CES Working Papers – Volume VII, Issue 2A 605 PATTERNS OF THE AGRICULTURAL INCOME AND IMPACT OF STRUCTURAL CHANGES POST-ENLARGEMENT AMONG EU STATES Mirela-Adriana RUSALI * Abstract: The article presents the results of analysis on the pattern of agricultural income structure and changes in EU Member States related to the enlargement impact, highlighting gaps and major contributions. While marked differences appear between the EU-15 and post 2004 acceded countries, the major contribution of the Romanian agriculture to the EU economy and the proportion of employment in agriculture, are indicators of a divergent sector development. With a substantial contribution to the UAA, i.e. the 7.9% share in arable land places Romania among the first 6 countries, while the 8.3% share in the area of permanent pasture reveal a potential advantage for livestock grazing. Nevertheless agriculture remaining the foremost source of income for rural households in Romania, its importance has been evidenced a decreasing trend in the post-accession period of time 2007-2013, by comparing to the previous period of time 2001-2006. Keywords: agricultural income; structural changes; post-enlargement; Romania JEL Classification: Q17; Q12; F15 Introduction Agricultural income is an important indicator on the agricultural sector‘s viability of each state and grounds the debates on perspectives regarding the economic and social policies. There is a wide range of driven factors affecting the trends of income produced by the agricultural sectors across the EU region, depending on each agricultural production systems that make the impact very much regional specific. The potential impact of the uncertainties is related mainly to price developments of input costs on commodity balances. Production systems highly dependent of inputs use are the most exposed to price changes. This is because crop production systems need higher input use than livestock systems, therefore are affected more from a negative impact as a result of the fact that greater costs are only in part transferred to higher producer price (EC, 2012). As well, in addition to potential impact, at regional level on farmers’ income, of the uncertainties related to variability of input costs, might be noted those related to climate changes variables on the agricultural sector and different EU bio-fuel policies on feedstock markets (EC, 2012). The article presents the results of analysis on the pattern of agricultural income structure and changes in EU Member States, highlighting gaps and major contributions across the region related to the enlargement impact. * Senior scientific researcher, Institute of Agricultural Economics, Romanian Academy, e-mail: m.rusali@yahoo.com