Currently, various challenges and transformations are registered worldwide due to long-term global changes such as human population growth, the degree of urbanization, the demand and the consumption of limited resources, the changes in world weather, affecting agriculture and resources, especially food security, migration [
11], food prices, and leading to environmental degradation, increased levels of risks, uncertainty [
12], and poverty due to pandemics [
13]. Therefore, despite land degradation, the increased demand for food became a major task [
14], and education must be in line with the needs of the world [
15], as well as the people’s behaviour and attitude towards consumption, having in view that consumption and economic growth are closely linked [
16]. Agricultural growth leads to increased levels of employment and wages [
17]. Human health and wellbeing strongly depend on food production, quality, and availability. The development of agriculture enabled people to produce large amounts of food on a more reliable basis and from smaller areas of land [
18]. Since agricultural production is directly related to poverty reduction and sustainable development, its study becomes valuable during a crisis, e.g., one generated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) from 2020, as the main agricultural policy of the EU, has as objectives to ensure a decent standard of living for farmers, to provide a stable and safe food supply chain at affordable prices for consumers, as well as to ensure the development of rural areas throughout the EU [
20]. Given the need to modernize and simplify, Romanian agriculture must learn to develop smartly, resiliently, sustainably, and competitively by analyzing its performance based on the influencing factors. In Romania, during the transition from a centralized economy to a free-market economy [
21], the limited financing possibilities of the agricultural producers led to an increase in the importance of European funds for agriculture [
22]. Romanian agriculture is the turning point for any medium and long-term development strategy of the national economy [
23]. Europe is dealing with major issues, such as population ageing and stagnation (28% of the population is over 65 years old; the total population of EU-27 is expected to increase by only 5% compared to the level registered in 2008). Romania is affected as well, its population is to decrease by 2050 to less than 18 million, being exceeded only by Bulgaria (−22.5%), Latvia (−20.5%), and Lithuania (−18.7%) [
24]. Rural areas in Europe will be affected by demographic issues, as the urban area will increase by 10% and the rural area will decrease by 2.7% compared with 2011; therefore, agriculture might have to deal with a spatial development issue [
25]. These tendencies will have a negative impact on rural development, will reduce the agricultural labour force, and will threaten the vitality of these areas, the green product quality, and the areas for future agricultural practices. CAP considers the economic, social, and environmental concerns. Today, 14 million farmers from the EU and 2.42 million farms from Romania wish to offer quality agricultural products, accessibility, and food safety [
26].
The primary and secondary pollutants, such as NO and SO
2, or the photochemical ozone and the acid rain will affect agriculture in the long term [
27] and could be fatal [
28] for people, animals, and agricultural production in the short term [
29]. Agriculture has been the basic source of subsistence for humanity for thousands of years; having in view the increased levels of food production and the limited resources, as well as, with the green revolution, people are more and more interested in eating healthy food, breeding healthy animals/crops on healthy lands, and living in a healthy environment; therefore, sustainable agriculture [
30], organic farming, and ecological agriculture [
31] were seen as an important alternative to achieve these goals, thus, an important objective for CAP of the EU [
32,
33,
34]. In many countries, agriculture is an important sector in the national economy/GDP, e.g., Poland 2.2%, Romania 4.1%, Russian Federation 3.4%, Spain 2.7%; the rest of EU-28 countries registered between 0 and 1%. Compared with the average in Central Europe and the Baltics—2.7%, the European Union—1.6%, and the world— 4%, Romania with 4.1% is in a good position, being an agrarian country and ensuring agricultural production for itself and other countries [
35]. There is a direct relationship between agriculture and the average area per holding in Romania; even though there is extensive arable land, the average area per holding is greatly reduced, due to the abolition of the Agricultural Production Cooperatives and the land restitution from 1990 [
36]; 54% of holdings have an agricultural area under 1 hectare.
