Oil crops are a very important agricultural commodity. Oil-producing crops, whether oilseed or oil-bearing crops, occupy about 10% of global arable land (Jaradat, 2016). Demand for such oils is rising steadily (at more than 5% per year over the last half century) (Ramli et al., 2014). According to Stoicea et al. (2022) sunflower, soybeans and rapeseed are essential oil crops in the European Union (EU). The total world area under oil crops has been increasing in the last ten years, and to a lesser extent the average yields, which contribute to the continuous growth of oilseed production, which is initiated by the growth in demand for these products. Production growth is particularly pronounced in sunflowers and soybeans, while it is somewhat more moderate in rapeseed. There are similar tendencies in EU countries, with the growth of soybean production in the last decade significantly exceeding the growth of sunflower production. On the other hand, the production of rapeseed recorded a slight decline. It should be noted that although the area under soybeans is growing significantly, its production in the EU is almost negligible in world terms, as it occupies less than one percent of world production. About one-fifth of the world's sunflowers are produced on the territory of the EU and even more than one-quarter of rapeseed. As for the world production of oil from these three crops, there is also a growth that is more pronounced in sunflower and soybean compared to rapeseed. The tendencies are similar in the EU, with the fact that the growth is somewhat slower for sunflower and soybean oil, and more pronounced for rapeseed oil. In the last 10 years, twenty-seven EU countries account for over one-third of the world's production of rapeseed oil and one-fifth of sunflower oil, while they participate in the production of soybean oil with only one-twentieth (FAOSTAT, 2025).

In Serbia, sunflowers and soybeans are grown the most, while rapeseed is significantly less - among oil crops, these three crops have a dominant share with over 97% of production (Matkovski et al., 2020). Capacities for oil crops processing are also concentrated in Vojvodina (six large processing capacities), where almost the entire production of Serbian oil is produced. The process of ownership transformation in the food industry of Vojvodina was relatively successfully carried out with a significant role of foreign capital, which resulted in the improvement and modernization of production. Oil crops processing is dominated by large producers (Zekić et al., 2021). It is estimated that the capacities for processing oilseeds are not fully utilized, but the level of capacity utilization for processing sunflowers is about 40%, and 70% for soybeans (Government of the Republic of Serbia, 2014). Although the processing capacities are not adequately utilized, a tendency to export oil crops has been observed, which is partly a consequence of “uncompetitive payments” to farmers by the processors. Serbia achieves a positive foreign trade balance when it comes to sunflowers, soybeans and rapeseed, as well as their main products, to which Vojvodina makes the biggest contribution (Matkovski et al., 2021). The main export markets are in the region, although there are good conditions for export to EU countries as well (Zekić et al., 2022), especially when it comes to sunflower oil, where the EU has a negative foreign trade balance (FAOSTAT, 2025).

Serbia has a good supply of oil crops of its own market, measured by the self-sufficiency index (Brankov and Matkovski, 2022; Brankov et al., 2021), which makes it a leader in the Western Balkans region, and leaves room for the placement of significant quantities of oil crops on the international market. In Serbia, with 5% growth rate in harvesting area soybean become third most important crop, after corn and wheat (Popović et al., 2018). Considering soybean production in Serbia, the two papers compare organic and conventional production. Popović et al. (2018) showed that organic production is more efficient, and identified factors of technical efficiency are farm size, production system, the share of family labor, the share of rented land, and land fragmentation. Furthermore, organic production is more energy efficient, but only if it is assumed that the manure does not require energy consumption (Ðokić et al., 2019). If manure is regarded as any other fertilizer, conventional soybean production becomes more efficient, so fertilizers are critical for energy efficiency.

Economically, oilseed crops are among the most diverse and most important crops in developed as well as developing countries, and the complex nature of agroecosystems where these crops are being grown around the world suggests that the impact of global climate change on agroecosystem components will vary broadly across geographical and temporal scales (Jaradat, 2016). Considering southern and eastern Europe Stoicea et al. (2022) stated that sunflowers could be heavily affected by unfavorable weather conditions during the development period resulting in major production losses and reduced oil content. In their study of economic performance of sunflower production in Turkey, Semerci and Yurt (2023) showed that small-scale enterprises work more efficiently and productively than the other but also behaved more rationally in the use of input. They also concluded that government support is very important for producers' income (up to 25%).

