Comparison of Agricultural Trade in Selected Groups of Countries – Comparison of Real Results

Abstract

The world trade is a dynamically changing in the long term horizon, its total value as well as share in the global economy are continuously growing. Despite the growth in agricultural trade, the gaps among various groups of countries and regions are becoming deeper. More and more countries loose its self-sufficiency or its netto export status and become dependent on imports. On the other hand, there exists another limited group of countries controlling most of the world exports. The aim of the article is to identify differences in changing values of agricultural trade among selected groups of countries. An accent is given primarily on an identification of differences relating to the real value of trading streams. These differences are defined not only in relation to the absolute value, but also to values recalculated per capita, active farmer or agricultural respective arable land. The results indicate extreme differences between developed and developing countries, just in favour of developed countries, which control an important share of the world agricultural trade. There is worth noting that despite the fact that developed countries affect essentially the character of the world agricultural market, there exist huge differences among them. They can be illustrated on the EU-15 and EU-13 countries. The differences relate not only to the value of agricultural trade but they can be observed when analysing the trade dynamics and productivity in relation to the production factors labour and land.

Keywords

• agricultural trade
• world
• groups of countries
• development
• trends differences
• comparison