts of the various factors. In general, what they foresee is a rise in the significance of agriculture when it comes

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Table 14.2  The identification of socio-demographic factors and assessment of their influence on the future of the agriculture sector as perceived by the experts Expert Factor Expert 1 Loss of attitude to land as ancestral heritage

Trend Growth Stabilisation Decrease Stabilisation of workforce Growth Stabilisation Decrease Dependence of rural development on agriculture Growth Stabilisation Decrease Expert 2 Labour force Growth Stabilisation Decrease Depopulation Growth Stabilisation Decrease Poverty Growth Stabilisation Decrease In-migration Growth Stabilisation Decrease Expert 3 Depopulation of rural areas Growth Stabilisation Decrease Ageing of rural population Growth Stabilisation Decrease Socio-economic inequalities (Gini index) Growth Stabilisation Decrease Conscious consumption Growth Stabilisation Decrease Expert 4 Ageing of rural society Growth Stabilisation Decrease Migration outflow from rural areas Growth Stabilisation Decrease Level of farmer education Growth Stabilisation Decrease Employment opportunities on the farm Growth Stabilisation Decrease

Impact −5 −4 +4 +4 +2 −3 +3 +1 −3 −1 +2 −1 −4 −1 +2 −3 −2 +1 +2 −1 −2 −5 −3 −1 −5 −2 +1 −3 −1 +2 +2 +1 −1 −4 +1 +3 −3 +1 +2 +3 −1 −3 +3 +1 −3

Probability 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.6 0.7 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.2 0.5 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.45 0.35 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.5 0.3 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.5 (continued)

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Table 14.2 (continued) Expert Factor Expert 5 Rural population

Level of employment

Population age

Level of social infrastructure in rural areas

Expert 6 Ageing of rural population

Emigration

Social inequality in rural areas

Inflow of urban population (suburbanisation)

Trend Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease Growth Stabilisation Decrease

Impact +2 −1 +5 +4 −1 +1 −3 +3 +5 +4 +2 −2 −4 +1 +2 −3 +4 +2 +2 +1 −2 −4 +1 +1

Probability 0.1 0.2 0.7 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.5 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.1

Source: authors’ own elaboration

to the generation of green energy and more environment-friendly production, even as this is seen to rather contradict the economic factors referred to earlier. For it is assumed that levels of agricultural output will rise, also in connection with industrialisation of the food sector. Mentioned among the kinds of natural conditioning posing a challenge to farming are the degradation of farmland induced by the excessive use of chemicals, as well as the transfer of land out of farming and in the direction of other economic functions, as well as the need to adapt what farmers grow or raise to changing climatic conditions and attendant issues with the supply of water (Table 14.3). When it comes to the impact of political conditioning, it is possible to suggest that the experts felt the impact of relevant factors in shaping farming in the CEECs would be more limited. They drew attention to: (1) political representatives standing up for the interests of rural areas and agriculture, (2) the significance of farm policy in EU Member States and its modification in line with policy priorities as regards energy, climate, exports and so on, and (3) internal and external competition on the market for food. In most cases, the expert assessments suggested that stabilisation was the main trend anticipated (Table 14.4).

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Table 14.3  The identification of natural factors and assessment of their influence on the future of the agriculture sector as perceived by the experts Expert Expert 1

Factor Devastation of soils

Use of chemical matters

Ecological farming in LFA

Expert 2

Environmental education of farmers

Rational land exploitation

Optimal and correct application of fertilisers

Agricultural waste management

Expert 3

Suburbanisation/urban sprawl

Development of transport infrastructure

Climate change (more frequent)

Development of irrigation systems

Expert 4

Importance of green energy

Protected areas

Livestock epidemics

Extreme climatic events

Trend Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease

Impact −5 −3 +3 −4 −2 +2 +3 +1 −3 +3 +1 −2 +2 +1 −2 +4 −1 −3 +3 −2 −3 −4 −2 −1 −2 −1 +1 −4 −2 −1 +5 +3 −1 +3 +2 −1 −3 +1 +2 −3 +1 +3 −4 −1 +3

Probability 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.2 0.7 0.1 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.3 0.6 0.1 (continued)

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Table 14.3 (continued) Expert Expert 5

Factor Relief

Local climate

Availability of fresh water

Soil quality

Expert 6

Reduction of CO2 emissions

Development of a network of protected areas

Soil depletion

Regulations on the use of agrochemicals

Trend Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease

Impact −4 +5 −5 −4 +5 −5 −5 +3 +5 +1 +3 −2 −3 +1 +3 −3 −1 +2 −4 −1 +4 −3 +1 +2

Probability 0.1 0.8 0.1 0.1 0.8 0.1 0.1 0.4 0.5 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.5 0.4 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.6 0.3 0.1

Source: authors’ own elaboration

Table 14.4  The identification of political factors and assessment of their influence on the future of the agriculture sector as perceived by the experts Expert Factor Trend Expert 1 Level of political representation of the countryside Growth and agriculture Stabilization Decrease Growth Tensions relating to ministerial portfolios Stabilization (agricultural. environmental. regional Decrease development) Expert 2 Citizen participation in local self-governance Growth Stabilization Decrease National rural policies Growth Stabilization Decrease Rural political elites Growth Stabilization Decrease European regulations on the agricultural market Growth Stabilization Decrease

Impact +4 −3 −4 −3 −1 +2 +3 −1 −2 +2 +1 −2 +1 −1 −1 −1 +1 −1

Probability 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.2 0.6 0.2 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.5 0.3 0.2 (continued)

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Table 14.4 (continued) Expert Factor Expert 3 Emphasis on nature conservation

Emphasis on adaptation to climate change

Free-market approaches

Support for international labour migration

Expert 4 Regional conflicts

“Three Seas’ Initiative” idea

Number of EU Member States

Level of dependence on EU policies

Expert 5 Internal stability

International markets

Foreign policy

Level of centralisation/monopolisation

Expert 6 Change of CAP in a more liberal direction

Growth of role of regional policy in rural development in Lithuania Shift of ruling parties to more pro-urban attitudes

Loss of ruling party of Peasants and Greens in forthcoming parliamentary elections in 2020 Source: authors’ own elaboration

Trend Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease

Impact −1 +1 −2 +3 −1 −4 −2 +1 −2 +2 −1 −3 −4 +1 +4 +3 +1 −2 +3 +1 −1 −2 +1 +1 +5 +3 −5 +5 +3 −4 +3 +4 −1 −3 +1 +5 −2 +1 +3 +3 +2 −2 −2 −1 +2 +1 +1 −1

Probability 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.1 0.7 0.2 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.5 0.2 0.3

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Within the category of regulatory and financial conditioning, the experts pointed to access to funding under EU policy for agriculture and the development of rural areas, regulations as regards land management, and the bureaucracy and regulatory requirements associated with the running of a farm. Assessments imply that the impacts of such trends set against one another will be rather major, making it clear that the experts assign considerable weight to challenges arising out of financial and regulatory conditioning (Table 14.5). Table 14.5  The identification of regulatory and financial factors and assessment of their influence on the future of the agriculture sector as perceived by the experts Expert Factor Expert 1 Protection of agricultural land

Confused legislation – Many laws, frequent changes, bureaucracy Expert 2 Farmers’ access to credit

Legislation supporting agriculture

Land grabs

Fiscal erosion

Expert 3 Financial support for modernisation

EU agricultural subsidies

Land-use regulations/constraints

Land-purchase regulations

Expert 4 EU support for agriculture

Regulatory facilitation for agriculture

Level of bureaucracy

Trend Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease Growth Stabilization Decrease

