Relationship Between Organic Farmland Expansion and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Europe: Implications for the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals

The global community is endeavouring to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals. A significant aspect of the implementation of the Goals is the introduction of organic production in agriculture. This will contribute, among other things, to zero hunger (Goal 2); the provision of humanity with alternative energy sources (Goal 7); the development of innovative solutions (Goal 9); the motivation of the population to consume responsibly, including food (Goal 12); the combating of climate change (Goal 13); and the preservation of ecosystems both on land and below water (Goals 14-15). An important area of implementation of all the seventeen goals is the introduction of organic production in agriculture. This will contribute to providing the population with food; improving public health; overcoming the problems related to hunger, poverty, poor health, limited clean drinking water, energy shortages, depletion of natural resources, climate change, and pollution of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The EU-27 countries need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, which exacerbates the issue. For this reason, the paper hypothesizes that organic farmland expansion will potentially result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, the purpose of the paper is to conduct empirical research into the impact of organic farmland expansion on the increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. The correlation and regression analysis based on the use of available Eurostat statistics for the period 2014-2021 for selected individual European countries demonstrated that the majority of European countries exhibit a high degree of correlation. According to data from all EU Member States (27), the relationship is strong and directly proportional. It was found that with an increase in the area of organic farmland by 1% in the EU27, greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 0.00000025 thousand tons. The calculations revealed that ceteris paribus, greenhouse gas emissions are influenced by the expansion of organic farmland by 62.4%. Among the European countries under study, similar trends are observed in Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Finland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Lithuania and the Netherlands, the relationship is inversely proportional. Weak correlation, as evidenced by the calculated correlation coefficient, is observed in such European countries as Bulgaria (0.05); Poland (0.02); Slovakia (0.05). To implement the Sustainable Development Goals, it is recommended to take measures to change the culture of food consumption; to use agricultural technologies, methods, equipment, machinery and mechanisms more efficiently; and to rationally use the waste.