Assessment of Sustainability in Agriculture of the European Union Countries

Abstract

This paper aimed at evaluating the level of sustainability in agriculture in 28 member states of the European Union. The surveys were carried out based on a synthetic technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS)-based measure. This method synthesizes factors of various nature and assigns them a synthetic aggregate measure. The analysis made it possible to develop a ranking of EU member states according to a differentiated level of measures and assign them to one of four groups characterized by different levels of sustainability in agriculture. The group of member states representing the highest level of sustainability in agriculture included two countries from Central and Eastern Europe, i.e., Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The group of countries with a greater than average level of sustainability comprised 14 member states of the European Union, including seven countries admitted to the community after 2004. The group with a low level of sustainability consisted of eight EU member states, six of them from the group of old EU member states, i.e., Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Denmark and the United Kingdom, and two new members, i.e., Romania and Slovenia. On the other hand, the lowest level of sustainability was characteristic of two “old EU” member states, i.e., The Netherlands and Belgium, and two “new EU” member states, i.e., Cyprus and Malta. The differentiated synthetic measure values showed disparities in the level of sustainability in agriculture among the member states of the European Union. They are a result of the varied level of development of this sector, production intensity and the resulting environmental impact.