Impact +3 −3 −4 −4 −3 +3 +3 −1 −2 +4 +1 −3 −4 −2 +3 −3 −2 +3 +4 −1 −3 −1 +3 +1 +3 −1 −2 −2 +1 −2 +5 +3 −5 +3 −1 −3 −3 −1 +3

Probability 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.1 0.3 0.6 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.1 0.2 0.6 0.2 0.5 0.3 0.2 (continued)

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Table 14.5 (continued) Expert Factor Expert 5 National regulatory framework

Trend Growth Stabilization Decrease FDI Growth Stabilization Decrease Domestic investment Growth Stabilization Decrease EU regulations Growth Stabilization Decrease Expert 6 Personal taxation of farmers (income, social Growth insurance) Stabilization Decrease More stringent regulations on using the immigrant Growth labour force Stabilization Decrease Reduction of regulations on agricultural land Growth ownership Stabilization Decrease EU support for agriculture Growth Stabilization Decrease

Impact +5 +1 −5 +5 +1 −5 +5 +1 −4 −5 −1 +5 −4 −1 +3 −2 +1 −3 +2 +1 +3 +4 +1 −3

Probability 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.4 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.2 0.6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.3

Source: author’s own elaboration

Three Scenarios The Optimistic Scenario There is a great deal of diversity to the experts’ factors identified within the five anticipated spheres of influence on the food sector. Ultimately, this gives rise to a conclusion that each CEEC represented by a different expert will see changes in farming that depend markedly on other events, processes and types of conditioning. It is nevertheless possible to discern several main groups of factors indicated by all of those involved in the work, or at least a majority of them. These would for example be climate change, the state of the Common Agricultural Policy and depopulation and/or population ageing in rural areas. Differences in the conditioning identified do reflect geographical location, but also the results of privatisation and the situation agriculture finds itself in economically in the different CEECs. There are relatively high averaged values for the strength of impact of particular different factors within the optimistic scenarios applying to each of the five

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categories studied. The most optimistic changes are to be anticipated in the regulatory/financial and economic spheres, even as the experts see least-positive impacts among the socio-demographic factors. The participants in fact express clear optimism when it comes to the favourable nature of economic factors, with these taken to arise out of modernisation, increases in food prices, greater competitiveness of agriculture in the CEECs under study, growth in productivity, financial support from the EU and a favourable CAP. In the view of the first expert, the trends most favourable to the development of rural areas are those relating to sociodemographic conditioning, as followed lower down the list by political factors, and those of a regulatory and financial nature. Where optimistic processes are assumed it is possible to anticipate a stabilisation on the agricultural labour market, an increase in the significance of the political elites hailing from rural areas – and hence of agriculture itself, legal protection of agricultural land and a limitation of red tape. In contrast, the least optimism is expressed in relation to the economic factors. The opinion supplied by the second expert differed considerably, as the most-­ favourable reference in this case is to economic conditioning. In this person’s view the leading positive impacts to be exerted on farming would relate to greater average farm size, capitalisation in agriculture and increased professionalism among farm managers. Considerable weight is also attached to favourable changes in the group of regulatory-financial as well as natural factors, with far less optimism expressed over the other two groups (socio-demographic and political). The third expert assigns the most-positive role to factors of a regulatory-financial as well as economic nature, with these taken to include EU programmes acting in support of farming, policy pursued in regard to the regulation of land use, the modernisation of farms, and general progress in the national economy. In contrast, the lowest level of optimism in this case related to natural and socio-demographic factors. The fourth expert opined in a rather similar way, though his assessment sets the impact of trends among the factors identified at a far-higher level. In the case of the economic factors what is indicated is a powerful potential effect of economic growth at the level of the country as a whole, the industrialisation of production processes in the sector, the enlargement of farms and greater opportunities for food products to be exported. When it comes to factors of a regulatory and financial nature, the expert sought to underline the significance of the not-unrelated issues of EU funding and the cutting of red tape. In turn, in the view of expert number 5, all of the groups of factors should be in a position to exert a very strong impact, providing that trends for the development of the farming sector are indeed favourable. However, this person attached rather greater significance to the group of regulatory and financial factors, with the political and economic only appearing lower down the list. Finally, the sixth and last expert expressed an opinion similar to the previous one, attaching equal weight to all five groups of factors, albeit with only a far more limited impact on agricultural management (Table 14.6).

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Table 14.6  Averaged values for the influence of factors in the different groups studied, under the optimistic scenario Group of factors Economic Socio-demographic Natural Political Regulatory and financial

Expert 1 2.25 3.67 2.67 3.00 3.00

Expert 2 3.50 1.75 3.00 1.75 3.25

Expert 3 2.50 1.00 1.00 1.75 2.75

Expert 4 4.00 2.75 2.75 2.75 3.67

Expert 5 4.75 4.50 4.50 4.75 5.00

Expert 6 2.75 2.25 2.75 2.25 2.75

Mean influence 3.29 2.65 2.78 2.71 3.40

Source: author’s own elaboration

Analysis of the conditioning underpinning the optimistic depiction of agriculture in the CEECs through to 2030 allows for the development of a most-favourable scenario for changes in the sector. This first and foremost assumes a key role for EU agricultural policy in supporting farms by way of its system of subsidy payments, as well as programmes seeking to encourage modernisation, diversification, additional business activity, a higher level of environment-friendliness and enhanced wellbeing. At the same time, a reduction in the raft of regulations is foreseen, facilitating access to financial support and limiting the currently-major role played by intermediary firms that help with the preparation of project applications. Under the scenario, regulations become more transparent and there is a reduction in the amount of time people need to acquaint themselves with these, and managers of farms then need to put them into effect. A major result of legislative change would be the securing of farmland against excessive, uncontrolled redesignation in the direction of alternative economic functions. The optimistic scenario foresees an increase in average farm size, with an attendant improvement in competitiveness, facilitation of efforts to modernise and raising of levels of production. There is a decline in employment in the agricultural sector, associated with an increase in knowledge and levels of education among farm managers. The significance of large farms engaging in mass production and industrial methods is raised, but there is a simultaneous development of environmentally friendly farms that make use of local resources and generate niche products. Farms become more multifunctional as they for example participate in the production of renewable energy, process food more, and play they part in the rendering of local services. The countryside of the future will be making greater use of alternative sources of energy – above all raw materials from forestry and agriculture – and this will raise the level of functional diversification. Specialisation in the production of food with various favourable attributes will ensure that products from the CEECs will be both sought after on the domestic market and willingly purchased abroad. Country people in general and farmers in general will have a higher level of environmental awareness, and thanks to that there will be an increase in numbers of environment-friendly farms on which the use of artificial fertilisers and plant

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protection agents is curbed (i.e. optimised). The diversity of crops grown and livestock raised will be greater than before, and their level of adaptation to local conditions will be greater. Such adaptation to local conditions will help limit the impact of climatic factors (including also extreme phenomena) on agricultural production. As the water-supply system is improved, so the unfavourable influence of prolonged droughts will be limited. Economic success for farms will also ensue if the political elite acting in the name of agriculture increases in significance, and if there is improved local-­ government awareness of country-dwellers and their lives and needs. Indeed, people living in rural areas are increasingly active in NGOs and political organisations. The introduction of new, more-transparent election procedures are serving to weaken the toeing of the different party lines within local authorities, ensuring the breakup of coteries existing in certain regions and apparently dedicated to the furthering of local politicians’ own interests first and foremost. Other regulations and procedures will also help curb nepotism and cronyism locally. With new CEECs acceding to the EU, our region’s clout vis-à-vis the pursuit of Community policies will go on increasing. At the same time, there will be some further curbing of the role of the EU in shaping domestic legal and administrative procedures. Equally, the Union’s role must be seen as increasing when it comes to programmes of adaptation to climate change and efforts to reduce pollutant emissions, with the significance of green energy raised, further efforts made to limit monopolies, and so on. Rural population will go on declining slowly as the region urbanises further, city limits extend outwards and natural increase continues at a low level. However, a stemming of out-migrations to the towns and cities may be anticipated as transport access goes on improving and infrastructure also becomes steadily better. The rural areas in close proximity to cities will continue to be colonised by active, entrepreneurial former city-dwellers. This will be enough to shift the age structure in “rural” areas in a more favourable direction, even if this change will be a spatially selective one primarily involving suburbs and satellite villages. The processes referred to will raise the level of social capital in rural areas and reduce social exclusion, social ills, and other negative phenomena.