There is a direct, positive relationship between agricultural performance and agricultural training. Studies show that young farmers must attend training or courses in the field to get the necessary skills, this being directly related to the political and administrative structure of the country [
40]. To improve the quality of the human capital, the agricultural enterprises might need to apply the principle “learn by doing” [
41]; thus, the agricultural and farm management training was at 93% in 2005, 97% in 2010, 96.4% in 2013, and 97.31% in 2016 [
42]. The education level of the agricultural labour force of the region highlights one of the major problems related to present and future developments of employment, particularly, in dual-speed agriculture where small agricultural households and farms are still very present and socially important [
43]. The agricultural training, provided in the country or abroad, by individuals, companies, or governments [
44], will lead to the development of the country and its people, to better performance and quality, as well as increased production, poverty reduction, and food security; thus, leading to new knowledge, skills [
45], abilities, and increased farm productivity [
46]. The studies, reports, and statistics show that to get agricultural income, some factors have to be considered, among them being the fluctuation of weather and irrigations in each region [
47]. Irrigation depends on agricultural performance; thus, the crops demand and thermal imaging in smart irrigation are a solution for better performance in agriculture [
48]. Moreover, there is a direct relationship between the number of tractors used in agriculture; in Romania, in the last few years the number of tractors increased [
49]; however, compared with the EU-28 countries, it is very low, as, in Romania, there is 1 tractor for 100 farms, compared to EU-28, where almost every farm has its tractor. The factors presented above will be analyzed in this study, as they are considered by the authors and the specialists to have an important influence on the OA. As a result of the analysis of their influence, predictions can be made, activities and processes can be improved, the costs and risks can be reduced, and the agricultural product quality, food, and security could be improved.
The Determinants with an Impact on the Output of Agriculture
According to the literature in the field, many factors influence the output of agriculture. These factors, as it may be seen above, were divided into two categories; in the first category were human, ecologic, natural, economic, social, and technological factors, and in the second were the sub-factors examined below.
The estimated value of the agricultural output in 2018 inched higher; agriculture contributed by 1.1% to the EU’s GDP in 2018. The agricultural industry created an estimated added value of EUR 181.7 billion in 2018. In 2019, the indices for the value of output by the agricultural industry, according to eurostat.com (accessed on 26 June 2021), were 146.74 for the average EU-28; for Bulgaria 307.93, Germany 168.42, Spain 117.04, France 108.81, Italy 116.28, Hungary 184.21, Poland 170.34, and Romania 316.52. Regarding the output of the agricultural industry, Romania is in seventh place (14,410 million euros), and after the following European countries: France (77,355), Germany (54,578), Italy (48,632), Spain (42,191), the Netherland (26,268), and Poland (23,198). As for Gross Value Added, Romania was also in seventh place in 2013 with 6201 million euros, after France (31,870), Italy (25,566), Spain (21,526), Germany (17,030), Poland (9013), and the Nederland (8426) [
50].
From the various factors that influence the OA, we shall only examine the influence of air pollutants and the sales of fertilizers. Air pollutants have a significant impact on the quality of agricultural products. From 1990 to 2017, the EU-28 registered substantial reductions in emissions of all air pollutants: SO
2 emissions were reduced to 2.3 million tons in 2017 compared to 25 million tons in 1990. The trend for Romania is also decreasing. This reduction was “thanks to a wide range of environmental policy measures.” Based on the data from eurostat.eu (accessed on 26 June 2021), Romania has a value of 137,595 for air pollutants; lower values were registered for Liechtenstein 203, Malta 1447, Cyprus 4309, Luxembourg 5503, and higher values were registered in Germany 723,950, Spain 458,562, France 664,063, Italy 377,937, Poland 259,188, and the UK 237,599 [
51,
52].
In 2017, the countries with the largest organic European markets were Germany (10 billion euros) and France (7.9 billion euros). The EU organic market is 37% of the total organic market worldwide. The highest per-capita consumption in 2017, of almost 300 euros, was registered in Switzerland and Denmark. The highest organic market shares were reached in Denmark (13.3%), the first country with an organic market share of over 10%, as well as in Sweden (9.1%) and Switzerland (9%). At the end of 2017, 14.6 million hectares of agricultural land in Europe (European Union 12.8 million hectares) were managed organically by over 397,000 producers. In Europe, 2.9% of the agricultural land was organic. The organic farmland has increased by over 1 million hectares compared to 2016. As we may see, the countries with the largest organic agricultural areas were Spain (2.1 million hectares), Italy (1.9 million hectares), France (1.7 million hectares), and Germany (1.3 million hectares). In ten countries, at least 10% of the farmland is organic: Liechtenstein takes the lead (37.9%), followed by Austria (24%) and Estonia (20.5%). In 2018, a major milestone was the publication of the new European Union (EU) rules on organic production and labelling of organic products [
53]. The highest percentage of the share of organic farming is in Austria, which has 24.1%, Estonia 20.6%, and Sweden 20.3%. Romania is in the penultimate place, with 2.4% [
54,
55].
The average value added in the agricultural sector as per cent of GDP for 2018 based on 161 countries was 10.39%. The agricultural sector contributed 176.9 billion euros towards the EU’s overall GDP in 2018 [
50]. The value added in the agricultural sector as per cent of GDP for Romania, from the data obtained from the World Bank from 1990 (21.81) to 2019 (4.1) was 12.8% with a minimum of 4.06% in 2016 and a maximum of 21.81% in 1990 [
56].
