Food Self-Sufficiency in Slovakia from the Perspective of Land Use and Production Approach

Abstract

Abstract If a country cannot secure a sufficient amount of quality food from the domestic market for various reasons, it is necessary to import it from abroad. This is the case in Slovakia, which lags behind the EU average in food self-sufficiency. Therefore, this contribution aims to point out the development of Slovakia’s food self-sufficiency in basic agro-commodities in the past two decades. We strive to do this by applying two approaches to self-sufficiency research – the land use approach and the production approach. While the first is based on assessing the availability of resources where agricultural production can be implemented, the second approach considers agricultural production, consumption and the foreign trade balance. The results show that although a few decades ago, Slovakia was a self-sufficient country in most agri-food commodities, at present, it is not self-sufficient even in the basic ones (such as vegetables, fruits, pork and poultry). The indicated trend of agro sector development conflicts with the Concept of Agricultural Development of the Slovak Republic for 2013–2020, the goal of which was to achieve food self-sufficiency at an 80% level by 2020. Later, therefore, we discuss what lies behind the success or failure of attaining food self-sufficiency in Slovakia and point to the complementarity of self-sufficiency goals at the EU and national levels.