The Pessimistic Scenario The average level of impact of the negative trends for different factors the pessimistic scenario takes account of will be greater than in the optimistic scenario. However, most of the expert see these as relatively unlikely to occur. And, as they map out this pessimistic scenario most expert assume that the unfavourable processes ongoing in rural areas will arise out of unfavourable change of an economic, natural and regulatory/financial nature. In the view of the first expert, factors of all groups will have a very strong negative influence on farming in the region. In general terms, the unfavourable changes

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217

will reflect the sector’s declining role in the economy and its more-restricted influence when it comes to EU policy. In association with this, it is possible to anticipate a reduced level of subsidy for farms in line with the role played in generating GDP.  In turn, modernisation of agriculture that does take place will degrade the production space. The pessimistic appraisal of the second expert is likewise balanced among the five groups of factors analysed, though the impact of the unfavourable trends is deemed to be more limited. The most-negative effects may be those attributable to the regulatory and financial factors, above all financial services offered to farms. The third expert sees the most unfavourable trends within the conditioning of a socioeconomic nature. However, they will arise out of the depopulation of rural areas and the ongoing ageing process within rural society. The view is then a different one from that taken by the fourth expert, whose pessimistic scenario is most shaped by factors that are economic (weakness of the economy, as well as a low level of GDP nationally) or else regulatory and financial (involving a reduction in EU support plus bureaucracy). In turn, the most unfavourable phenomena perceived by the fifth expert link up with natural factors (i.e. unfavourable climatic conditions and hindered access to water), as well as those of a regulatory and financial nature (domestic and EU financial frameworks). Finally, in the view of the sixth expert, the pessimistic scenario will be shaped equally by economic, socio-demographic and natural factors. In contrast, the expert sees the trends in the remaining two groups as having only a limited impact on the agroeconomy (Table 14.7). The opinions from the expert allow for the development of a pessimistic scenario as follows. Most-negative changes will be those relating to regulatory-financial as well as natural factors. Anticipated under this scenario is a steady limiting of financial support available to farms across the EU. Reductions in levels of direct payments will extend to the Single Area Payment, as well as those designated for the environment, young farmers and so on; and there will also be impacts on other forms of support for farmers of both domestic and EU origin. At the same time, the level of bureaucracy will be still-higher than it has been so far, and the legislative

Table 14.7  Averaged values for the influence of factors in the different groups studied, under the pessimistic scenario Group of factors Economic Socio-demographic Natural Political Regulatory and financial

Expert 1 −4.50 −3.67 −4.00 −3.50 −4.00

Source: author’s own elaboration

Expert 2 −2.50 −2.50 −2.50 −1.50 −3.00

Expert 3 −2.75 −3.50 −2.75 −2.75 −2.00

Expert 4 −3.75 −3.25 −2.75 −2.25 −3.67

Expert 5 −1.75 −1.75 −4.25 −3.25 −4.75

Expert 6 −3.00 −3.25 −3.25 −1.75 −2.25

Mean influence −3.04 −2.99 −3.25 −2.58 −3.28

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burden imposed upon farmers will likewise be greater. Acting together, factors in this group will weaken farms’ economic condition and possibilities for investment, as well as increasing their need to avail of the services of advisory and intermediary firms as they seek to implement programmes of funding. The growing role of “Brussels” in determining legal procedures and enforcing the law will curb self-­ determination and encourage a further growth of the bureaucracy already seen to be “blossoming”. Suburbanisation and the development of transport infrastructure will go on reducing the area of land managed for agriculture, leading to its further devastation. There is an increase in soil contamination associated with the intensive use of fertilisers. Weatherwise, the frequency of occurrence of extreme phenomena would grow further, with unfavourable local impacts including problems with access to water. Where unfavourable economic processes are concerned, the decline in the significance of the farming sector to the economies of the CEECs would be maintained. However, this will not merely result from the dynamic development of other sectors of the economy – which it would be possible to see as something positive; given that it will also reflect economic degradation on farms  – as a result of the continued existence of huge numbers of small and economically-weak units, declining levels of financial support, competition with cheaper food from abroad, a low level of export of food products and spiralling costs of production. There is an intensification of the processes of outflow of country-dwellers to the towns and cities, with the result being erosion of the demographic structure in rural areas. The share of the population of “post-productive” age goes on rising, as do the numbers of people who can be regarded as poor and suffering from social exclusion. Problems with workforce shortages also begin to emerge in farming. Anticipated consequences of these processes will be a spatial polarisation in society in the countryside, not least as the contrast grows between wealthy suburban villages and impoverished peripheral ones. When it comes to political conditioning, there is seen to be a reduced level of interest in programmes acting in support of rural areas and agriculture, both domestically and at EU level. Country-dwellers fail to gain the appropriate representation in political and local-government structures that ought to attend to their interests. The internal stability of the EU anyway weakens  – to the point where certain Member States may seek to exit the Union; and there is also an intensification of regional conflicts foreseen, as well as reduced importance attached to the idea of the so-called “Three Seas” Initiative.

The Most-Probable Scenario The scenario envisaging the most probable role of the analysed group of factors is closer to equilibrium, and the values expressing their influence are generally low – in a manner that tends to confirm the experts’ rational approach when it comes to the opinions they offer. In the face of three groups of factors (economic, natural and

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219

political), it is possible to anticipate positive change in the upcoming decade, even as socioeconomic and regulatory and financial factors operate to exert negative impacts on the sector, in the area of Europe under study. The opinions of different experts nevertheless differ markedly. For example, the first perceives a relatively powerful negative influence of political factors arising out of a lack of political representation of rural areas and farming, as well as tensions reflecting conflicting remits between government officials responsible for rural-­ development policy on the one hand and agriculture on the other. The second expert then seeks to evaluate the strength of impact of different groups of factor across the −1.25 to 1.5 range – this rather being a reflection of the stabilisation of processes and phenomena ongoing in the analysed sector. In his opinion, the most-negative changes will relate to the socio-demographic situation linked with a steady and stable migratory outflow and hence with rural depopulation. In contrast, the expert anticipates a favourable change of natural conditioning entailing increased environmental awareness among farmers, as well as improved closed-cycle management within the economy. The third expert first and foremost notes the high probability of further depopulation and ageing in rural areas. An unfavourable assessment is offered when it comes to the potential processes linked to suburbanisation and the instability of climatic factors. In turn, the fourth expert anticipates very positive economic change arising out of the industrialisation of farm production, increase in average farm size, further GDP growth and a higher level of food exports achieved. There will also be favourable processes where the political conditioning is concerned, including a weakening of regional conflicts, further enlargement of the EU and a strengthening of the “Three Seas” Region. Even greater optimism is on display when it comes to the fifth expert, for whom only regulatory and financial factors would be in a position to shape negative processes over the next few years. The influence of all remaining groups of factors should be very favourable, with the strength of impact of the proposed trends on a five-point scale assigned values between the 1.75 applied to the group of political factors, through to 4.5 in the case of natural factors. The final (sixth) expert had a markedly-pessimistic opinion to offer concerning most likely trends in the agricultural sector in the CEECs. In his opinion, when it comes to natural factors we may expect degradation of soils, further-rising emissions of CO2, and a development of agrochemical regulations that hinder production. In turn, where the economic factors are concerned, there will be unfavourable results associated with a rise in prices for produce and products and an increase in production costs (Table 14.8). The experts’ averaged values for the impact of trends within the five groups of conditioning allow it to be claimed that the most-probable scenario foresees a stabilised development of the agriculture sector. The most-powerful unfavourable impact is expected to be that of regulatory and financial factors (−0.43), even as economic factors exert the most favourable impact (1.12).