The farm structure in Romania is dominated by family farms, like in the EU; however, their size is very small, an average of 3.66 ha, Romania registering the 3rd smallest average farm size (above only Malta and Cyprus). Romania uses 97.9% of the farms between 0 and 10 hectares of land (from which 74.3% of farms are less than 2 hectares), this fragmentation not allowing for the development of intensive agriculture. The farms of an optimum size that can use production factors efficiently are a global objective for agriculture on which the food security of populations depends [
20]. Still, Romania ranked 1st in the EU in 2010 for the number of holdings (3859 thousand farms), followed by Italy (with 1621 thousand farms), and Poland (with 1507 thousand farms), but was the last in the EU for the average output per holding [
57].
The holdings of 10–50 hectares are found in Ireland (63.6%), Finland (54.9%), and Germany (46.5%), and over 50 hectares in Luxembourg (49.1%), United Kingdom (38.7%), and France (37.2%). Larger farms keep their advantage in agriculture [
58]. Around 80.3% of all farms in the EU-28 had less than 10 hectares and cultivated 12.2% of the agricultural area, and only 5.9% of the farms over 50 hectares or more cultivated 66.6% of the total utilized agricultural area. In Romania, with the highest number of farms in EU-28, nine in every ten farms (91.8% or 3.1 million farms) were smaller than 5 ha [
59]. One-third (32.7%) of the EU’s agricultural holdings were in Romania in 2016, much more than any other member state; compared to the farms from Poland (13.5% of the EU-28 total), Italy (10.9%) and Spain (9.0%) [
38].
Romania presents some structural characteristics such as the other agricultural sectors from other EU member countries, but it is unique due to the gap between the category of large farms and the small ones, and due to the prevalence of subsistence and semi-subsistence farming. In 2010, 93% of Romanian exploitations were in these two categories; out of these, three quarters were operating on less than 2 hectares, and more than a quarter was managed by farmers over 65 years old [
24]. Young farmers are scarce in EU-28, those over 65 are present in many member states; in Portugal, they represented 51.9% of all farmers, in Cyprus 44.6%, in Romania 44.3%, and in Italy 40.9%. These structures highlight the policy interest in farm succession and the need to encourage a new generation of farmers [
38].
To study the evolution of employment in agriculture in Romania, we offer the statistics over the years. In 2012, 11.5 million agricultural workers were employed, Romania being the first at the number of employees in agriculture (2.8 million persons), followed by Poland (1.9 million), Italy (0.9 million), Germany (0.67 million), and Bulgaria (0.65 million). In 2013, the total agricultural workforce in EU-28 was 9.5 million employees (decreasing comparing with 2012). Out of them, 8.7 million were permanent employees (representing 92% of the total number). In Romania, 23% of the population work in agriculture, while 18% in Bulgaria, 11% in Greece, 10% in Poland, 2% in Germany, and 1% in the UK [
60]. In Romania there are no special agricultural markets; they come from different fields and areas, providing unskilled work. Moreover, there is no local/regional or national policy for this branch of the economy and its workers [
61].
Romania is a traditional agrarian country and plays an important role in European agriculture. The soil is fertile, and the climate is favourable. With a total area of 238,000 sqm, Romania has an important agrarian profile in the EU (almost 15 million ha of farmland, of which more than 9 million ha for arable crops). Romania owns almost one-third of the total agricultural land in the EU (33.5% of all EU farms, EU Commission updates, April 2017). Thus, Romania could be (after Poland with 17 million ha of agricultural area) the second largest producer of agricultural products in the CEE region. In 2013 there were 10.8 million agricultural exploitations in EU-28. Most of them were registered in Romania (3.6 million), registering one third (33.5%) of the total exploitations in EU-28. Poland is the second country with 13.2%, and then Italy (9.3%) and Spain (8.9%) [
62]. To observe the real situation regarding the agricultural land per capita, we made a comparison between the years 2010, 2015 and 2017. Romania was in sixth place in the EU regarding the arable area per capita. The ratio between the arable area and the number of inhabitants shows that Romania registers a value of 0.41 ha, which is superior to many countries in the EU and almost double compared to the EU average (0.212 ha/capita) [
26]. Romania is one of the European countries with good resources of land, water, as well as available human resources. Moreover, its utilized agricultural area (13.3 million ha) places Romania in the European Union on top places in terms of agricultural land per capita (approx. 0.7 hectares/capita) [
63], however, 40% of the arable area is controlled by the foreign investors in Romania [
64]. The year 2017 has been exceptional for Romanian agriculture with unprecedented levels of productions. Organic farming is still at its initial stage in Romania, representing only 0.4% of the agricultural land [
57]. From the data offered by RGA in 2010, out of the 23.8 million ha of Romanian agricultural surface, the agricultural exploitations reach 13.3 million ha (55.9%), and out of this 8.3 million ha are arable areas (63.5% of the agricultural surface).
