The aim of the thesis/paper is to determine how the change of the environmental standards affects the competitiveness of the agricultural production in developing countries with a particular emphasis on the ecological dimension. Some countries incorporate the principles of sustainable development in agriculture and comply with the obligations of the ecological standards, according to which agriculture is an important economic activity as well as the mainstay of export. Nevertheless, these countries consider them (the regulations) trade barriers. The thesis/paper is based on the research of the cocoa production in developing countries and the pepper production in the Malaysian region of Sarawak. The results show that stricter regulations in the environment protection together with the increase of expenses and the use of chemical products have encouraged farmers to produce ecological pepper, which resulted in an improved market competitiveness in the production of white and black pepper in Malaysia. On the other hand, the production of cocoa in an ecologically acceptable way requires vast inventments on the part of the government. Each producer has a different expense structure and as a result, the internalization of the outside effects causes/generates higher production expenses in some and lower in other countries.