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Table 14.8  Averaged values for the influence of factors in the different groups studied, under the most-probable scenario Group of factors Economic Socio-demographic Natural Political Regulatory and financial

Expert 1 Expert 2 Expert 3 Expert 4 −0.75 0.75 0.50 4.00 1.00 −1.25 −2.75 −0.75 0.00 1.50 −1.00 0.00 −2.00 0.75 1.00 2.25 −0.50 −1.00 0.00 −0.33

Expert 5 4.00 2.75 4.50 1.75 −0.5

Mean Expert 6 influence −1.75 1.12 −0.50 −0.25 −2.75 0.37 1.00 0.74 −0.25 −0.43

Source: author’s own elaboration

In line with this most-probable scenario, the next decade will bring better equipping of farms in the machines, techniques and technologies allowing them to modernise the production process. This will favour an industrialisation of farming, with average farm size increasing as the level of employment stabilises. While the role of agriculture as a generator of GDP goes on declining, its efficiency increases. However, socio-demographic processes will be negative in their consequences, first and foremost as country-dwellers move away, ensuring ongoing increase in the share of country-dwellers that are of post-productive age. The level of education of farm managers will improve, however, so rural poverty should also be in decline. But as rural areas will be home to those employed in cities, the potential social and economic disparities present in rural (especially suburban) areas will grow. Individual natural factors will have a major impact on agricultural management, but the duality of the impact is such that the overall influence exerted by this group may be minimised. On the one hand, the industrialisation of agriculture and effort to raise productivity will degrade productive space (including soil). But on the other increased environmental awareness and ecological knowledge will combine with wise use and the encompassing of further areas of land within protected areas to limit unfavourable change in the environment. Unexpected climatic phenomena plus problems with access to water will hinder production, but knowledge and experience gained will combine with remedial measures to limit the harm the unfavourable changes are able to do. Only to a very limited degree will political factors prove capable of stimulating farms’ development. New and beneficial strategic solutions helping shape rural areas and agriculture are to be expected, but there is no reason to anticipate any increase in the significance of politicians representing rural areas and farmers in their constituencies. Regulatory and financial conditioning will stabilise the situation in the sector, but it is still possible to foresee some worsening. This is mainly a matter of no further increase – or a small decline – in financial support available to farms both domestically and from the EU.

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Conclusions The average values depicting the impact of the studied group of factors offer an “objectivised” depiction of possible development in the agricultural sector of the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). A decidedly greater strength of impact characterises experts’ anticipated trends under the pessimistic or optimistic scenarios as opposed to their most-probable scenarios. In the optimistic approach there is some balance between the different factors, albeit with a greater influence expected to be exerted by economic and regulatory and financial factors. A similar situation applies to the pessimistic scenario, under which the two groups of factors referred to are joined by a stronger negative influence due to natural conditioning. Among the most-probable phenomena the experts expect are a strong influence of economic and political factors. Equally, it needs to be emphasised that the impacts of trends under the most-probable scenario are positive for three groups of conditioning, with this attesting to a general level of optimism among the experts. The depiction of agriculture in the CEECs in the next 10 years does not envisage especially far-reaching change, even as it can be hypothesised that farming will be both more diversified and more active economically. The diversity will reflect possible trends for farm production that natural conditions are able to shape. In contrast, where the social and economic features are concerned, it is possible to anticipate a reverse trend – in the direction of a more homogenous situation. A raising of the level of efficiency of production is to be anticipated everywhere, along with better outfitting in technology and technical equipment, a diversification of opportunities for export, and a raising of farmers’ levels of knowledge and education.

Chapter 15

A Presentation of the Contemporary Farm in the CEECs Using Case Studies

The changes – transformations – in farming in the CEECs that have been discussed here in the earlier chapters point to both quantitative and qualitative impacts, even as the features involved prove to be linked together quite strongly. Irrespective of specific trends for farm production, it is possible to note a concentration on large, modern and competitive farms in relation to those in other parts of Europe and the world. Thanks to socio-cultural and economic change in rural areas – together with major support from the EU – the formerly-communist CEECs have witnessed an emergence of modern, well-managed farms now comparable with their counterparts in Western Europe. Given the scale of output, size and multifunctional nature (with both produce and processed products generated and distributed, and services rendered as regards the hiring-out of farm machinery, and so on), some of these can be regarded as production enterprises. However, this must not and does not mean that only the large-scale enterprises are noteworthy – given the way that small(er) farms have also been obtaining favourable results. Examples would be farms that have undergone far-reaching specialisation or are engaged in the generation of unique product (not least health foods and organic produce). The owners in such cases have often set themselves ambitious and unusual objectives, in this way serving as fine examples to others of the entrepreneurial approaches that may be taken. In the 2018–2019 period, fieldwork was carried out in Poland, Romania and Hungary, in order to better identify, encapsulate and appreciate current developments, along with the dilemmas and challenges faced by the farms that have nevertheless achieved economic success. As the previous sentence suggests, the farms focused in on were those that had managed above-average economic development (not least in comparison with other farms in their vicinity). Extended, in-depth interviews were organised on most of the farms in question, with the result that owners’ opinions were gathered regarding current phenomena and processes associated with the transformation of agriculture

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_15

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in the wake of the fall of the communist system, as well as the opportunities and threats arising. Information in the press and online was also utilised. The selection made in Poland related to two examples of farms located in the east (in the Lublin and Podlasie regions). Both of these feature a rather low level of socio-economic development and a decided prevalence of agricultural functions in rural areas. In turn, in Romania the focus was on three prospering farms (production enterprises) located in the South Muntenia region. This denotes the fertile Danube Valley area in which there are chernozems and alluvial soils. In contrast, in Hungary, the 5 farms under study were located around the town of Kecskemet, as capital of the Bacs-Kiskun region.

A Review of the Farms Researched  Family Farm Engaging in the Commercial Production A of Cereals – Owner Florin Moldovano (Valcelele – Romania) This is a private family farm covering around 500 ha, of which 240 are under the ownership of an under-40 farmer with technical education in farming. Six hired hands work on the farm. From the point of view of area, this is a very atypical farm for Romania, where the fall of communism was associated with the furthest-­ reaching fragmentation of land ownership and associated appearance of a huge number of (more than 3 million) farms of zero commercial viability. Nevertheless, the Calarasi area offers many examples of entities of equally large size that specialise mainly in large-scale crop growing on soil of very high quality. In general, these have their own major resources of land, but also lease from other owners not engaged in agricultural activity. The farm specialises in producing cereals (wheat, barley and maize). It is fully equipped with its own necessary means of production (tractors, combine harvesters and other farm machinery)  – and these were purchased with financial support received under the Common Agricultural Policy. The farm’s owner is satisfied with his work, which not only supplies sufficient income, but also allows him to pursue his interests and hobby (given his status as an owner and breeder of horses). The greatest challenge posed to on-farm development in his case is access to water. In that context, it must be stressed that the farm is located in the valley of one of Europe’s pre-eminent rivers, though admittedly separated from the Danube by about 25 km. Shortages of water arise first and foremost during the period in which cereals are growing, and the farmer has no drip irrigation or similar system, with the result that yields are hit during periods of drought. The famer is seeking to invest in a field irrigation system in the nearest future. However, when asked, he is critical of state farm policy, and does not perceive the assistance extended by the state as being of any significance. He draws support – and takes advice – from advisory firms present on the market.