Climate change is one of the most complex global problems (Krstić, 2023) and the scientific consensus that supports the fact that climate change in crop growing conditions regarding the frequency and intensity of droughts or floods or the increase in average temperature that led to the need for adaptation. Farm adaptation to these changing crop growing conditions can be based on the introduction of hardy crops such as sunflowers, which has the advantage of surviving better under conditions of abiotic stressors (Akimowicz et al., 2021). Babec et al. (2021) calculated that despite the constant improvement of genetic yield potential in the recent years, most of the biggest European sunflower production countries have experienced yield gaps, between 1.1 and 2.4 t ha−1 at a national level. These gaps are explained by inadequately performed agro-technical measures, a considerable number of resistant weed species, nutrient uptake inefficiency, drought, poor disease, weed and pest control. They also indicated that modification and improvement of cropping practices suitable for the changing climate will have a major role in the achievement of sustainable sunflower production and global food security. As a solution, Grahovac et al. (2024) highlighted the potential for refining breeding strategies to improve seed quality for specific industrial purposes. They emphasize the critical role of genetic selection in enhancing the nutritional and processing qualities of sunflower seeds, offering valuable perspectives for advancing agricultural and breeding practices.

Serbia is in the process of international economic integration to the EU, and on that path the key challenge will be the adaptation of Serbian agriculture to production rules, bearing in mind the agri-environmental policy in the EU (Zekić et al., 2018), rural policy in the EU (Jurjević et al., 2021), but also to the rapid changes in market liberalization and international competitiveness (Matkovski et al., 2018a,b). On the other hand, with the liberalization of the EU, the opportunities for applying adequate foreign trade policies have been largely reduced (Novaković et al., 2025). Namely, previous studies show that market liberalization led to changes in foreign trade flows of these countries' agri-food products, due to adjustment to the international market (Matkovski et al., 2018a,b). Research that focused on agri-food export performances of WB countries indicated that all countries of this region, except Albania, have comparative advantages in exporting these products, while export performances are lower than in EU countries (Matkovski et al., 2022). Also, same research analyzed Serbia's comparative advantages for agri-food products and concluded that Serbia has comparative advantage in the export of agri-food products on the global market as well as on the EU and CEFTA markets, and they highlighted that products at a lower processing phase have the largest comparative advantages on the global market. In these two studies, the revealed comparative advantages (RCAs) index was used to find the level of comparative advantage of agri-food products.

When it comes to analyzing the competitiveness of oil crops in Serbia, there is not many papers in the literature dealing with this issue. For example, the paper by Matkovski et al. (2020) where the levels of comparative advantages of oil crops were investigated shows that sunflowers have the highest level of comparative advantage on the international market compared to soybean and rapeseed. The same research observes that a higher level of comparative advantages is present in oil, especially sunflower oil. Research conducted by different authors (Matkovski et al., 2022; Birovljev et al., 2015; Božić and Nikolić, 2016) also indicates that the revealed comparative advantages of oils are greater than in the case of oilseeds of Serbian export. Given the paucity of more detailed scientific research on the competitive positions of oil crops in Serbia in recent times and determining the direction of this sector in accordance with current developments on the international market, a research gap and the need for this research can be clearly seen.

The main objective of the research is to estimate the competitive advantages of oil crops in Serbia through the analysis of performance in the production and processing of sunflower, soybean and rapeseed, as well as the foreign trade position of oil. In the paper, after the introductory notes and literature review, the work methodology and research results will be given. The results will be shown especially for the production and processing of oil crops, where the production performance of sunflower, soybean and rapeseed production will be analyzed. The analysis of the foreign trade position will mark the comparative advantages in the export of oilseeds and their products, as well as the specialization index. Additionally, it will show the position of Serbia on the international market of oilseeds and edible oil.

This research is oriented toward the analysis of oil crops in Serbia, namely the three dominant oil crops: sunflower, soyabean and rapeseed. The scope of the analysis is the period from 2015 to 2023, and data from the database of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia—SORS (2025) and U. N., Comtrade Database (2025) was used. For the purposes of foreign trade analysis, the following subgroup/basic headings from Standard International Trade Classification (rev. 4) were used (United Nations Statistics, Division, 2024): soyabean: 08131 oil cakes soyabean, 2222 soyabean seed, 4211 soyabean oil; sunflower: 08153 oil cakes sunflower, 2224 sunflower seed, 4215 sunflower oil; rapeseed: 08136 oil cakes rapeseed, 2226 rapeseed, 4217 rapeseed oil.

