scholarly journals Energy Consumption and Its Structures in Food Production Systems of the Visegrad Group Countries Compared with EU-15 Countries

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3945
Author(s):  
Bartłomiej Bajan ◽  
Joanna Łukasiewicz ◽  
Aldona Mrówczyńska-Kamińska

While joining the European Union (EU) in 2004, the countries of the Visegrad Group (V4) had to face a major challenge in the context of adapting to the EU standards in the field of energy use and energy efficiency. One of the sectors that heavily depends on the use of energy (mainly from fossil fuels) is the food production system, whose energy transformation is essential for future food security. The study aimed to measure the use of energy and its structures in the food production systems of the V4 countries and the EU-15 countries in relation to the implementation of the EU energy targets. The targets assumed, among other things, a reduction in overall energy use and an increase in the share of renewables in the energy mix. The proprietary method based on the assumptions of lifecycle assessment was applied to measure energy consumption in the food production systems with the use of input–output tables and energy accounts, which are part of the World Input–Output Database. The research shows a decreasing share of the food production systems in energy use of the V4 countries, while in the EU-15 countries, it remains on average at a stable, low level (around 4.4%). The discussed share for Poland averaged 8.8% in the period considered, for Hungary 7.6%, for the Czech Republic 3.8%, and for Slovakia 3.3%. The share of renewables in energy use of the food production systems is growing. However, in some countries of the EU-15, it increases at a slower pace than the assumed strategic goals, mainly in the countries that are the largest food producers in the EU. For Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, the average deviation of the share of renewables use in the food production system from the 2020 target for the entire economy is around 12 percentage points. In the case of V4 countries, the share of renewable energy use in food production systems is close to the assumed strategic targets.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Fontana ◽  
Ignacio de los Ríos Carmenado ◽  
Johan Villanueva-Penedo ◽  
José Ulloa-Salazar ◽  
Denisse Santander-Peralta

This research shows a business initiative that has been able to integrate into an environmentally sustainable food production system, such as poultry farming, a positive impact on food security and public health patterns of low-income populations in an emerging country. For a process that took 20 years, the adopted strategy has become a positive experience of sustainability and prosperity in low-income populations in Peru. The objective of the research is to conceptualize and identify the key elements of this experience so that its replication in other food production systems to impact favorably the prosperity of such vulnerable population. The Working With People (WWP) model, a validated methodology for analyzing the sustainability and prosperity of rural areas in Europe, is used for the analysis of this experience. The analysis shows that the presence of the three dimensions of this model (political-contextual, technical-business, and ethical-social) ensure the sustainability of a food production system that has an impact on the prosperity of low-income populations in emerging countries. This balance is important to enrich the connections between sustainability and prosperity, with other concepts such as core values in companies, public-private cooperation, food safety, inclusion and consumption patterns.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (15) ◽  
pp. 4593
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Cheba ◽  
Iwona Bąk

The main purpose of the paper is to present a proposal to measure the relationships between Goal 7 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and one of the areas considered in the green growth concept: environmental production efficiency. Both of these areas illustrate the relationship between the natural environment and the economy, emphasizing transformations in the field of energy use. Selected taxonomic methods, TOPSIS, and multicriteria taxonomy, were applied to study the relationships between the two areas. The results of the EU countries classification showed a variety of countries’ development pathways within a single economic community. Despite continued attempts to equalize the development levels between European Union countries in many strategic areas, they remain highly diversified. That is also true for the areas analyzed in the paper, which is a disturbing situation, indicating that both strategies might not correlate in all respects. Further research into the relationships linking the remaining dimensions of both strategies is required.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4209
Author(s):  
Rita Remeikienė ◽  
Ligita Gasparėnienė ◽  
Aleksandra Fedajev ◽  
Marek Szarucki ◽  
Marija Đekić ◽  
...  

