Energy use and intensity in agriculture across European countries

Abstract

This paper employs index decomposition analysis to decompose the energy consumption in agricultural sectors across the selected European Union Member States. The data from the World Input-Output Database are used for the analysis. The research covers the period of 1995–2009. The analysis showed that most of the selected European Union Member States managed to decouple the growth in agricultural Gross value Added and energy consumption during 1995–2009. The variance in energy intensities across the countries analysed did not fall until 2002, yet a moderate decrease has been observed afterwards. The results of the index decomposition analysis suggests that such countries a Austria, Finland, France, and Slovenia could exploit the intensity effect in reducing the overall energy use to a higher extent.