The Economic, Social, and Environmental Determinants for the Agricultural Output in Some European Union Countries - The Agricultural Economics of the 21st Century - page 51

agricultural activities to be compatible with the environment, we must take into
account the preservation of water and soil quality (Darradi et al. 2012 ).
Northern Italy has the largest area of apple production in Europe and fruit is the
most important source of exports for the region. The triumph of this situation
results, namely, from the education and the professional training in these issues
(Via et al. 2013 ).
The search for agricultural practices that reduce the utilization of chemical
products, such as fertilizers and herbicides, in German agriculture is a usual concern
for farmers and, in general, for the population (Steinmann et al. 2012 ). Water
contamination, namely with nitrogen, is a consequence of some agricultural pro-
duction patterns (Hirt et al. 2012 ). The energy intensity in farming production is
another concern, namely because of the decrease in the availability of resources
(Kraatz 2012 ).
The nitrate concentration in the soil and water from agricultural activities are a
problem in the UK that concerns namely public institutions (Wang et al. 2013 ).
Today in the UK it is difficult to find a pattern of sustainability that conciliates
several economic sectors, namely for agriculture with more developed industry
(Krausmann et al. 2008 ).
The financial support afforded to Greece from the European Union for organic
farming has had a dual effect upon the agro-biodiversity, because this agricultural
practice preserves biodiversity, but can reduce it if farmers only perform these
activities with subsidies (Nastis et al. 2013 ). Sheep farming is an important practice
in Greece, namely, in the mountainous regions (Tzouramani et al. 2011 ). Rural
tourism may be an important alternative source of revenue for farmers who depend
on many factors such as the income from tourism, such as the information obtained
before the trip and the origin of the information (Skuras et al. 2006 ).
Biomass crops appear in Ireland as an alternative to conventional agricultural
production (Clancy et al. 2012 ).
3 Data Analysis
In the following figures the data described is relative to the variables considered as
representative of the economic, social, and environmental determinants of the
agricultural economics, namely that of agricultural output (represented by the
value added).
Figure 5.1 is relative to the percentage of agricultural land (comparatively to the
total area of each country) and shows that, from 1961 until 2011, Ireland, the UK,
and Greece were the European countries with more relative land for farming. In
contrast, Portugal has the lowest relative area for agriculture. Since the beginning of
the 1990s there was some decrease in the percentage of agricultural land in Ireland
and some years later there came some perturbations for Greece.
From 1990 to 2011, Fig. 5.2 , Portugal had the largest area occupied with forest
(about 35 %) and Ireland and the UK had the lowest areas (about 10 %).