As competitiveness is a multidimensional concept that can be analyzed on several levels (Krstić and Gawel, 2023), analyzing competitiveness at the macro level, i.e., at the state level, is not at all a simple task, and the literature suggests the use of various indices of revealed comparative advantages and specialization indexes (Jambor and Babu, 2016; Mizik, 2021). In the literature, the use of the traditional Balassa index of revealed comparative advantages (RCA Balassa) (Balassa, 1965) is suggested in most papers for the analysis of revealed comparative advantages:

Where is X—export; i—country; j—subgroup/basic heading according to Standard International Trade Classification; t—total export; n—group of exporting countries. The literature suggests the existence of comparative advantages when RCA>1. This index was suggested in a significant number of papers that dealt with competitiveness research at the macro level (Matkovski et al., 2022; Dimitrijevi ć et al., 2023; Božić and Nikolić, 2016).

For the purpose of a more complete analysis, the Lafay Index (LFI) is used, which is a more symmetrical indicator, given that it also includes imports (Lafay, 1992):

Where is x—export, m—import, i—country; j—subgroup/basic heading according to Standard International Trade Classification; N—group of exporting/importing countries. LFI>0 implies the existence of revealed comparative advantages, and the higher this index is, the higher the level of specialization. This indicator is often used in the literature for analyzes of foreign trade exchange at lower levels of aggregation (Balogh, 2024; Karaman et al., 2023).

The specialization index is used to assess the integration of the oil crops market of Serbia with the international market, but also with the main foreign trade partners. The Grubel-Lloyd index of intra-industry trade (GLIIT) was used (Grubel and Lloyd, 1975):

Where is X—export, M—import, i—country, j—subgroup/basic heading according to Standard International Trade Classification. GLIIT>15% means the intra-industry character of trade, which means that the analyzed domestic market is well integrated with the international market. This indicator is often used in the literature (Brkić et al., 2021; Ambroziak, 2024; Cuzović and Sokolov-Mladenović, 2021).

Research shows that there is turbulence in the market, which opens additional space for improving competitive positions. To boost the competitiveness of oil crops in Serbia, it is necessary to:

In addition to climate factors, as well as the production decisions of farmers that affect the capacities of Serbia's oil crop supply on the global market, the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between the EU and Ukraine certainly had a significant influence. Considering sunflowers, Baryshpolets and Devadoss (2021) concluded that Ukraine benefits the most from this agreement. Namely, Ukraine is one of the leading countries in the world when sunflower oil production and export are concerned (Hamulczuk et al., 2021). Ukrainian sunflower oil exports to the EU increased by 80 percent, causing the EU's domestic prices for seeds and oil to decline as the EU demands fewer seeds for crushing. Since Ukraine exports more sunflower oil to the EU and less to India, China, and Turkey, that could be an opportunity for other countries to compete in those markets. Access to these markets can further contribute to the diversification of Serbia's foreign trade and reduce dependence on traditional markets. Considering the stable yield of sunflowers and the competitive price of production in Serbia, domestic producers can respond to the demands of these markets.

Serbia is the regional leader in the production of oil crops, which is primarily a consequence of exceptionally favorable agri-ecological conditions in the northern part of the country, i.e., in Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina, where over 90% of Serbian production of these crops is concentrated (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2025). Plain and high-quality soil provide exceptional conditions for growing sunflowers, soybeans and rapeseed. In this regard, the position of the Banat (eastern part of Vojvodina) stands out, where due to the lower volume of precipitation, oil crops have an advantage over other field crops. Vojvodina is otherwise a region with more intensive agricultural production and commercially oriented agricultural farms, where a significant part of oil crops production is located (Zekić et al., 2021).

