engleski

The Importance of the Agricultural Sector for the Economy of Croatia

Agriculture has a significant impact on the economy of every country, including Croatia. Its three primary functions are to feed the domicile population, to supply all the industries requiring so with raw materials, and to export production surplus. For any country, agriculture is one of the fundamental activities to be mastered to enable further development and progress. Natural resources and a capable labour force are the key prerequisites for agricultural development and expansion. Croatia has highly favourable conditions for the development of agriculture, due to the intertwining of two different climatic regions, namely the Mediterranean one, being a temperately warm and humid climate with hot summers, and the humid snow forest climate with cooler summers. The aim of this paper is to explore and present the importance of the agricultural sector for the Croatian economy, specifying some basic issues such as outdated agricultural machinery and facilities, insufficient land consolidation and irrigation and drainage infrastructure, lack of interest of young people in agriculture, insufficiently educated agricultural population, etc. In addition to presenting the situation and current issues based on statistical indicators, the paper also illustrates the measures that the European Union provides and the grant opportunities which most of young people successfully use today, thus defining new standards for their agricultural holdings which is extremely important for the future of Croatian agriculture.

agricultural issues, agricultural policy, natural resources

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