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The Agro Prest Iliuta SRL Production Enterprise – Large-­Scale Crop Production – Owner Vasile Iliuta (Valcelele – Romania) The second Romanian example of economic success concerns a farming enterprise called Agro Prest Iliuta SRL, which emerged out of one of the State Farms existing during the communist era. Formally founded in 2003, it covers several thousand hectares of land. The main focuses of its activity are on both cereal-growing (of wheat, barley and maize) and the raising of livestock (dairy cattle and pigs). The enterprise, which is a limited liability company, employs around 160 people, with average remuneration on the level 750 euros a month net. The head of Agro Prest Iliuta SRL is Vasile Iliuta, a farm economist by educating and one of the Calarasi region’s wealthiest inhabitants. He commenced with his economic activity in 1991 – soon after the communist system was brought to an end – on the basis of 50 ha of agricultural land that his family received in the context of the programme of restitution. Today, he is the owner of some 450  ha of very good-quality land, on which it is first and foremost maize that is grown (over around half of the area), as well as wheat and barley. He gained further experience in both tending the land and raising livestock in the course of visits to The Netherlands, France and Italy. Press information reveals how the enterprise received major support from EU Funds in 2010 (a sum of 2.8 M Euros), with this inter alia allowing for engagement in super-modern cattle- and pig-breeding, as well as the purchase of modern farm equipment (https://adevarul.ro). Today Agro Prest Iliuta SRL has a full range of machinery at its disposal, as well as an effective irrigation system. Vasile Iliuta combines his work in agriculture with both social and political activity. He holds or has held both political and managerial positions, inter alia as a member of the Romanian Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies and as President of Calasari District. He assigned the largest part of the interview to issues of land ownership, i.e. the opportunity for foreigners to purchase land freely. Thus, in the area of operation of his enterprise there is much competition with investors from both Italy and the Arab World.

The Agrofam Production Group – Large-Scale (Highly-­Commercial) Crop Production – Director Stefan Poienaru (Fetesti – Romania) As the name might suggest, Agrofam is a family-run enterprise. Founded in 1992, it is run by people highly-qualified in the agricultural sciences. The first means for the development of this farm-enterprise came from commercial activity involving fish products. This included trading in caviar by the current D-G of the firm. Even at the outset, this enterprise had some 150  ha of land at its disposal; but this area was increased steadily. By the year 2000 some 10,000 ha of land under the ownership of

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the Agricultural Academy in Bucharest was being leased, and today the holding extends over the still-greater area of 16,000 ha or so, on which the main crops grown are cereals (wheat and barley), maize and sunflowers. However, the farm also engages in livestock-rearing (having some 3000 sheep and 1500 goats), the trade in farm produce and (to a limited degree) the processing of that produce into products. Equally, intensified activity in food processing has been rejected as a concept for the firm, given the level of competition possible with other, more-specialised firms. The possibilities for a market for what is grown to be secured have in practice posed a further problem sufficient to account for the lack of activity of this kind. General Director Stefan Poienaru explains: … The difference between ourselves and the big players in Romanian agriculture lies in the way that we are branch specialists. My wife is an agronomist too. Farming activity in Romania can pay, even where backup is lacking. But it has to be done in the right way; cultivation should involve a high level of knowledge and experience, but your heart also needs to be in it.

A major aspect of this opinion needing to be paid attention to concerns the importance of the possession of knowledge, as well as the need for it to link up with experience. In the cases of the three Romanian farms or farming enterprises scrutinised here, each has an owner with agricultural training completed  – alongside many years of activity in the food sector as broadly conceived. That said, it must be stressed that this is not the typical situation for Romanian agriculture, as a decided majority of the small, non-commercial farms still present in abundance in the country are managed by people of limited educational attainments whose main foundation in what they do derives from experience, rather than acquired knowledge of other kinds. This shortfall is a key factor hindering further modernisation, as well as the drawdown of funding from the stream flowing in from Brussels. The firm Agrofam employs some 200 workers, each of whom enjoys the right to a so-called “grain allowance” which can be provided in either material form or as the equivalent in cash. Beyond that, each employee receives free food on a daily basis, with further support in the form of loyalty bonuses, participation in profits made (also through the payment of bonuses), as well as employment opportunities for children who have graduated from an agricultural training establishment. The General Director has no doubt that these kinds of incentives combine with standard-­ level remuneration to encourage the workers of the enterprise into loyal and efficient work. Agrofam offers a number of benefits to potential investors, including ideally-­ located farmland on Great Brăila Island in the Danube, not far from main motorways and port facilities. “…We have extensive fertile land on the island. Our equipment is good, and we have a fine team of workers; as well as abundant water for irrigation and efficient transport links close by” – says Stefan Poienaru, adding that: “Romania has exceptionally fertile soil – and when you love the land, the land loves you back”.

Asked about problems and challenges appearing in the country following the fall of the communist system, he above all mentioned strong competition with foreign

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agricultural enterprises resorting to industrial methods, as well as firms operating in the interests of agriculture (servicing it, helping with trade and commercial aspects, actually manufacturing the food products and so on). What are involved here are both firms operating abroad and foreign ones active on the Romanian market. The dominance and control of that market and consequent imposition of prices (e.g. of agricultural chemicals) obstruct the activity of farms and home-grown agricultural enterprises. On top of that, there is criticism of state assistance for agriculture, or in fact what the interviewee sees of the lack thereof. An example of this supplied immediately concerns the serious obstacles to actually employing anyone on a farm that ever-­ present bureaucracy are capable of providing. This is of course enhanced by instances of corruption or other irregularities in administration as well as the excessive spread of the relevant decision-making. Concrete examples are forthcoming, e.g. with farmland becoming available following the fall of the State Farms are Cooperatives being snapped up by Romanian politicians hailing from among the “red nomenklatura”. While these people were often unlikely farmers, they were able to sell on the land they had purchased a while later, taking major advantage of prices that had risen greatly in the meantime. This speaks for itself when it is noted how 1 ha of arable land cost some 100–200 euros in 1992, as opposed to 6000–7000 now. Agrofam’s owner estimates that 50% of all agricultural land in the Great Brăila area is now in foreign hands (with Lebanon and Qatar especially well-represented).

 amily Farm – Commercial Production of Fruit – Owner Ferenc F Somodi (Suburban Zone Around Kecskemet – Hungary) This is a large, modern orchard-farm albeit with very long traditions in fruit-­growing (going back to 1720). At present, the farm has 30 ha of land planted with fruit trees, along with 10 ha of forest. This became a collective during the communist era, and the then owner – the present owner’s grandfather – was categorised as a Kulak and made subject to repression (even coming close to death at one point). The land taken over by the state came within a multi-aspect Cooperative, in which the present owner’s father – with high-level professional qualifications – served as Chief Specialist in orchard-keeping. Once communism in Hungary fell, the Somodi family received back 22  ha of land as compensation for what had been lost. IN later years, they purchased a further 8 ha, thereby increasing the land owned to the present total of 30. In 2017, the farm took the title of Most beautiful orchard in Hungary. The farm’s owner completed his agricultural studies and also did internships in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Particularly good experience in orchard management was gained during his time in Germany, where he spent about half a year. His farm now specialises in apricots and plums; while a small number of apple trees are

