Changes on Foreign Trade in Agricultural Commodities in the Czech Republic

Czech economy went in last two decades through two important changes. The first of the changes was transition of central planned economy to market economy. Since this moment the Czech economy has been confronted with products from the entire world. The second important change was the EU entrance in 2004. Although in the period 2007–2013 one of the priorities of the European Commission was support of competitiveness, the new member countries did not have the same conditions for their economy – at this case agriculture – as the old members. The result of the uneven set conditions is enlargement of disparities in agricultural sector between old and new member countries. Nine years with lower volume of subsidies caused lower competitiveness of agriculture in most of new member countries, including the Czech Republic. That is one of the reasons why number of animals lowered very significantly and structure of plant production has changed according to subsidy schemes. Czech agriculture, mainly the animal production, is not able to product so many commodities as are needed, and is forced to import more products than in previous years. Aim of the article is to analyse by basic statistical and cartographic methods the change of export and import of the main agricultural products according to the SITC classes in last 10 years from the view of spatial distribution. Also some results of questionnaire survey with farmers in Czech regions will be introduced, mainly the opinions of farmers on barriers of development, problems with EU regulations and subsidies. These barriers are connected with foreign trade as well.