Agriculture in Croatia

Agricultural production is a very important sector of the Croatian economy. Agriculture is, however, confronted with a large number of problems caused both by external factors such as war damage, high levels of imports of agricultural products, an inefficient market system, restrictive taxes and internal factors like an unfavourable educational and age structure of farmers and poor managerial skills. Today the majority of the Croatian agricultural holdings are characterized by small and fragmented land, which is a major limiting factor to the increase of their competitiveness. Croatia is marked by various geographical and climate regions that favours a diverse agricultural production with a wide range of products. Nevertheless, during the 1990s, agricultural production decreased significantly due to the war and transition to a market economy. Plant production has been increasing continually since 1995, but cattle production is still 30% lower than in 1990. Table 2: Basic indicators in the Agricultural Census 2003 (1 June 2003)
Total Number of units Utilized agricultural land, ha Average number agricultural land of hectares of utilized 449,896.00 1,077,403.00 2.40 4.40 Agricultural households 448,532.00 860,195.00 1.90 3.50 Business entities 1,364.00 217,208.00 159.20 167.90

Average number of hectares of utilized agricultural land for units using more than 1 ha

Number of bovine animals, total Number of pigs, total Number of sheep, total Number of goats, total Number of poultry, total

488,646.00 1,924,672.00 768,182.00 203,979.00 15,989,365.00

398,037.00 1,726,895.00 750,877.00 203,340.00 10,477,514.00

90,609.00 197,777.00 17,305.00 639.00 5,511,851.00

Source: Agricultural Census 2003- Croatian bureau of Statistics

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Croatia has a total of 3.15 million hectares of agricultural land. About 2 million hectares of the total are arable land while the rest consists of pastures, moors, reeds and fish farms. Arable land and gardens prevails in the agricultural land structure with a share of 46.4%. It is followed by pastures (36.6%), meadows (12.9%), orchards (2.2%) and vineyards (1.9%). With about 82% of the cultivated land and in a slightly more than 80% of livestock land, private ownerships dominate. The 2003 Census of Agriculture indicates that the total agricultural land was 1.07 million hectares out of which 84% was in the ownership of family holdings. The remaining 16% was in possession of legal business entities, partly privately owned, partly state owned. Plant production is one of the most important sectors of agriculture in terms of land use, food and fodder production, Grains and oil-crops representing the main cultures in Croatia. Vegetables are grown on 200 thousand ha (about 10% of all arable land and gardens) which is insufficient with respect to the needs and potentials. The most important vegetable crops are potato, cabbage, tomato, onion, peppers, cucumber, salad, and carrot. In the production structure potatoes covered almost half of the vegetable production surface (63,000 ha). Production in greenhouses is not significant. Orchards occupy about 68,000 ha or 2.2% of agricultural land. This is a small portion given Croatias favourable climatic and pedologic conditions and its tradition in growing continental and Mediterranean fruits. About 95% of orchards are in the ownership of family agricultural holdings making this production fragmented and unproductive, with significant variations in yield and quality. Apple, peach, sour cherry and walnut as well as olive and mandarine are the major crops. Out of the overall market demand for some twenty fruits, Croatian production covers the needs in mandarines only. Table 3: Aggregated agricultural production (average 2001-2003)
unit Grains Oil crops* Vegetables Fruits Meat Beef Pork Poultry Mutton Milk Sugar Vegetable oils t t t t t t t t t mil, lit, t t Production 3,155,449 185,247 920,713 145,092 211,584 39,383 99,876 66,970 5,355 670 154,793 46,153

*soy, sunflower and oil rape Source: Central Bureau of Statistic, 2004

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Livestock production in the Republic of Croatia is a particularly important branch of agriculture in which many producers are involved. Small production units, especially in cattle and swine production as well as in sheep, goat and horse keeping are dominant. In poultry production, big production units having special large-scale production of poultry meat and eggs are the norm. Cattle production is Croatias main branch of livestock breeding and one of the most important branches of overall agricultural production. The ownership structure is dominated by family holdings in terms of the number of cattle, particularly cows and pregnant heifers. Croatia has a long-standing tradition in pork production. This segment is organized mostly at small production units, on family farms, within the activities of the mixed family holdings. Not many farms are specialized production units with up-to-date technologies and standard compliant (some family farms and big farms of legal entities). Most of poultry production as a livestock segment employs high production technologies and is self-sustainable. The production is organized in big production units of few producers who sometimes cooperate with specialized family farms, especially for poultry meat production. Self- sufficiency estimation is a common global indicator, which shows the level in which the national production satisfies the national market needs. Self-sufficiency analyses shows deficiencies of the most important agricultural products, especially in the case of mutton, pork, beef, milk, vegetables and fruit. Surplus is evident in the case of wheat, sugar, maize, wine and eggs. Croatian agriculture is at a very critical point where it will decide about its future direction. It should be mentioned that EU pre-accession funds and other measures designed in order to improve farm competitiveness are questionable in the current state of risk management and risk sharing markets.