The paper’s main purpose was to identify and present the current situation and changes in energy consumption in agriculture in the European Union (EU) countries. The specific objectives were the determination of the degree of concentration of energy consumption in agriculture in the EU countries, showing the directions of their changes, types of energy used, and changes in this respect, establishing the correlation between energy consumption and changes in the economic and agricultural situation in the EU countries. All member states of the European Union were deliberately selected for research on 31 December 2018 (28 countries). The research period covered the years 2005–2018. The sources of materials were the literature on the subject, and data from Eurostat. Descriptive, tabular, and graphical methods were used to analyze and present materials, dynamics indicators with a stable base, Gini concentration coefficient, concentration analysis using the Lorenz curve, coefficient of variation, Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient, and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. A high concentration of energy consumption in agriculture was found in several EU countries, the largest in countries with the largest agricultural sector, i.e., France and Poland. There were practically no changes in the concentration level. Only in the case of renewable energy, a gradual decrease in concentration was visible. More and more countries developed technologies that allow the use of this type of energy. However, the EU countries differed in terms of the structure of the energy sources used. The majority of the basis was liquid fuels, while stable and gaseous fuels were abandoned in favor of electricity and renewable sources—according to which, in the EU countries, the research hypothesis was confirmed: a gradual diversification of energy sources used in agriculture, with a systematic increase in the importance of renewable energy sources. The second research hypothesis was also confirmed, according to which the increase in the consumption of renewable energy in agriculture is closely related to the economy’s parameters. The use of renewable energy is necessary and results from concern for the natural environment. Therefore, economic factors may have a smaller impact.
The main purpose of the article was to identify and present the current situation and changes in higher education in the field of electricity and energy studies in the European Union countries. The specific objectives include determining the degree of concentration of education in the fields of electricity and energy in the EU countries, showing the directions of their changes, types of dominant education in this field, establishing the correlation between education in the fields of electricity and energy and the parameters assessing the achievement of circular economy assumptions in the energy sector. All Member States of the European Union were deliberately selected for research. The research period covered the years 2013–2018. The source of the materials is a literature review on the subject and Eurostat data. For the analysis and presentation of materials, methods such as descriptive, tabular, graphical, dynamics indicators with a constant basis, Gini concentration coefficient, concentration analysis using the Lorenz curve, coefficient of variation, Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient were used. A high concentration of education in the fields of electricity and energy was found in several EU countries, the largest in countries with the highest energy consumption, i.e., in France and Poland. Changes in the level of concentration practically did not take place, only in the case of master’s studies, there was an increase in concentration. However, the EU countries did not differ significantly in terms of the structure of the number of students studying electricity and energy.
The main purpose of the study was to identify the level and factors influencing investments in renewable energy sources (RES) in basic local government units in rural areas. The specific objectives were to define the conditions for the development of renewable energy sources in Poland, to determine the directions of changes as well as the importance of renewable energy in Poland, to present the relationship between the level of expenditure on renewable energy and budget components in rural and rural-urban communes. The Świętokrzyskie voivodeship (Voivodship—a unit of the highest administration level in Poland, since 1990 a unit of the primary territorial division of government administration, since 1999 also a unit of local government, there were 16 voivodships in Poland.), which is one of the centrally located voivodeships in Poland, was purposefully selected for the research. The research period covered the years 2016–2019. The sources of materials were the literature on the subject, as well as empirical materials obtained at the Voivodeship Statistical Office. The following methods were used for the analysis and presentation of materials: descriptive, tabular, graphical, Gini concentration coefficient, Lorenz concentration curve, Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Poland is one of the countries with quite high dependence on hard and brown coal. Changes in the structure of energy sources are slow. Investments in renewable energy are necessary. The problem in this respect is the lack of a proper law. Despite this, investments in renewable energy are being made in rural areas. In the Świętokrzyskie voivodeship, only 28% of communes made such investments. It was found that only in urban rural communes the amount of investment expenditures in renewable energy sources was related to the level of budget expenditures and property expenditures of the commune. The amount of support from the European Union aid funds was positively correlated with the level of expenditure on investments in renewable energy. Therefore, it can be concluded that without the support from EU funds, it is not possible to invest in renewable energy in local government units.
This article presents changes in the prices of milk and other dairy products in the European Union (EU). First, the descriptive statistics of the prices of milk and dairy products are presented, and then correlation and regression analyses were conducted to measure the relationships between the prices. We used the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test and generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model to measure the stationarity and changes in dairy product prices in the EU. At the EU level, we checked the changes in prices of butter, skim milk powder, whole milk powder, Cheddar, Edam, Gouda, Emmental and whey powder. Our analysis confirmed that the butter, skim milk powder, whole milk powder, Cheddar, Edam and Gouda processes depend on previous values. The biggest price changes were observed in whey powder (34.12%), butter (24.46%) and skim milk powder (21.78%).
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