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also cultivated. The farm engages in intensive production of a modern profile (Plate 15.1). Produce is sold on both the domestic and foreign markets, with customers including Lidl. Everything produced is contracted for, with the market for the fruit produced posing the most major challenge, according to the farmer. Intermediary firms operating between the farm and commercial entities impose unfavourable pricing conditions, which makes production less profitable while limiting competitiveness vis-à-vis foreign producers. The farm has four hired workers, while around 40 more (from the local area of more generally within Romania) are given work when the fruit is in season. However, the farmer stresses that it is more and more difficult to find hands. Fruit production is capable of supplying a satisfactory income, and the owner has no plans to extent the farm further, instead seeking to focus on modernisation. Today it has modern machinery, cold-stores and storage premises, as well as nets to protect against hail. The fruit farm is not associated with others in a producer’s organisation, but is in constant touch with others of a similar profile. When asked, the owner remarked that cooperation between fruit producers had become essential, mainly given the chance to safeguard interests against dishonest firms acting as go-betweens as regards markets for the produce. However, he prefers informal links between fruit-growers, as his view of producers’ organisations is a critical one, given what he sees as the presence there of participants who are not really farmers, but merely people interested in making a quick profit. A further important challenge is ongoing adaptation of what is produced to changing climatic conditions. Indeed, it is for this reason that

Plate 15.1  Part of the orchard with guards on Ferenc Somodi’s farm. (Photo by J. Bański)

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the owner has been withdrawing from apple-growing in favour of plums and apricots – both of which can be regarded as better adapted to today’s conditions locally. The owner has benefited from EU funds and intends to go on doing so. He earmarked them first and foremost for the purchase of machinery and upgrading of the technical infrastructure. He has professional assistance with the administering of EU projects, and is rather optimistic about the future of his farm. Furthermore, he has nothing too negative to say about the activity of the Hungarian state in regard to agriculture, even if he accepts that there are delays and cases of inadequate implementation. This level of optimism is only underlined by the expressed opinion that he would not wish to change anything in his life and is content with the results his activity achieves.

 ultifunctional Family Farm – Plant Production and Services M in Agritourism – Owner Tanya Kujani (Vicinity of Kecskemet – Hungary) The farm is multifunctional in nature, meaning an involvement in both production and services. The focus here is again on fruit-growing (mainly plums, apricots and sweet cherries), which is carried over around 16 ha of land. To be added to that total are some 14 ha of vineyards. However, the latter had to be cut in the wake of damage done by a 2017 hailstorm. Niche plants are also being experimented with, and include herbs. The farm also renders services in agritourism and as regards the convening of conferences. The land used in farming was purchased by the family following the fall of communism. The owner has land in another part of the country (near Paks), which he received as compensation for property lost in that era. That land is currently being leased out to another user. Both husband and wife are trained in crop protection, while their daughter is at an agricultural university. As well as running the farm, they also have a firm that distributes pesticides, herbicides and other plant protection agents, as well as fertilisers. These services are currently being provided to around 100 other farms. The enterprise also deals with pest monitoring and the supply of relevant information, as well as pest forecasting. This leaves the firm as the primary source of income, with the farm only supplementing that. According to the owner, the most major challenge now facing the farm concerns the market for its produce and products. Unfortunately, prices often fall below the costs of production, hence the need for other sources of income and an ongoing search for new forms of activity. One idea involves tourism, though with no overnight accommodation base. The farm offers to organise and host conferences, as well as integration meetings and other events for 10–20 people, or even several tens. An educational trail has been laid out around the piece of land, and this allows visitors to acquaint themselves better with interesting plant species, including herbs.

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Work to construct the trail was co-financed by EU money designated in support of development in rural areas. Part of the output and activity on the farm is basically a result of “hobby farming”, but the owners are open to new ideas, and always on the lookout for new forms of on-farm activity (Plate 15.2). At present there is actually no contracted market for what the farm is able to produce. Most of that is sold at market locally, though cooperation has been put in place with the Kamra-túra local network of producers. This cooperation for example allowed for the marketing of produce on the main Market Square in Kecskemet on Market Day. It is above all members of the family that work on the farm. However, at harvest time these are augmented by as many as 80 seasonal workers  – primarily Roma people and Romanians. The owner is not very positive about the role of state policy, for example drawing attention to a lack of flexibility and failure to adjust agricultural regulations to the needs of the real world. She is nevertheless pleased with her occupation, and is considering how to develop the business further. In her view, a key task now would be to diversify output, as well as to invest in the overnight accommodation base in order to allow participants at conferences and other meetings to make an overnight stay on the site.

Plate 15.2  Part of the educational trail featuring a variety of different plant species. (Photo by J. Bański)

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 amily Farm – Breeding Pigs – Owners the Kőszegi Family F (Kiskunfélegyháza – Hungary) The farm specialises in the breeding of pigs, and especially piglets. It utilises 40 ha of agricultural land, of which 30 belongs to the Kőszegi family, while the remaining 10 ha is on lease. Land was received once communism fell – as compensation for what had been lost back then when collectivisation was being pursued. Earlier, this farm specialised in vegetable-growing, but a lack of farm hands to do the work forced a departure from intensive plant production. Workforce that might possibly have been hired was absorbed into the recently-built Mercedes plant in Kecskemet, which employs around 5000. Thus today’s farm workers are family members only, i.e. the parents plus a son and a daughter. Interestingly then, all members of the family are formally employed away from the farm, with the pig-breeding therefore treated as nothing more than a supplementary activity. While the parents have no formal education in farming, their children did complete higher studies in garden engineering. Indeed, the daughter who was the subject of an extended interview even has a doctorate. Production on the farm is indeed subordinated to livestock breeding, the crops grown on arable land being mainly cereals, which serve as feed for the animals. At the core of the effort are around 30 sows capable of giving birth to some 200–250 piglets a year. These are taken on by other farms in the Kecskemet area specialising in the fattening of pigs. Piglets are also sold to people from other parts of Hungary, and there is even interest among Romanian farmers. There is no contracted production here, with piglets instead being sold ad hoc. The owner is nevertheless planning to develop production, when it comes to both an increase in the area devoted to fodder crops and a raising of the numbers of sows kept. However, a major curb on these ambitions results from difficulties with purchasing more land, and this proves to be a very limited market. That is a reflection of the status of land as the best place in which to locate capital. A similar phenomenon can be observed in other countries in the region under study. When Irén Kőszegi was asked about the key challenges facing the farm, she pointed to two main factors determining the productive activity they were able to engage in, i.e. difficulties with hiring hands and changes of climate. The first factor limits opportunities to expand production, while the second poses a threat to the farm’s economic condition. In particular, the drought that affected Hungary a short while ago gave rise to losses in amounts of feed for the pigs produced. Swine flu also poses a serious and constant threat to all farms engaged in the breeding and raising of pigs. The farm is not associated with any group of producers, though there is an informal network in operation. As the study-participant emphasises: “Hungary’s farmers do have serious difficulties trusting one another – and that’s a result of bad experiences during the communist era, but also in more recent decades – following the fall of the old regime”.

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 rganic Farming – Production of Vegetables – Owner Matyas O Nemes (Fülöpjakab – Hungary) This farm specialises in organic vegetable-growing over 3 ha of land. Much of the cultivation is achieved within polythene tunnels, and the farm has the necessary certification allowing it to produce “healthy food”. Just two people are at work here, i.e. Mr. and Mrs. Nemes themselves, though when harvests are at their peak hired hands are also taken on. Like almost every country-dweller in Hungary, the owner here had his communist-­ era garden cultivated right next to the house and used in the “hobby” sense to ensure a steady supply of vegetables. By profession, this man was a soldier – hence a total lack of knowledge on or experience with farming. However, when his military career ended and Mr. Nemes retired, he elected to purchase the farm from its previous owner. By that time it was in a poor state, with the buildings largely in ruins and the land choked with weeds and scrub. That said, it proved possible to both renovate the buildings and rehabilitate the arable land, with the result that the commencement of organic vegetable farming became possible. Produce is sold in special health-food shops in Budapest, on the eco-market, and even to households, to which the output can be sent directly. Vegetables are harvested each week more or less year-round, hence the attention paid to freshness. Even foreign intermediaries are interested in what is produced, though – as there is no guaranteeing contract of any kind for the vegetables concerned – the owner has withdrawn from this kind of cooperation (Plate 15.3).

