Basic indicators of agricultural development in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Retrospective from 1950 to 2010

In the last twenty years agriculture in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been characterized by the transition from a socialistic planned to a capitalistic market economy and reconstruction of a consequences of the civil war. The achieved level of agricultural development is often estimated on the bases of comparison status of certain indicators with the countries in the region or in the EU. In this paper was selected the approach of comparision agricultural development in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) with itself, monitoring the development of its agriculture in sixty years period, starting in 1950 and ending in 2010. For this retrospective were selected indicators for which was possible to find comparative data for the entire period: agriculture gross domestic product (GDP), rural employment, the size and structure of agricultural and arable land, production volume and average yields of some key agricultural products and the number of livestock. The analysis of these indicators was found that during the past sixty years in BiH was an increase in agriculture GDP, despite a significant reduction of the agricultural population, that was reduced cultivated land and changed the structure of the use of arable land, that the average yield increased, but not significantly, and that the number of livestock in some species reduced (cattle, sheep and horses) and increased in others (pigs and poultry). Based on the analysis of selected indicators, and bearing in mind the development of the productive capacities, which happened in the meantime, the general conclusion is that there has been reached, but insufficient, progress in the development of agriculture in BiH in the period since 1950 to 2010. In the transition period that started and it is still on the scene in BiH and its agriculture have to significantly changed to adapt to the new conditions of production and sales of agricultural products.