New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia

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 po...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Christensen, Garry
Format:	Report
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2016
Subjects:	AGRICULTURAL POLICY FARM SUPPORT FARM STRUCTURE COMPETITIVENESS AGRICULTURAL TRADE SMALL FARMS MEDIUM SIZED FARMS AGRICULTURE SECTOR GROWTH
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24169

id	okr-10986-24169
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-241692021-04-23T14:04:20Z New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia Christensen, Garry AGRICULTURAL POLICY FARM SUPPORT FARM STRUCTURE COMPETITIVENESS AGRICULTURAL TRADE SMALL FARMS MEDIUM SIZED FARMS AGRICULTURE SECTOR GROWTH 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. 2016-04-26T21:18:50Z 2016-04-26T21:18:50Z 2016-04 Report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24169 English en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work :: Other Agriculture Study Economic & Sector Work Europe and Central Asia Serbia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	AGRICULTURAL POLICY FARM SUPPORT FARM STRUCTURE COMPETITIVENESS AGRICULTURAL TRADE SMALL FARMS MEDIUM SIZED FARMS AGRICULTURE SECTOR GROWTH
spellingShingle	AGRICULTURAL POLICY FARM SUPPORT FARM STRUCTURE COMPETITIVENESS AGRICULTURAL TRADE SMALL FARMS MEDIUM SIZED FARMS AGRICULTURE SECTOR GROWTH Christensen, Garry New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia
geographic_facet	Europe and Central Asia Serbia
description	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.
format	Report
author	Christensen, Garry
author_facet	Christensen, Garry
author_sort	Christensen, Garry
title	New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia
title_short	New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia
title_full	New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia
title_fullStr	New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia
title_full_unstemmed	New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia
title_sort	new opportunities and old constraints : the context for agriculture sector development in serbia
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2016
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24169
_version_	1764455831248568320

New Opportunities and Old Constraints : The Context for Agriculture Sector Development in Serbia

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