The purpose of this article is to determine the level of competitiveness of agri-food products in South East European (SEE) countries within the processes of European Union (EU) and regional integration as well as to find the factors that determine agri-food competitiveness. This article uses the revealed comparative advantages (RCAs) index to find the level of comparative advantage of agri-food products. Additionally, a model for identifying the determinants of the SEE agri-food comparative advantage was constructed and estimated. The results show that all SEE countries (except for Albania) have comparative advantages in the agri-food sector as part of the global market. Also, the estimation of the model shows that partial productivities in agriculture have a positive impact on comparative advantage while gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has a negative impact. This article makes a useful review of competitiveness of agri-food sector in SEE countries and determines which factors are significant for an RCA index. This is essential for policymakers to identify what determinants improve or degrade competitiveness of the agri-food sector in SEE countries.

Although the concept of self-sufficiency has been accepted both in developed and developing countries, alternated with periods of its rejections, the food crisis from 2007/08 and COVID-19 pandemic returned focus to the availability of countries to be self-sufficient in food production. Considering the concerns over ensuring food security in many countries, the main objective of this paper is to estimate the ability to fulfill the feed demand of the population in the eight countries of South-East Europe (SEE), which is in crisis conditions, such as pandemic especially important. In that context, the food self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) is calculated for total food production, as well as for different food groups. The next step in the methodological framework was to estimate the influence of different factors on the self-sufficiency ratio, as it depends on natural, financial, economic, and political factors. The results show that the SEE region expresses a high level of SSR in food, so it shows that the region is quite ready to respond to the challenges posed by the crisis. However, as the SEE region is a group of very different countries, regional cooperation should be strengthened as food production is considered.

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Due to the environmental radicalization of European politics, which is reflected in the European Green Deal, Farm to Fork strategy, and new CAP 2023–2027, this paper aims to determine the impact of agri-environmental indicators on soil productivity based on the land productivity function model. The paper focuses on the Western Balkans countries, which are in the process of European integration and which, in the coming period, need to harmonize their agricultural policy with the CAP. First, the aggregate Cobb–Douglas production function has been used to create a land productivity function. Then, the sources of land productivity growth have been calculated, which can be particularly interesting in the context of agri-environmental indicators, such as fertilizer use and livestock density. The research results showed that land productivity is the most elastic concerning changes in the number of livestock units per hectare. Consequently, reducing livestock units had a markedly negative effect on productivity. In addition, the research results showed that using mineral fertilizers is a crucial source of growth in land productivity in these countries. These results imply that the creators of the agricultural policy must carefully assess the pace at which they will harmonize ecological and economic goals, especially if they take into account the current Ukraine crisis that can disrupt the food market.

A B S T R A C TPig farming is the second most important branch of livestock production according to value of agricultural production, while pork meat is the most widely eaten meat in Serbia. As the one of the characteristics of pig market is cyclicality in the movement of production volumes and prices which can influence on the imbalance in supply and demand and in price fluctuations, the main aim of this paper was to analyse pork market in Serbia. Namely, in order to identify factors that influenced pork supply and demand, and to determine the presence of cyclical oscillations on pork market, pork market in Serbia was analyzed with supply and demand functions and with Cobweb model. The results indicated that factors which influenced on demand for pork were: personal consumption, retail price of pork and beef. On the other hand, on the supply side the most important factor was the price of pork. The results also indicated that in analyzed period in Serbia existed convergent type of Cobweb model.