Twentieth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

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

Presenters

Maria José Palma Lampreia Dos Santos
Student, PhD Economics, Escola Superior de Comunicação Social - Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, ISCTE-IUL DINÂMIACET, Lisboa, Portugal