Regional aspect of consequences of world economic crisis in agricultural sector

Abstract

As stated in the draft of National Program of Agriculture in Serbia from 2010 to 2013, ,,agriculture has been recognized as one of the main strategic directions of development, as majority of the population, both rural and urban, see it as the greatest development opportunity of Serbia". The main characteristics of Serbian agriculture for many years, and also its main problems are: volatility of yield and production volume, slow moving towards extensive agricultural production, low purchasing power of farmers as a result of low incomes in agriculture, price disparities, insufficient agricultural budget which is one of the lowest in Europe, and the increased number of elderly households in rural areas as a result of reduced number of farmers. With the advent of the economic crisis, many of these problems have deepened. In this paper, we analyzed the global economic crisis through several indicators: participation of the budget for agriculture in the overall budget of the country, foreign trade in the agricultural sector, and wages in this sector. Compared to Croatia, Slovenia and the European Union, it was noted that Serbia significantly lags behind these countries. However, forecasts and planned investments in agriculture provide an opportunity to alleviate the negative development trend of agriculture in Serbia.