Towards sustainability in European agricultural firms

Abstract

European agricultural activity plays an important role in European and world food security through the agricultural production, supply and international trade. The main aim of this paper was analyses the agricultural sustainability of the twenty-nine Member States of the European Union in terms of economics, environmental, social and political activity. Information and data comes from FADN database from the European Commission. The methodology includes the min-max approach and multivariate methods, namely, Component Principal Analysis and Cluster analysis. The results confirm three groups of European countries, namely, the North and Central countries; the New Member States and the Mediterranean counties. The results also confirm that European agriculture firms and respective countries had a medium sustainability. The main conclusion highlines confirms the importance of the sustainability as a tool to better adjust agricultural policies among the European Member States.