The main goal of setting energy efficiency priorities is to find ways to reduce energy consumption without harming consumers and the environment. The renovation of buildings can be considered one of the main aspects of energy efficiency in the European Union (EU). In the EU, only 5% of the renovation projects have been able to yield energy-saving at the deep renovation level. No other study has thus far ranked the EU member states according to achieved results in terms of increased usage in renewable sources, a decrease in energy usage and import, and reduction in harmful gas emissions due to energy usage. The main purpose of this article is to perform a comparative analysis of EU economies according to selected indicators related to the usage of renewable resources, energy efficiency, and emissions of harmful gasses as a result of energy usage. The methodological contribution of our study is related to developing a complex and robust research method for investment efficiency assessment allowing the study of three groups of indicators related to the usage of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, and ecological aspects of energy. It was based on the PROMETHEE II method and allows testing it in other time periods, as well as modifying it for research purposes. The EU member states were categorized by such criteria as energy from renewables and biofuels, final energy consumption from renewables and biofuels, gross electricity generation from renewables and biofuels and import dependency, and usage of renewables and biofuels for heating and cooling. The results of energy per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions per million inhabitants (ECO2), energy per capita, the share of CO2 emissions from public electricity, and heat production from total CO2 emissions revealed that Latvia, Sweden, Portugal, Croatia, Austria, Lithuania, Romania, Denmark, and Finland are the nine most advanced countries in the area under consideration. In the group of the most advanced countries, energy consumption from renewables and biofuels is higher than the EU average.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Gutiérrez-Hernández ◽  
Ignacio Abásolo-Alessón

Abstract Background This study aims to analyse the relative importance of the health care sector (health care activities and services), its interrelations with the rest of productive activities, aggregate supply and demand, employment requirements and apparent labour productivity in the European Union (EU) economy as a whole, and in the economies of member countries. Methods The methodology used is based on input–output analysis. Data are extracted from National Accounts and, specifically, from the input–output framework for 2010. Data in national currencies are adjusted using as a conversion factor, specific purchasing power parities for health. Results In the EU, market production predominates in the provision of health care activities, which are financed mainly by public funding. However, there is significant variability among countries, and, in fact, non-market production predominates in most EU countries. The health care sector has direct backward and forward linkages lower than the average for all sectors of the economy and the average for the services sector. Thus, this sector is relatively independent of the rest of the productive structure in the EU. The health care activities industry is key because of its ability to generate value added and employment. Regarding apparent labour productivity, there are significant differences among EU countries, showing that productivity is positively related to the weight of market production in health care activities and negatively related to the number of hours worked per person employed. Conclusions Our results provide useful insights for health authorities in the EU, as they analyse the effect of health policies on macroeconomic indicators using an input–output framework, as well as comparing these effects with those in EU member countries. To the best of our knowledge, an analysis of the health care sector in the EU economy and the countries that integrate it using an input–output framework has not been undertaken. In addition, to compare health care expenditure between countries, data in national currencies have been adjusted using specific purchasing power parities for “health”, and not ones referring to the total economy (GDP), which is common practice in many previous studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3660
Author(s):  
Rathna Hor ◽  
Phanna Ly ◽  
Agusta Samodra Putra ◽  
Riaru Ishizaki ◽  
Tofael Ahamed ◽  
...  

Traditional Cambodian food has higher nutrient balances and is environmentally sustainable compared to conventional diets. However, there is a lack of knowledge and evidence on nutrient intake and the environmental greenness of traditional food at different age distributions. The relationship between nutritional intake and environmental impact can be evaluated using carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from agricultural production based on life cycle assessment (LCA). The objective of this study was to estimate the CO2 equivalent (eq) emissions from the traditional Cambodian diet using LCA, starting at each agricultural production phase. A one-year food consumption scenario with the traditional diet was established. Five breakfast (BF1–5) and seven lunch and dinner (LD1–7) food sets were consumed at the same rate and compared using LCA. The results showed that BF1 and LD2 had the lowest and highest emissions (0.3 Mt CO2 eq/yr and 1.2 Mt CO2 eq/yr, respectively). The food calories, minerals, and vitamins met the recommended dietary allowance. The country’s existing food production system generates CO2 emissions of 9.7 Mt CO2 eq/yr, with the proposed system reducing these by 28.9% to 6.9 Mt CO2 eq/yr. The change in each food item could decrease emissions depending on the type and quantity of the food set, especially meat and milk consumption.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1570
Author(s):  
Tomasz Rokicki ◽  
Aleksandra Perkowska ◽  
Bogdan Klepacki ◽  
Piotr Bórawski ◽  
Aneta Bełdycka-Bórawska ◽  
...  

