Tendencies of plant production in the Republic of Serbia and at the level NUTS 1

Abstract

In this paper, we analyzed the tendencies of plant production in the Republic of Serbia and at the level of the territorial units Serbia-North and Serbia-South (NUTS 1), for the period 2009-2018 through the indicators of the coverage of areas and an average yield of 28 plant crops. The aim of the paper is to point out the differences in the representation of areas under different types of crops and to indicate the degree of their agreement between the mentioned territorial units by Spearman's correlation coefficient. For the analysis of the observed indicators, the methods of descriptive statistics, as well as Spearman's correlation coefficient, were used. The data indicate that the Serbia-North region is dominated by areas under cereals, industrial crops, peas and peaches, while the Serbia-South region is covered by areas under fodder crops, vegetable crops (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic, beans, cucumber, melons and watermelons) and perennial crops. The average yields of the observed crops differ significantly between the regions of Serbia-North and Serbia-South. Spearmen's correlation coefficient of the indicators of the coverage of areas indicated a high degree of stacking of areas under wheat and tobacco (0.927**), as well as areas under lucerne and clover with areas under fruit plantations. Also, a high degree of stacking of areas under maize and peas (0.798**) was established, but also between areas under sunflower and soya (0.891**).