The human factors involved in agriculture will depend on the agricultural land and the productivity coefficient [
65]. The investments in human capital gradually became a hot topic for researchers, due to its unique and valuable knowledge, skills, and competencies brought into any activity, especially now in the agricultural field [
66]. Any marketing strategy aims to achieve its business goals and improve its marketing ability as an important symbol of modern agriculture [
67]. In knowledge-based agriculture, human capital, knowledge, and information technology became the main strategic resources for the development of agricultural enterprises. Thus, the interaction between the marketing ability (research, channel analysis, and market analysis) and the human capital is likely to be effective in improving the performance and competitiveness of agricultural enterprises when the marketing costs grow. To improve the human capital quality, the agricultural enterprises may apply the principle of “learning by doing” [
41]. Much knowledge on the human capital in agriculture was gained through various projects [
68].
A large majority of European farmers have not received any formal training in agriculture; most of their agricultural skills are gained through practical experience. The agricultural training of farm managers was from the practical experience of 93% in 2005, 97% in 2010, 96.4% in 2013, and 97.31% in 2016 [
43]. According to the statistics from 2018 [
38], most farm managers in the EU only had practical experience; this was the case for seven in every ten (68.3%) of them in 2016. Less than one in ten farm managers (9.1%) had full agricultural training and the rest (22.6%) had basic agricultural training. In some member states, the level of agricultural training is low; in Romania and Greece, only 0.4% and 0.6% of farm managers, respectively. had full agricultural training. The overwhelming majority (96.7% and 93.2%, respectively) had only practical experience. Only in Luxembourg (52.5%), the Czech Republic (38.7%), France (34.9%), and Latvia (31.3%), the farmers had formal agricultural training [
38]. Agriculture is the biggest consumer of fresh water in the world, amounting to up to 70% of the total use; the irrigation systems and field application methods for the cultivation of crops play an important role therein [
69]. In 2013, the total irrigable area in EU-28 was about 18.7 million ha (an increase of 13.4% compared to 2003); however, only 10.2 million ha were irrigated. The share of irrigable and irrigated UAA in EU-28 in 2013 was 11.3% and 6.2%, respectively. The irrigable and irrigated areas greatly vary among the countries, mainly because of regional climates. The share of irrigable and irrigated areas was not surprisingly the largest in the Mediterranean countries. Spain and Italy had the largest irrigable areas in absolute terms (6.7 million and 4.0 million hectares, respectively) in 2013. The largest share of irrigable UAA in 2013 was recorded in Greece (44.9%), Malta (38.6%), Cyprus (34.9%), Italy (33.9%), and Spain (31.1%). In 2017, the agricultural water management in certain areas increased from 230.4 in 2013 to 334.7 in 2017. However, only 152,800 ha from 230,400 ha was irrigated in 2013 [
70]. Along with the new technologies, the new knowledge, as well as the improved and well-adapted farming methods will help enhance the agricultural performance and awareness for the protection of the environment [
68]. The impact of new technologies differs substantially by region and, within regions, by country. Adopting new technologies in agriculture will considerably improve productivity, especially if they are new, technically high, and precise [
71]; it will improve food production and food security, increase crop productivity, develop and use the resource-conserving agricultural management practices, and increase the investments in irrigation [
72]. Effective technology adoption will also require institutional, policy, and investment advances. In the countries where the land is not fertile, without sufficient water resources, or where the farmers do not have access to financing or new technologies, the agriculture is not developed, and the benefits are low. Those farmers who are aware of the techniques of precision agriculture (including grid soil sampling, yield mapping, and variable rates of input application) tend to be those who have more education [
68]. Only in a few countries in the EU, more than 90% of farmers own a tractor (Finland, Germany, and Sweden), and more than 80% in many other EU countries (such as Luxembourg, Austria, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands). Fewer than 20% (Hungary, Bulgaria) and Romania are considerably behind. In the EU, the production of tractors has reduced from over 10,000 in 2008 to over 6500 in 2017 [
73]. The tractors used in agriculture are neither updated to comply with the safety regulations nor in line with modern and safer technical solutions [
74]. The number of old (aged) tractors is very big, especially among the family-run companies, for whom to replace them with newer and safer models [
75] or even upgrade them [
76] is unaffordable from a financial point of view.