Publication: New Opportunities and Old Constraints: The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia
Loading...
Files in English
555 downloads
Date
2016-04
ISSN
Published
2016-04
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Agriculture sector performance in Serbia is characterized by both stagnant sector growth and a substantial increase in agricultural exports. This report describes the reasons for this paradox and its implications for future sector policy. Observed export growth is narrowly based, despite Serbia’s potential to produce and export a range of crop and livestock products. This export growth has been offset by stagnation or long-term contraction elsewhere in the sector. Current agricultural policy is not conducive to more broad based growth. High commodity support for cereal and oilseeds exacerbates the disparate regional and sub-sector trends in performance. Area and headage payments provide little incentive to increase farm output and freeze farm structure. Leased land is also ineligible for budget support, further discouraging farm expansion. The predominance of small, mixed-income farms thus remains a major constraint to increased competitiveness and sector growth. Policies also change significantly from year to year, discouraging investment. New trade agreements have increased the opportunities for both agricultural exports and imports. The EU is now Serbia’s major trading partner for agricultural products, displacing trade with its traditional CEFTA partners. These changes have exposed the sector to high levels of competition from EU products, however, on both domestic and regional markets. But while agriculture exhibits high revealed comparative advantage, most agriculture industries are struggling to maintain their position in domestic and foreign markets. Three factors thus limit the sector’s capacity to benefit fully from its favorable resource base and new trade opportunities: a farm structure dominated by small to medium sized, mixed income farms; the low performance of industries selling into domestic and export markets; and an inappropriate policy framework. Future agricultural policy will need to increase support for medium-sized farms in order to broaden the base for growth; and increase policy stability to facilitate investment.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Christensen, Garry. 2016. New Opportunities and Old Constraints: The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24169 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication FYR Macedonia : Agriculture Sector Review(Washington, DC, 2002-10-30)Economic progress in Macedonia has been variable and slow during the last 10 years. This slow progress is attributable to the succession of political and economic shocks, and the failure to complete economic reform. Agriculture is an important sector in the Macedonia economy, with production and processing contributing around 18% of GDP. As a small economy with a structural deficit in most food commodities, agricultural trade is essential for Macedonia. Current agricultural trade policy, however, constrains agricultural trade. Most Macedonian imports are covered by free trade agreements under the Stabilization and Association Agreement and with regional trading partners. Direct support for agriculture derives from the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy, and the activities of the State Office for Commodity Reserves (SOCR). Budget support is minimal due to the severe current fiscal restrictions. Most support comes from SOCR, through its purchases of wheat and tobacco to maintain official floor prices. Macedonia has 1.28 million ha of agricultural land, about half cultivable and half pastures. All socially owned land was nationalized in 1993. Existing irrigation schemes have been reduced from 40% to 13%. The state of the country's irrigation system is poor and crop damage during the variable summer dry period is prevalent. Produce quality suffers from lack of needed infrastructure supporting post-harvest treatment and packing. The priority areas for agriculture, the expansion of production, and increase in productivity, require that resources be available to efficient private producers, including efficient small ones, and a processing and marketing chain, so that they can expand in areas where they are competitive. This will require a comprehensive restructuring of government policies and support.Publication Tajikistan Agricultural Sector Risk Assessment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02)Agriculture is among the most risk-prone sectors in the economies of Central Asia. Production shocks from weather, pests and diseases and adverse movements in agricultural product and input prices not only impact farmers and agri-business firms, but can also strain government finances. Some of these risks are small and localized and can be managed by producers. Others are the result of more severe, exogenous shocks outside agriculture or outside the country, which require a broader response. Failure to respond adequately to these more severe risks leads to a perpetual cycle of ‘shock-recovery-shock’, which reinforces poverty traps and compromises long-term growth. The agriculture sector’s exposure to production and price risk is increasing. Climate change is increasing production risks in the short to medium-term by increasing the frequency and severity of droughts and floods and in the longer-term by reducing the availability of water for irrigation due to accelerated glacial melt. The modernization and commercialization of agricultural production and processing, which is critical for sector growth, also raises the sector’s exposure to price risk at a time of high volatility on international markets for agricultural commodities. An effective response to these risks requires a broader, more integrated approach to risk management than the current system of ex-ante, public sector activity associated with crop and livestock disease and ad hoc, ex-post emergency responses to local disasters. Measures to strengthen risk mitigation will need to be mainstreamed into sector