La transizione in agricoltura nell'Europa centro-orientale: un bilancio della situazione ambientale

The environmental matter in Eastern Europe is a serious problem to be faced in the next years. Serious political errors, relative to agriculture, the management of forests and the design and execution of irrigation works, have yielded detrimental effects that are practically irreversible. At present, 2/3 of the cultivated lands of former USSR are subject to the effects of soil erosion and, at the same time, at least 600 thousand hectares are deforested every year. The investments required for the environmental recovery are immeasurable if compared with the extremely limited financial means of these countries; in addition, the attempt to close the particularly polluting systems contrast with the pressure to defend employment. The great reforms implemented in the agricultural sector of these countries are certainly important for managing this complex transition stage, in that they act on extremely delicate factors like employment, the system of structures and infrastructures, the economic, social and cultural scenarios. Central-eastern Europe had to manage, in a relatively short period, a process that in Western Europe has extended over more than one century.