EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE: STRUCTURAL CHANGES, ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS AND CLIMATE IMPACTS

 

DOWNLOAD DOI: 10.62897/COS2025.3-1.118

Giacomo Coughlana*
a*University of Milan, Milan, Italy
giacomo.coughlan@unimi.it

Abstract: This contribution outlines the past transformations and future challenges facing European agriculture, distinguishing between structural changes and environmental constraints. While the agricultural sector experienced dramatic productivity growth during the 20th century, this success generated unintended environmental consequences, rendering agriculture a primary driver of environmental degradation as well as the sector most vulnerable to it. Key structural shifts, notably the consolidation of land into fewer, larger farms and the demographic challenge of an aging farming workforce, are discussed, and the sector’s environmental constraints and tradeoffs are introduced using the planetary boundaries framework. Finally, two empirical studies on the impacts of climate change on the Italian agricultural sector conducted by the author are presented.

 

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