Eating food is one of the most important needs of every person, so their safety and quality should be crucial for everyone. People expect, that food they eat is hygienically and health safe. Unfortunately, people usually start to focus on food safety only when various food scandals are exposed and it is too late. Mass consumption of food is the cause of a high risk to human health, but only in the case of harmful food. Food-borne diseases are a common and widespread phenomenon in all parts of the world, regardless of the economic development of the country. Protection of human, animal and plant health is one of the main economic priorities of each country. The political objective of the European Union is therefore to ensure that European Union citizens have access to safe and nutritious foods, so it must meet strict safety standards. In ensuring food safety, it is necessary to take into account all aspects of the food production chain as a whole, because each subject can have a potential impact on food safety. This paper deals with the issues of food safety and food quality. The main objective was to find out how consumers perceive higher quality food and whether they read information included on the food packaging. Primary data were obtained from a survey that was conducted on the sample of 478 respondents living in Slovakia. For a deeper analysis, several assumptions, which were verified by Friedman Test, Chi-Square Test of Independence, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test, were formulated. The survey has found out that 84% of respondents buy higher quality food and 60% purchase them because of health-related reasons. More than half of respondents search for the information about food safety on the Internet and the same percentage considere government as the most reliable source of information about food safety. Unfortunately, just more than one quarter of them read the information on food label and for 34% is this information unsufficient.

Food industry along with agriculture constitute a major economy sector in most countries, because in addition to water intake and oxygen availability, food is another basic determinant for functioning of the human organism. For the proper functioning of human body, it is imperative that the customer chooses food so that the daily diet includes all the necessary nutrients in a reasonable proportion. At present, however, it is becoming more and more common that foodstuffs do not meet strict standards, are not properly stored, the packaging is damaged, or hygiene standards are not being adhered to, and therefore, in addition to health benefiting substances, they also contain harmful ones. According to the World Health Organization, the death of up to 2 million people a year around the world is caused by foods harmful to human health. The main objective of this report was to assess how consumers perceive the health safety of food in Slovakia and to find out whether some types of food are considered as potentially harmful to health. Primary data were obtained through a questionnaire survey conducted from October to December 2017 on a sample of 478 respondents. Respondents answered to 12 factual, and 9 classification questions, which were consequently analyzed using the Friedman test, Nemenyi test and Chi-Square test of Independence. Survey results showed that the majority of respondents had concerns about the health harming effects of food only occasionally and they trust the hygienic level of the restaurant facilities (60.5%), fast food (53%) and frozen food (49.2%) with few reservations. As the most hazardous foods are considered poultry meat, eggs and mayonnaise. If the consumer's health is endangered by food, the guilty party should be punished by ban (61.9%) or by suspension (19.5%).

This scientific paper is based on the results of the research focused on the growing and processing of selected medicinal plants. Black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) was included in the research because it is currently one of the most sought-after superfoods in Europe and throughout the world. Based on authentic data and literary sources, the model of economic efficiency was developed for assessment of the establishment and operation of the black chokeberry plantation in the Slovak Republic. The modelled plantation shall be spread over 10 hectares with an intensive method of cultivation (high soil quality, deep plowing, drip irrigation, fertilization with organic and inorganic fertilizer and mechanized fruit harvesting). This intensive cultivation method is characterized by higher yields in t/ha compared to an extensive cultivation method. The model is reviewed over a 12-year period. In this paper are presented three alternatives for processing total production. “Alternative A” represents the sale of the harvest to either the final consumer or the processor for further processing (fresh fruit). “Alternative B” represents the finalization of production in the form of apple–aronia juice (ratio 25% aronia–75% apple). “Alternative C” represents the finalization of production in the form of apple–aronia juice (ratio 50% aronia–50% apple).

Global climate change is likely to influence evapotranspiration (ET); as a result, many ET calculation methods may not give accurate results under different climatic conditions. The main objective of this study is to verify the suitability of machine learning (ML) models as calculation methods for pan evaporation modeling on the macro-regional scale. The most significant PE changes in the different agroclimatic zones of the Slovak Republic were compared, and their considerable impacts were analyzed. On the basis of the agroclimatic zones, 35 meteorological stations distributed across Slovakia were classified into six macro-regions. For each of the meteorological stations, 11 variables were applied during the vegetation period in the years from 2010 to 2020 with a daily time step. The performance of eight different ML models—the neural network (NN) model, the autoneural network (AN) model, the decision tree (DT) model, the Dmine regression (DR) model, the DM neural network (DM NN) model, the gradient boosting (GB) model, the least angle regression (LARS) model, and the ensemble model (EM)—was employed to predict PE. It was found that the different models had diverse prediction accuracies in various geographical locations. In this study, the results of the values predicted by the individual models are compared.

The main objective of the presented paper is to show the current level of food security conditions in Europe and identify its determinants. The paper presents the development of the food security situation in Europe in the period 2001–2020. It shows in detail conditions in the year 2020 which were influenced by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the continent. The analysis used the definition of food security and its pillars according to FAO. It used available data from FAOstat for 12 variables in 4 pillars of food security from 2001 to 2020 for 38 European countries to produce composite indicators using Data envelopment analysis. This was used as the dependent variable in panel models with five explanatory factors: added value in agriculture, fishing and forestry, trade openness, gross capital formation, urbanization, and temperature change obtained from the World Bank database. Relationship between variables was estimated using Fixed effects, Random effects, and Pooled mean group model. The analysis found that food security in Europe increased until 2014, then followed a decline which was not compensated until 2020. The weakest regions were identified in the South-eastern and Eastern parts of Europe. The most key factors in the long run were the gross capital formation, added value of agriculture and trade openness. The impact of urbanization and gross capital formation was more important in the short run than in the long run. The effect of temperature change was positive in the short run in most of the analyzed countries, despite its negative long-run influence. The added value of the presented paper in the theoretical field is its methodology, from a practical point of view the paper offers information which could be used in further addressing food security problem solutions.

Food safety is a topic that is currently very much and often discussed. This may be a debate among political representatives, representatives of the food industry, but also among consumers, ie. general public. The issue of food safety and quality is very important in view of the growing globalization of economy, whose mission is to encourage food businesses to improve the production process as a whole and competitiveness. As in every sector, the food market faces many problems arising from market opening, business environment diversity or non-compliance with legislative requirements. The effects of these market imperfections are ultimately borne by the consumer. It is, therefore, appropriate to ensure that consumers are adequately informed about the food they consume. Food production is carried out according to European and world standards. A Slovak customer purchases food imported from abroad. This fact can be caused by the pricing of individual foods but also by the lack of Slovak producers. Foreign competition liquidates the quality Slovak producers. The principle of customers should be to support the economy of the state and to buy domestic food. The submitted document deals with issues of food safety, control and quality of food. The aim of the work was to examine the attitudes of consumers to food safety based on the acquired knowledge and research results, to identify their interest in food safety. It also involved identifying global food safety issues and analyzing consumers' views on the problem under consideration and its impact on their purchasing behavior. Primary data was obtained from a survey that was performed on a sample of 478 respondents. Based on the survey, it was confirmed that 85% of respondents perceive the different quality of the food sold on the Slovak market. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they were paying attention to the quality of the groceries. More than half of respondents expressed satisfaction with hygienic sales conditions. Almost 80% think that high-quality food is commonly available. Statistical testing has confirmed the significantly lower quality of food produced abroad. Other assumptions were formulated for more detailed analysis and their relationships were verified by using the statistical methods (Friedman Test, Chi-Square Test of Independence, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test).