Self-su ciency of the Republic of Croatia in the production of beef

godina XVII (2015.) ■ siječanj-veljača ■ broj 1 ■ MESO ■ 73 INTRODUCTION Meat production makes a signicant part of the total value of agricultural production in many countries, and given it is labour-intensive, meat production contributes to the increase in employment both on farms and in entire rural areas (Ažderski et al. 2011). Cattle rearing plays an important role in landscape conservation, particularly in the pasture based cow-calf production system. In recent times particularly intensive meat production has been critically analysed. Various scientic and social observations express concern about emissions of nitrogen oxides, food safety, hygiene standards of keeping animals, animal management, other moral dilemmas, etc. Meat production also features as a “social opportunity cost” because intensive cattle rearing competes with the production of food for people in the use of arable land. Instead of processing produced grain and oilseeds for human needs, these are used for livestock farming. Add to that the growing interest in biofuels production; the limitedness of agricultural areas aects the number of livestock species, production technology and ultimately the supply of meat and meat products. Today’s intensive meat production in highly developed countries like the USA, Brazil and China is characterized by systems based on highly developed rearing technologies, precise breed selection, great technical e‚ciency and intensive exploitation of natural resources. By contrast, the European Union, as a result of pressure from consumers, promotes organic farming through measures of rural development, which is one of the reasons of insu‚cient supply and signicant import of beef. Meat consumption per capita was often used as an indicator of development of livestock breeding and of living standards of the population of a certain state (Grgić 2000). A multitude of factors impact meat consumption, the most important being consumers’ income, retail prices, availability of meat in the market, attitudes (e.g. vegetarianism), religious customs (halal, kosher) and the emergence of diseases in animals. Although some theorists saw Croatia’s accession to the EU as a turning point when setting the objective of self-sufciency was to be considered, recent geopolitical events have again emphasized the need of individual countries for su‚cient quantities of main agri-food products. The study of self-su‚ciency that applies production-consumer balance proved to be a useful tool for the design of agriculSelf-su ciency of the Republic of Croatia in the production of beef