Modelling EU agriculture’s regional disparities under the national accounting system’s approach. The impact of the new economic and environmental challenges

The performance farming is a new bet for the EU in the context of the present's major climate and economic challenges. This paper aims at defining a model of agricultural competitiveness for the EU and its application for the evaluation of regional agricultural performance, in relation to the global competitiveness index, using the theory of catastrophes. The objectives of the analysis are: to evaluate the current growth theories in agriculture, to conceptualize a new model of agricultural performance improvement (RAP), to test the model and to obtain the relevant working tools after its application. The used methods are: the study of the general models of growth in agriculture; the dynamic analysis of the Eurostat data on agricultural performance and Member States’ data published in the National Accounts System; the conceptualization of the RAP (Regional Agricultural Performance) growth model; the statistical testing of the model, its connectivity with global competitiveness indexes and climate change; the hypotheses’ building in order to eliminate the climate transformations influences according to the catastrophe theorem’s results; and providing a viable and sustainable tool for the national strategy for agriculture’s forecasting changes to the Member States. The novelty element brought by the present proposed model is that of quantification in a broader and special way of the impact of environmental changes on the performing agricultural output in terms of National Accounting System.