The Effects of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Cereal Production in the European Union

Abstract

Considering food security and climate change mitigation as the main sustainability challenges for agriculture, the main goal is to achieve agricultural production at an acceptable level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this paper, the effects of GHGs are described. Panel data models are built to assess the impact of greenhouse gases on harvested production of cereals in EU countries. The study is focused on the climate change cause by GHG emissions that have a direct impact on agriculture in what concerns cereal production. Therefore, the impact of GHGs on cereal production in the European Union, except Malta, in the period 2000–2016 was assessed. Moreover, the effects of GHGs on agricultural irrigated land in Denmark and Hungary, two EU countries with the large agricultural surface, were computed. The results indicated a positive impact of GHGs from agriculture and fertilizer consumption in the previous year on cereal production in the EU. Moreover, only in Hungary did the increase in GHG emissions determined a slow increase in the volume of agricultural irrigated lands in the period of 2000–2016.