Plate 15.3  Cultivation in a polythene tunnel. (Photo by J. Bański)

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The farm produces a wide variety of vegetables. Some of the output is a direct reflection of the farmer’s desire to indulge his hobby, i.e. experimentation with unusual and exotic plant species. For example, he is a producer of old-style sweet potatoes, whose cultivation proves to be of economic benefit. In the view of the owner, the steady income from his vegetable-growing is satisfactory, and the process is a major source of satisfaction that also guarantees a healthy lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, then, the owner is seeking to develop the interests further, and to increase the area under cultivation. The farm has no association with other growers, but there are contacts with producers on the market for health food. The farmer inter alia cooperates with his two sons, who pursue the same kind of activity elsewhere in his village. There are also informal linkages with a group of eco-farmers. The most major challenge now facing the farm revolves around the securing of adequate amounts of water for crop-growing. At present this comes from a deep well. Precipitation here is very irregular and periods of drought seem to persist for longer and longer, posing a threat of total devastation. However, the farmer has been able to buy solar panels with EU funding, and the electricity generated not only supplies the household, but also sustains a comprehensive water-treatment system. The plan is for the farm to become self-sufficient in energy.

 amily Farm – Commercial Grain Production – Owner László F Kovács (Kecskemet Area – Hungary) Here we have a family farm covering around 200 ha of arable land and run by a father-and-son team. This family has its long-term tradition in farming and confesses to having a strong attachment to the land. While most of that land is farm-­ owned, some several tens of hectares are leased from another owner. When communism fell, the Kovács family received 120 ha of land as recompense for what had been taken away by the state for collectivisation. However, this allocation was not deemed satisfactory by the owner, who considered that the losses of other property had not been compensated for, let alone the income he could potentially have gained over more than 40 years of productive activity on the land denied to his family. Current production is more or less entirely crop-related, hence the focus on arable land. It is mainly cereals that are produced (above all wheat and barley, as well as maize). There is also a small area of grassland. The farm is well-equipped with machinery for large-scale work (mainly John Deer), and the purchase was made possible by agri-environmental support from the EU. Union funding also provided for new investment in field irrigation (with around 50% of the costs covered); the spraying goes some way to making good deficits of humidity associated with the droughts that seem to be more and more tangible in Hungary. The development also makes diversification more realistic than it otherwise would be, and a start in vegetable-­growing is now foreseen.

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Like other study participants, those farming here are not part of a producers’ association, and this most likely gains reflection in a critical view of the current state of Hungarian agriculture. The interviewees referred to excessive bureaucracy, inappropriate and repressive legal regulations, and a lack of real support from institutions tasked with offering just that. Many negative features of the food sector are also referred to, with excessive regulation, and unjustified payments and taxes that all hinder work in farming. It is stressed that Hungarian regulations go further than those in the EU more generally, with the focus being on extracting money from farms. Regulatory and scrutinising provisions prove to be inflexible, yet the remarks made and concerns raised by farmers seem to be ignored. Such problems limit the commercial viability of the production engaged in on the land currently in use. Indeed, in the view of the farmers here, the farm should be producing wheat over 500 ha in order for it to supply a decent income under present conditions. Under those circumstances, diversification looked like an alternative solution – whose pursuit is now being tried. Owners’ critical remarks are also addressed to the joint process by which land was privatised and assets seized during the communist era made the subject of restitution. This is said to have opened up “deep wounds and conflicts between people”. For individuals who had been in position to sit “close to the fire” (or “by the trough”, as Poles would have it) had high-level posts in the “socialised” forms of agriculture that were closed down, with linkages to the old elite therefore strong enough to allow them to benefit most from the privatisation, securing for themselves the best bits of the Cooperatives (best land, land with good infrastructure, machinery and so on). What has recently been taking shape is therefore a kind of “rural aristocracy” only strengthened – figuratively and perhaps even literally at times – by “arranged marriages”.

The Ziołowy Zakątek and Dary natury Farm Enterprises – Producing Herbs and Supplying Agritourist Services – Owner Mirosław Angielczyk (Village of Koryciny, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland) This farm falls outside typical or traditional definitions, given its status as a multifunctional enterprise dealing with herb-production and herbalism and organic food, but also rendering services in tourism and gastronomy and engaging in educational activity. The firm was founded by Mirosław Angielczyk as the systemic transformation in Poland was beginning. The entrepreneur in fact graduated from his studies in 1989, the goal having been to make work in large-scale farming possible. However, the changes encouraged a return to Angielczyk’s home village of Koryciny, with the new intention being to set up a business that would grow and buy up herbs – as a major natural resource in the Podlasie region of eastern Poland.

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From his very earliest days, the farm-owner/entrepreneur had shown considerable interest in nature, and especially herb plants. He began to pursue this passion while still a student – with those studies taken up following success achieved in an inter-school nature competition. The practical manifestation was the supply of herbs gathered in the Koryciny region to a shop in Warsaw. After graduating, he founded his own firm purchasing herbs and supplying the Warsaw market with them. Poland’s steadily increasing interest in herbalism and dynamic development of the market for herbs encouraged the farmer-entrepreneur into commencing with his own production of the plants in question. He purchased several plots from local farmers that were then consolidated into a larger field on which herb-growing started up. Today, he owns some 40 ha, on which a very diverse range of herbs are indeed grown (Plate 15.4). The farm run by Mirosław Angielczyk in fact comprises two component parts, i.e. the firm Dary Natury, producing health food and active on the market for herbs first and foremost; as well as the other firm Ziołowy Zakątek representing a form of agritourist farm. The latter offers overnight accommodation for more than 100 people in heritage farm architecture transferred here from various regions of Poland, with healthy meals served at the inn on the site, workshops and green schools run, educational trails available to be walked and a 14-hectare botanical garden with more than 1000 species of herb to be visited. The firm mainly employs people from local villages. A particularly key feature is the steadily-growing Podlaski Ogród Ziołowy (Podlasie Herb Garden), in which experimental work is carried out by undergraduate and postgraduate students of Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW). Pupils of technical schools engaged in the training of farmers also do

Plate 15.4  Part of the Ziołowy Zakątek agritourist farm in Koryciny. (Photo by J. Bański)

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vocational training here. In 2012, Ziołowy Zakątek took the title of “Best Tourist Product” in Podlaskie Voivodeship. The twin firms have an extensive and visually attractive website detailing their activity, as well as the goods they produce and services offered. On the Ziołowy Zakątek website, we may read that: Ziołowy Zakątek (the Herbal Corner) “… offers its guests an extensive accommodation base for more than 150 people. The rooms are located in historic farmhouses from the mid-­19th century, removed from various villages of Podlasie…” Ziołowy Zakątek also has a ceramics workshop that has traditional crafts on offer, as well as training. It further offers herbal baths to guests… To meet the needs of the Ziołowy Zakątek restaurant, the supply of organic vegetables is also organised here, on the basis of traditional methods. Meanwhile the Podlaski Botanical Garden includes more than 1500 species across 12 hectares of land. Today, the farm strives to propagate and promote knowledge of herbalism, seeking to ensure the survival of knowledge on traditions and customs in this field, and also engaging in implementation work – from the outset in cooperation with the Department of Medicinal Plants of Warsaw University of Life Sciences (https://ziolowyzakatek.pl/O-­nas,38.html).

