Food Self-Sufficiency of the SEE Countries; Is the Region Prepared for a Future Crisis?

Abstract

Although the concept of self-sufficiency has been accepted both in developed and developing countries, alternated with periods of its rejections, the food crisis from 2007/08 and COVID-19 pandemic returned focus to the availability of countries to be self-sufficient in food production. Considering the concerns over ensuring food security in many countries, the main objective of this paper is to estimate the ability to fulfill the feed demand of the population in the eight countries of South-East Europe (SEE), which is in crisis conditions, such as pandemic especially important. In that context, the food self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) is calculated for total food production, as well as for different food groups. The next step in the methodological framework was to estimate the influence of different factors on the self-sufficiency ratio, as it depends on natural, financial, economic, and political factors. The results show that the SEE region expresses a high level of SSR in food, so it shows that the region is quite ready to respond to the challenges posed by the crisis. However, as the SEE region is a group of very different countries, regional cooperation should be strengthened as food production is considered.

Is a Food Shortage Coming to the Western Balkans?

“…Of course, a prerequisite is to improve cooperation and reconciliation. This finding is in line with previous research [ 29 ].…”

“…Generally, the level of food security in Western Balkan countries is not endangered, but it is lower than in EU countries, and it could be endangered in the crisis conditions [ 6 ]. Additionally, some research showed that the Western Balkan region is quite ready to respond to the challenges in the crisis conditions, but regional cooperation needs to be strengthened [ 29 ], and one of the steps is the initiative Open Balkan which can intensify the trade, free movement and economic development [ 56 ]. The CEFTA Agreement significantly improved foreign trade of agri-food products in the Western Balkan countries [ 57 ], so the initiative Open Balkan is the next step in this process of better regional cooperation.…”

“…With respect to serial correlation (autocorrelation), the Durbin–Watson statistic value shows that there is a first-order autocorrelation. So, to deal with the problems of heteroskedasticity and serial correlation, we performed the Weighted Least Squares (WLS) method as the most appropriate to have efficient estimators [ 29 ].…”

Food and Agricultural Security: An Introduction to the Special Issue

“…The geographical focus extends beyond SSA, thereby addressing a broader set of issues worldwide. Brankov et al [31] investigates the South-East Europe (SEE) countries' ability to fulfill the food demand of the population in the aftermath of shocks, especially pandemics, such as COVID-19. The study shows significant variability between SEE countries in terms of their agricultural production capacities.…”

The development of the profitability of agricultural enterprises and its causes

“…In the current turbulent years, efforts are resurgent to ensure a viable and competitive agricultural sector. The main reason is to provide food self-sufficiency (Brankov et al, 2021;Škamlová, 2022;Svobodová et al, 2022). However, food self-sufficiency in the Czech Republic has declined since the 1990s for all monitored commodities (CZSO, 2022).…”