BIOECONOMY DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL BASED ON MORE EFFICIENT LAND USE IN THE EU

Abstract

Europe 2020 Strategy highlights bioeconomy as a key element for smart and green growth in Europe. Bioeconomy in this case includes agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and pulp and paper production, parts of chemical, biotechnological and energy industries and plays an important role in the EU’s economy. The growth of key industries of bioeconomy – agriculture and forestry – highly depends on an efficient and productive use of land as a production resource. The overall aim of this paper is to evaluate opportunities for development of the main sectors of bioeconomy (agriculture and forestry) in the EU based on the available resources of land. To achieve this aim, several methods were used – monographic, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, statistical analysis methods. The findings show that it is possible to improve the use of land in the EU Member States. If all the Member States reached the average EU level, agricultural products worth EUR 77 bln would be annually additionally produced, which is 19 % more than in 2014, and an extra 5 billion m3 volume of forest growing stock would be gained, which is 20 % more than in 2010.

Keywords: bioeconomy, agricultural and forest area, efficiency, productivity.

Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2015.101