In turn, the firm Dary natury presents itself in the following way: This is a firm active in the herbal-medicines and healthfood branch of the economy. It is seated in the southern part of Podlaskie Voivodeship, in Siemiatyce county, and in the small village of Koryciny located within extensive woodland. Indeed, the area around the HQ has exceptionally high forest cover and diversity of landscape, and these kinds of conditions favour the presence of a wide variety of flora capable of being gathered as raw material for use in herbalism. For generations now, this kind of tradition of collecting herbs from nature has been in place here. Today, 9 of the Sub-Districts within this Forest District from which we obtain our raw material have been certified ecologically – meaning 10-20,000 ha of land that can be utilised by us. Thanks to that scale, our activity by which we obtain plant material from nature does not do much to influence the environment around us … At the same time, the process of gathering herbs to meet our needs is a matter for as many as 300 workers. We seek to ensure our herbs are gathered at a time optimal for each species individually. And chemical checks on the material we take from this region confirm how clean a corner of Poland this is, with no major environmental pollution present. … Currently we are also involved in propagating knowledge of herbalism, seeking to ensure that this is preserved, along with certain relevant customs; and we also do work on wellness, in the process also cooperating  – from the outset  – with the Medicinal Plants Department at Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW) (https://darynatury.pl/Podstrony/O-­nas,1).

Chapter 16

Summary

In the last three decades agriculture in the CEECs has been subjected to very far-­ reaching change. These have above all been consequences of the fall of communism, which had played a dominant role in the farming sectors of most of the region’s countries. The adoption of a free-market system entailed a return of land and assets that had been seized during that time, with privatisation ensuing, along with a freeing of prices for both the output of farms and the means of production. But a second, also key, phenomenon shaping this or any depiction of agriculture in the CEECs involved these countries’ European Union accessions, as preceded by several years of preparation for membership. Farms transformed very dynamically at this time too, as they needed to adapt to EU requirements, as well as conditions for market competition domestically and Europe-wide. Some failed to face up to these challenges, fell, and/or are in the process of liquidation. Equally, a large group of farms were able to seize the opportunity to develop, proving able to engage effectively in productive activity under the new conditions. A negative phenomenon characterising the transformation’s first stage in countries hitherto subordinated to” socialist” forms of agriculture involved the deindustrialisation of rural areas, with a non-thought-through and over-hasty close-down of Cooperatives and State Farms taking place within the agricultural sector. This was capped by not-too-effective measures providing for the restitution of lost land assets, whose impacts included the fragmentation of agricultural land and a devastation of technical and technological infrastructure (notably that which had earlier provided for irrigation in the southern part of the region). In turn, the periods of preparation for EU membership and following accession produced negative phenomena that reflected competition with better-organised and better-supported entities in Western Europe, the lack of any barriers to imports of agricultural products, CAP-mediated support that did not always seem to be targeted appropriately, and shortfalls when it came to farm policy domestically. Notwithstanding this series of negative phenomena arising during the period of economic and systemic transformation in the CEECs, the overall impact of what © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Bański, M. Mazur, Transformation of Agricultural Sector in the Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73766-5_16

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happened has undoubtedly been positive. Production efficiency has risen, there has been an improvement in both the agrarian structure and the economic condition of farms, the level of specialisation of farms has risen, and there has been an expansion of the market when it comes to the potential consumers of food produced. Agriculture in the CEECs is characterised by considerable spatial differentiation in the use of agricultural land, as well as the crop structure typical for arable land. Generally, all of the region’s countries except Slovenia have a prevalence of field cultivation within the area of land under agricultural management. However, the south of the studied region has a relatively large share of land under permanent crops – in reflection of climatic conditions favourable to that. Crop structure differentiates our region’s north and south in quite a clear way, as the former has prevalent cereal (above all wheat) cultivation, while the latter features a more-diverse crop structure, with more industrial crops grown alongside a wide range of cereals. A decline in the area of agricultural land post-1990 has been a feature typical across the region, reflecting the territorial expansion of cities, and development of road and rail infrastructure, as well as greater rationality of crop production inter alia involving exclusion from further agriculture of land of the lowest agroecological value  – which tends to be earmarked for reafforestation. These phenomena intensified once the phase of privatisation and the restitution of land had taken place. Changes in the structure of agricultural land-use did differ from country to country in the region, though it was possible to observe overall losses (other than in Poland) where the more-permanent uses were concerned – with arable land benefiting, or more rarely grasslands. Overall, the trends for the main components of agricultural land-use were associated with agroecological conditions, as increased rationality of cultivation made clear. Where countries have productive space of lower quality, there tended to be an overall increase in the share taken by grasslands. In contrast, where farming (especially soil-related) conditions are more favourable, it was the share of arable land that increased. Farm production plays an important role where the economies of the CEECs are concerned. This is reflected in macroeconomic data, with the region’s contribution to added value in EU-wide agriculture being more than twice as great as the contribution made to GDP overall. That said, it also needs to be noted that, while the region’s role has increased markedly in both cases since the 1990s, in the case of the agriculture sector the step backwards taking place with the onset of the period of transformation lasted longer, while the subsequent overcoming of arrears as compared with “Western” Europe took longer than in other sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the economies of the different CEECs (and in consequence also their agriculture) are seen to differ markedly in terms of their dimensions. Almost half of the entire added value in farming is generated in just two of the region’s economies, i.e. Poland and Romania. The size of Poland’s role results first and foremost from the size of the economy of the country, while the high share accounted for by Romania is also influenced significantly by the still relatively great significance of the agriculture sector in the country’s economic structure. When it comes to the areas planted with different kinds of crop or stocked with livestock, efficiency of production in our region has been going up more

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dynamically than in the remaining EU Member States – most especially following the several initial years of transformation of the economic and administrative systems, during which years a break in production often resulted. The CEECs show certain specific features when set against the European Union as a whole. What is involved here is not merely a lower level of intensification overall, but also structural features. In general, there is a smaller number of head of livestock per unit area of agricultural land, as well as a lesser share accounted for by animal production. The structure characterising plant production in the region in turn features a decidedly higher share than in “Western” Europe of the two main elements represented by cereals and industrial crops, even as the shares taken by vegetables and fruit are markedly lower. Where cereals are concerned, Poland is among the EU’s leading producers of wheat, rye, cereal mixtures and oats; though Hungary and Romania are key countries when it comes to maize. In turn, the structure in terms of head of livestock is more even than in the EU-17. Within it, there is a noticeably smaller share of the two main elements  – i.e. cattle and pigs, while poultry species account for a higher share. Given the region’s considerable latitudinal extent, it is far from homogeneous from the point of view of production structure. This is determined by both the diversity of climatic and soil conditions and the relief. While cereals and fodder crops are of greater significance in the north of the region, levels of production there are lower when it comes to vegetables and fruit, as well as products characteristic for a sub-­ tropical climate like wine and olive oil. Moreover, the north of the region also has a larger population of livestock animals, with a larger share within that taken by cattle; and with the shares accounted for by poultry, sheep and goats being lower, along with that taken by potential draft animals used in work in the fields. There would seem to be ever-great influence of national farm policy and that of the EU on the agricultural production structure. Subsidies, payments and other forms of financial support for the sector are shaped by defined preferences for certain crops and livestock breeding among farm-owners. Equally, given the leading role played by large farms using industrial methods, the nature of production in the CEECs looks in some conflict with the new trend for the CAP to espouse biodiversity and a more-organic production of food. In this respect, anticipated changes will probably raise the level of diversity of crop and animal production. Moreover, warming of the climate is causing a spatial polarisation of food production, both regionally and globally. Productive potential will above all increase at the higher latitudes in which the CEECs are primarily located. Equally, our region’s southernmost part is likely to witness a “relative” decline in the productive potential of agriculture – mainly as a reflection of progressing water shortages.

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