Growing demand is the primary driver of the organic food market's development, which creates opportunities for growth within the framework of sustainable agriculture (Golebiewski, 2024). Organic soybean acreage and production in the EU have increased up to 2022 and imports of organic soybeans from non-EU countries also rose sharply (European Union, 2023a). In Serbia, soybean production based on organic principles has been successfully practiced for many years, and the area under cultivation has increased fivefold in the last 10 years, following the trend in the EU (Golijan Pantović et al., 2024). Whilst there is a substantial local market for soybean in Serbia, one third of soybean ends up in export, such as soybean meal, soybeans, oil, a component of the exported animal feed, or, after processing, as highly valued products for human nutrition and other purposes (concentrates, flours) (Živkov et al., 2016), and more than 80% of the exported quantities are exports to the EU market (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2025). The EU livestock sector relies on imported soybeans as a feed source (Karlsson et al., 2021), with the Green Deal leading to an increasing focus on organic meat production, it will certainly lead to substantial changes in the meat market in the EU (especially beef) in the forthcoming decades (Kučevi et al., 2023). This is also evidenced by the fact that in the last 2 years organic meat and eggs have been the categories with the largest increase in annual sales, with registered growth (+91%) of organic meat consumption (European Union, 2023b). In line with the trend, demand for organic feed is also increasing. Serbia can take advantage of this trend on the EU market to increase organic soybean production and target the growing EU animal feed or meat market. However, sustainable development and emission reductions in supply chains remain critical challenges that will shape the future of international trade in organic products (Golebiewski, 2024).

Biodiesel has garnered increasing attention in recent years due to its environmental benefits and the fact that it is produced from renewable sources, including vegetable oils and waste fats (Ma and Hanna, 1999). As an alternative fuel, it represents a potential solution for reducing dependence on fossil fuels and mitigating the negative environmental impacts. However, biodiesel faces particular challenges that limit its widespread application. Among the main disadvantages are higher production costs compared to conventional diesel fuel, a lower energy content per unit volume, and emissions of nitrogen oxides during combustion, which can contribute to air pollution (Gebremariam and Marchetti, 2018). Despite the mentioned limitations, biodiesel is still considered a fuel that can contribute to multiple benefits. In addition to environmental benefits, such as biodegradability, lower toxicity, and lower greenhouse (Živković and Veljković, 2018). Therefore, biodiesel is perceived as a viable alternative that deserves further research and technological improvements.

Rapeseed is widely used in energy production. However, Van Duren et al. (2015) concluded that the energy efficiency of rapeseed biodiesel is low, and unless there is major technological progress in the production process, replacing fossil fuels by biofuels from rapeseed is not a feasible option. On the other hand, Qiu et al. (2011) showed that the properties of obtained biodiesel from mixed rapeseed and soybean oil are close to commercial diesel fuel and is rated as a realistic fuel as an alternative to diesel. Therefore, this sector is still in a developmental phase, and the scientific community is relatively divided. In Serbia, biodiesel production is at very low level. Kiss et al. (2024) showed that approximately 353,000 hectares of land are available for producing raw materials for biodiesel production without compromising the domestic food supply which can pro-vide up to 324,000 tons of biodiesel annually, equivalent to 15.2% of the total domestic diesel fuel consumption for transportation. Due to relatively favorable agri-environmental conditions for oil crop production, especially rapeseed and soybeans, biodiesel should be a viable option for developing this sector in Serbia.

Serbia is an important producer of oil crops in Europe, especially soybeans and sunflowers, and it also has significant processing capacities to produce oil. In recent years, total production has been declining due to the pronounced instability of the global oilseed market, and the preference for traditional crops such as wheat and corn. Also, the crisis in Ukraine, and the conclusion of the Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Ukraine, had a significant impact on the oilseeds market in Serbia.

Oil crops make up as much as 10% of total agri-food exports from Serbia, and there is a tendency to increase the value of exports. Over 50% of exports are oils, primarily sunflower oil. The most important partner when it comes to exports are the EU countries, followed by the countries of the region (CEFTA). When it comes to the comparative advantages of Serbia in the export of oil crops, sunflower records the highest levels of revealed comparative advantages, and both sunflower seeds and sunflower oil have high values of this indicator. Also, a good integration of the oil crops market can be observed, both with the world market and with the markets of the EU and CEFTA countries.

To enhance the competitiveness of oil crops in Serbia, policymakers are recommended to support the gradual development of organic soybean production to enable organic livestock feed or meat for export, explore new international markets for sunflower oil to ensure stable and favorable export conditions, and establish incentives for biodiesel production from rapeseed as a strategic response to fuel market disruptions—thereby boosting domestic energy security and promoting environmentally sustainable agriculture.

It is necessary to point out that this research is not without limitations. It is certain that including the factors that shape competitiveness using econometric models would provide a more detailed explanation of competitive positions in the international market. This will be the subject of future research, with a more detailed look at each individual product from this section.