Energy productivity and GHG emission in the european agriculture: The club convergence approach

Abstract

The agricultural production plays an important role in food provision and income generation for the rural population. To mitigate the climate change and ensure food security, the agricultural sector has faced multiple initiatives, including the European Green Deal. Developing effective frameworks for measures under such initiatives requires identifying reasonable benchmarks. Accordingly, it is important to assess the patterns of input use and productivity in the agricultural sector. This paper focuses on the agricultural energy productivity in the European Union (EU) Member States during 2005-2019. Indeed, the EU allocates substantial support to improve resource efficiency and reduce climate pressures in the agriculture. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to apply the club convergence approach for the energy productivity the EU agriculture. This particular approach allows identifying the homogenous groups of the EU countries and, subsequently, assess the dynamics of the agricultural energy productivity within these groups. The results indicate that the agricultural energy productivity still requires attention in the EU countries, as only partial convergence was observed during 2015-2019. The EU countries were grouped into five clusters with different levels of the agricultural energy productivity. The results imply that the differences among resulting clusters remained rather stable over time. Therefore, relevant policies addressing energy efficiency issues can be developed for these relatively homogeneous groups to ensure further cohesion. The results suggest that countries with high energy productivity may show high levels of greenhouse gas intensity (and low levels of, e.g., labour productivity). Therefore, energy conservation and introduction of clean energy is a complex task that can be guided by the proposed framework and adjustment in the Common Agricultural Policy measures.

Keywords: Agriculture; Club convergence; Energy productivity; European union.