The paper’s main purpose was to identify and present the current situation and changes in energy consumption in agriculture in the European Union (EU) countries. The specific objectives were the determination of the degree of concentration of energy consumption in agriculture in the EU countries, showing the directions of their changes, types of energy used, and changes in this respect, establishing the correlation between energy consumption and changes in the economic and agricultural situation in the EU countries. All member states of the European Union were deliberately selected for research on 31 December 2018 (28 countries). The research period covered the years 2005–2018. The sources of materials were the literature on the subject, and data from Eurostat. Descriptive, tabular, and graphical methods were used to analyze and present materials, dynamics indicators with a stable base, Gini concentration coefficient, concentration analysis using the Lorenz curve, coefficient of variation, Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient, and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. A high concentration of energy consumption in agriculture was found in several EU countries, the largest in countries with the largest agricultural sector, i.e., France and Poland. There were practically no changes in the concentration level. Only in the case of renewable energy, a gradual decrease in concentration was visible. More and more countries developed technologies that allow the use of this type of energy. However, the EU countries differed in terms of the structure of the energy sources used. The majority of the basis was liquid fuels, while stable and gaseous fuels were abandoned in favor of electricity and renewable sources—according to which, in the EU countries, the research hypothesis was confirmed: a gradual diversification of energy sources used in agriculture, with a systematic increase in the importance of renewable energy sources. The second research hypothesis was also confirmed, according to which the increase in the consumption of renewable energy in agriculture is closely related to the economy’s parameters. The use of renewable energy is necessary and results from concern for the natural environment. Therefore, economic factors may have a smaller impact.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Somdip Dey ◽  
Suman Saha ◽  
Amit Singh ◽  
Klaus D. Mcdonald-Maier

<div><div><div><p>Food safety is an important issue in today’s world. Traditional agri-food production system doesn’t offer easy traceability of the produce at any point of the supply chain, and hence, during a food-borne outbreak, it is very difficult to sift through food production data to track produce and origin of the outbreak. In recent years, blockchain based food production system has resolved this challenge, however, none of the proposed methodologies makes the food production data easily accessible, traceable and verifiable by consumers or producers using mobile/edge devices. In this paper, we propose FoodSQRBlock (Food Safety Quick Response Block), a blockchain technology based framework, which digitizes the food production information, and makes it easily accessible, traceable and verifiable by the consumers and producers by using QR codes. We also propose a large scale integration of FoodSQRBlock in the cloud to show the feasibility and scalability of the framework, and experimental evaluation to prove that.</p></div></div></div>


2013 ◽  
pp. 143-146
Author(s):  
Orsolya Nagy

The use of renewable energies has a long past, even though its share of the total energy use is rather low in European terms. However, the tendencies are definitely favourable which is further strengthened by the dedication of the European Union to sustainable development and combat against climate change. The European Union is on the right track in achieving its goal which is to be able to cover 20% its energy need from renewable energy resources by 2020. The increased use of wind, solar, water, tidal, geothermal and biomass energy will reduce the energy import dependence of the European Union and it will stimulate innovation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (No. 8) ◽  
pp. 337-346
Author(s):  
Szabo Luboslav ◽  
Grznar Miroslav ◽  
Zelina Michal

The paper is devoted to an analysis of the development of agrarian farms in Visegrad Group (V4) countries, primarily in terms of results and the most important production inputs of production factors and their efficiency in the period from 2004 to 2013 based on the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The results of the analysis show that if farms in the V4 countries want to achieve the same performance as developed countries, they must invest more in purchasing intensification factors and adjust the structure of assets production specification. It will be necessary to stop the reduction in the numbers of livestock and to strive for growth in gross farm income, mainly through the processing of agricultural raw materials.


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