Agro-Food Economy in 21st Century: Perspectives and Dilemmas

Lakner, Zoltán – Kiss, Anna – Pfeiffer, Laura

Keywords: input-output analysis, log-linear analysis, system approach, Q10, Q18

The current study is a part of a series of articles. Our goal is to present and summarise the basic tendencies of global and European agricultural development, its most important processes, the driving forces of changes and new challenges for the global agriculture and food supply system. A wide range of tools of modern mathematics and system theory will be applied in the framework of our research. The first part of this series analyses two questions: (1) how is the place and role in attitudes of European citizens reflected; (2) role of agriculture and food industry in modern national economies. The database of analysis are the surveys of the Eurobarometer and the input-output tables of OECD. Results of the analysis support that (1) citizens of the European Union attach a high importance to agricultural and food industrial production, but there is an increasing in the perceived importance of animal welfare and sustainability; (2) contrary to previous hypotheses, the evaluation of socio-economic importance of agro-food sphere is relatively homogenous across different socio-economic groups; (3) the younger generations attach a relatively lower importance to the agricultural sphere; (4) calculations, based on the input-output models highlight the extremely high importance of agriculture and food industry even in the modern national economies, because these sectors are key buyers of another spheres, and in this way they can contribute considerably to the macroeconomic balance and development.

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