Romania faces a double challenge in the swine production sector. On one hand, the European Union’s environmental agenda demands that member states drastically reduce both the carbon footprint and the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry by 2030. On the other hand, the Romanian swine industry still grapples with long-standing internal issues such as excessive fragmentation, a strong dependence on imported piglets and feed materials, and a clear shortage of modern management experience. This study set out to explore how the ADKAR model can serve as a structured approach to help commercial swine farms in Romania transition toward sustainability. To gather relevant data, researchers distributed a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire to 83 farm managers, out of the 361 officially registered commercial swine farms. The instrument was designed to assess how each farm positioned itself across the five ADKAR dimensions. The results revealed that most Romanian farm managers are highly aware of the need for change and show a generally positive attitude toward adopting sustainable practices. However, there remain considerable knowledge gaps and practical limitations, which continue to act as major barriers to effective implementation. The composite ADKAR-S Index, which measures the “sustainability maturity” of each farm, displayed a strong positive correlation with economic performance, particularly the profit margin (r ≈ 0.45, p < 0.001), and a significant negative correlation with antimicrobial use (r ≈ −0.50, p < 0.001). Simply put, farms that are better prepared for organizational transformation tend to perform better financially while also reducing their environmental footprint. The findings suggest that policy efforts should prioritize human capital development, especially through training programs and reinforcement systems such as continuous monitoring and staff incentives, to ensure that sustainable practices are not only adopted but also maintained in the long run.

Assessing the performance of a sunflower sector requires more than simply tracking production volumes. How the sector performs over time also depends on yield stability, climate exposure, market adjustment, and the way trade is structured. This study provides an integrated overview of the sunflower sectors in Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria over 2005–2024, focusing on their long-term performance and adjustment patterns. The analysis draws on harmonised data on crop production, growing-season climate, producer prices, and international trade. To capture these different dimensions, we combine area–yield decomposition, detrended instability measures, crop-area-weighted climate exposure, two-way fixed-effects models, and descriptive trade indicators within a non-compensatory analytical framework. Romania recorded the highest mean production (2.21 million t) and the greatest detrended yield instability (18.1%), whereas Hungary achieved the highest mean yield (2.61 t ha⁻¹) and the lowest yield instability (8.2%). Across 57 annual country transitions, yield changes made a larger mean absolute contribution to production variation (313,628 t) than changes in area (116,954 t). In pooled two-way fixed-effects models, higher temperature anomalies were linked to lower yields, while a more favourable climatic water balance was linked to higher yields. A 1% rise in production was associated with a 0.31% fall in the real producer-price index, whereas lagged production coefficients were not statistically different from zero. Bulgaria had the highest mean net raw-seed export intensity (0.48), while Hungary recorded the highest processed-export share (0.60). These results identify areas for country-specific assessment of climate risk management, market adjustment, logistics, and processing economics rather than demonstrating the effectiveness of particular policy interventions. The framework reveals distinct national patterns without treating them as a resilience ranking or as direct evidence of domestic value added.