The effects of environmental degradation on agriculture: Evidence from European countries

Currently, one of the most significant challenges of agricultural sector of an economy is to keep pace with the world's rapidly growing population in order to feed them. But continuous environmental degradation is posing serious threat to the agricultural production. The objective of this study is to look at how envi-ronmental degradation in the form of biodiversity loss, deforestation and agricultural emissions can affect agricultural production as well as cereal and vegetable production in 35 countries of Europe. The study utilizes Driscoll and Kraay estimator to understand the potential impacts of environmental degra-dation as well as other variables such as organic farming, renewable energy, political stability, e-governance, social progress and women empowerment on agriculture. The result reveals that biodiversity loss harms agricultural, cereal and vegetable production while forest area increase positively affect the cereal production and vegetable production. Agricultural emissions, on the other hand, does not signifi-cantly affect the three independent variables but it has a negative effect on cereal and positive impact on vegetable production. Renewable energy use, political stability and women empowerment all have pos-itive and significant impacts on all the three dependent variables. E-governance significantly and posi-tively affects agricultural and vegetable production and social progress has positive but insignificant effect on the dependent variables. Finally, the study provides crucial policy implications for the agricul-tural sector of Europe. (c) 2022 International Association for Gondwana Research. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study examines the impact of environmental degradation, such as biodiversity loss, deforestation, and agricultural emissions, on agricultural production as well as cereal and vegetable production in 35 European countries. The results show that biodiversity loss harms agricultural, cereal, and vegetable production, while an increase in forest area positively affects cereal and vegetable production. Agricultural emissions do not significantly affect the three variables, but they have a negative effect on cereal production and a positive impact on vegetable production. Additionally, renewable energy use, political stability, and women empowerment have positive and significant impacts on all three dependent variables, while e-governance significantly and positively affects agricultural and vegetable production. Social progress has a positive but insignificant effect on the dependent variables. The study provides important policy implications for the agricultural sector in Europe.