Global Trends of Agricultural Development in the Light of an Expert Survey

Lakner, Zoltán – Baker, Gregory A.

Keywords: Delphi method, future research, scenario-analysis, Smic-Prob-Expert, multivariate statistical analysis, Q13; Q17; Q18

In–depth analysis of global processes in the international environment of the Hungarian agro-food sector is a necessary precondition for the determination of its strategic ways of development. This task probably never has been so complex as at present, when we are witnessing parallel, deep-rooted structural changes in the natural, social, economic and political environments. There are structural breaks in many cases, which is why simple trend-extrapolation models cannot be applied. Under these conditions the importance of application of intuitive methods is increasing. The aim of our study is to outline the most important global trends relevant to the agro-food sector up to 2030, based on an expert survey. These data were used for scenario generation for the next decade. A common feature of scenarios is that they all include global climate change and its consequences, the increasing importance of biotechnology, the individualisation of consumption and the importance of biotechnology. There are differences between the scenarios from the point of view of the evaluation of importance of concentration and of local food supply systems. It is probable, that both trends will be realised in a parallel way.

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