In the introductory part the authors deal with the importance of agricultural land, its influence on water management, on the production of food for inhabitants, the utilization of land in agriculture, the influence on the climatic condition and the global ecosystem. They point out the problems related to the reduction of agricultural areas and they quote opinions of selected environmental specialists. They mention the issue of the subsidies in the Czech Republic, their sources and accounting.
In the next part the authors focus on the analysis of the reduction of and the situation in the utilized agricultural area in thousands of hectares in EU countries. For this purpose, they utilize historic statistical data on the quantity and structure of utilized agricultural area. They represent the respective time series in tables and figures, calculate and compare their average absolute changes (increments or reductions) and percentage coefficients of growth (decrease). These coefficients are also used for the establishment of simple predictions obtained by extrapolation methods and by means of the linear trend function. The comparison of the results from individual EU countries was also represented graphically.
More advanced and exact forecast models, which also provide interval forecasts, not only point forecasts, are applied on the CR and its neighbours, on the EU and its largest countries, by means of SPPS software. Balanced values and forecasts for 5 successive periods since 2017 have been calculated and tabulated. Everything is represented by means of suitable figures.
Authors: Kristina Kabourková, Jaroslav Stuchlý
Keywords: utilised agricultural area in EU countries, average annual changes in utilized agricultural area, average growth/reduction rate, forecasts of the condition of the utilized land, subsidies.
Volume: 12
Issue: 2