development and investment programs, additional human and financial resources will need to be allocated to the public institutions responsible for ex-ante and ex-post risk management, and the potential for transfer (insurance) mechanisms will need to be clarified and developed where feasible. Given the limited human and financial resources available for public sector activity, a clear sense of the priorities for agriculture risk management is also required, together with a balanced view of the respective roles of public and private sector stakeholders.Publication Kyrgyz Republic Agricultural Sector Risk Assessment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02)Agriculture is among the most risk-prone sectors in the economies of Central Asia. Production shocks from weather, pests and diseases and adverse movements in agricultural product and input prices not only impact farmers and agri-business firms, but can also strain government finances. Some of these risks are small and localized and can be managed by producers. Others are the result of more severe, exogenous shocks outside agriculture or outside the country, which require a broader response. Failure to respond adequately to these more severe risks leads to a perpetual cycle of ‘shock-recovery-shock’, which reinforces poverty traps and compromises long-term growth. The agriculture sector’s exposure to production and price risk is increasing. Climate change is increasing production risks in the short to medium-term by increasing the frequency and severity of droughts and floods and in the longer-term by reducing the availability of water for irrigation due to accelerated glacial melt. The modernization and commercialization of agricultural production and processing, which is critical for sector growth, also raises the sector’s exposure to price risk at a time of high volatility on international markets for agricultural commodities. An effective response to these risks requires a broader, more integrated approach to risk management than the current system of ex-ante, public sector activity associated with crop and livestock disease and ad hoc, ex-post emergency responses to local disasters. Measures to strengthen risk mitigation need to be mainstreamed into sector development and investment programs, additional human and financial resources need to be allocated to the public institutions responsible for ex-ante and ex-post risk management, and the potential for transfer (insurance) mechanisms will need to be clarified and developed where feasible. Given the limited human and financial resources available for public sector activity, a clear sense of the priorities for agriculture risk management is also required, together with a balanced view of the respective roles of public and private sector stakeholders.Publication Benin - Constraints to Growth and Potential for Diversification and Innovation : Country Economic Memorandum(World Bank, 2009-06-18)With favorable geographical location, macroeconomic stability, debt reduction, progress on structural reforms, and political stability, Benin will seem to have the foundations for a dynamic, diversified economy. Yet the country's economic structure has not evolved, remaining highly dependent on cotton and transit trade, and per-capita growth has slowed down in recent years. The government has requested the World Bank's assistance in understanding the constraints to growth and evaluating the country's potential for diversification and innovation as it seeks to lead the country to emerging market status by 2020. The government is well aware that the vulnerabilities associated with the country's dependence on cotton and transit trade impede the attainment of this goal. Response to the government's request, the objective of the Benin Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) is therefore to identify and analyze the key economic and institutional constraints to growth, including through diversification and innovation. The CEM contains four main chapters, each providing theoretical or empirical analyses of Benin's economic situation and prospects: a) cross-sectoral binding constraints to growth; b) analysis of specific constraints in the cotton and transit trade sectors; c) diversification and innovation potential; and d) political economy of growth.Publication Kazakhstan Agricultural Sector Risk Assessment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02)Agriculture is among the most risk-prone sectors in the economies of Central Asia. Production shocks from weather, pests and diseases and adverse movements in agricultural product and input prices not only impact farmers and agri-business firms, but can also strain government finances. Some of these risks are small and localized and can be managed by producers. Others are the result of more severe, exogenous shocks outside agriculture that require a broader response. Failure to respond adequately to these more severe risks leads to a perpetual cycle of ‘shock-recovery-shock’ which reinforces poverty traps and compromises long-term growth. A broad-based program to improve livestock productivity is recommended to strengthen the resilience of livestock production systems and rangeland use in Kazakhstan. Proposed interventions include measures to: (i) reverse degradation of water, soil and vegetation cover; (ii) safeguard the long-term viability of rangeland ecosystems, while ensuring sustainable access to grazing land; and (iii) strengthen livestock services (veterinary, animal health, feed and fodder supply, destocking, water and grazing access, and weather and market information). These measures will enable farmers to manage their resources better, to respond to climate and market signals and to protect their resource base in times of drought. The recommendations developed under these three solution areas continue the underlying emphasis on mitigation as the foundation for risk management. They also highlight the mutually reinforcing benefits of measures to improve crop and livestock productivity for both risk management and sector growth.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.