Resource Use and Food Security in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

Achieving food security and resources sustainability have a high priority in agrarian policy that  universal for all economies. Today modern agriculture has many complex challenges, so a sustainable agriculture approach is needed. Agriculture now must produce more food, using available natural resources efficiently and sustainably, including a reduction of post-harvest losses and waste, and developing agriculture more resilient to climate change. The Republic of Serbia has a good quality of agricultural land, favorable ratio of available land per capita, and favorable climate conditions for agricultural production. However, Serbia has a large number of small farms with fragmented property, family workforce, low level of technical equipment and capital, which have a high production costs and irrational use of resources. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact ofresource use on the level of food security in the Republic of Serbia. The survey data were taken from the FAOSTAT database, World Bank, as well as the national statistics of the Republic of Serbia and hierarchical regression analysis was used. The results of the research have shown that resource supply has a statistically significant impact on the level of food security in the Republic of Serbia.