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Tourism and sustainability in Hungary
135-143Views:206Sustainable development is a very popular conception since many years. In practice there could be many difficulties.
Economic, social and ecological systems are too complex to see all the consequences clearly. After all, sustainable criteria are indispensable for responsible planning.
Tourism is one of the world’s dynamically developing economic sectors. But according to this development, we have to confront with a lot of negative effects, like air pollution, or mass. With globalization, the opportunities for tourism increase: thanks to modern transport, places which were too far to be accessible before are now able to be reached. But there are consequences to this expansion. Unfortunately, growth e.g. in air transport causes considerable environmental damage.
In today’s fast-paced world, the sanctity of nature, a soundproof environment, clean air and rural life have become increasingly important. With the growth of demand and tourism globalized, these values can damage or disappear in a short time. So, in tourism, it is vital to project development plans with sustainable principles.
Just as other countries, in Hungary, the development of sustainable tourism is slowly becoming a priority. Fortunately, in plans for the next few years, there appear more concrete ideas on ways to make sustainable tourism grow.
In my study, I assess Hungary’s position in sustainable tourism, examining how sustainable tourism indicators fit in sustainable development indicators and how can we measure aims of sustainable tourism. -
The role of network administrative organizations in the development of social capital in inter-organizational food networks
11-20Views:230This paper is concerned with the role of network administrative organizations (NAOs) in the development of social capital in interorganizational
networks aiming at supporting their members to innovate in the food sector through interacting with one another. A multi-case study approach is used whereby three Belgian interorganizational networks are investigated i.e. Wagralim, Réseau-Club and Flanders Food.
Our study shows that there are many options available to NAOs to build social capital within the networks they are responsible for. We propose to categorize these options in three main distinct groups. First, NAOs may nurture the development of social capital within the network through creating ‘space’ boundary objects which appear, in our study, to be an absolute precondition for the development of interactions and hence creation of ties between network members. Second, NAOs may impact the development of social capital by favoring certain members – or set of members – over others due to their characteristics such as good reputation, possession of common past experiences, multidisciplinary experiences, non-conflicting goals, similarity in terms of sector of activity and/or experience level and common mindset towards information exchange. Third and finally, NAOs may foster social capital development by enhancing effective communication between members on the one hand, and between members and the NAOs’ coordination and decision bodies on the other hand, via a clear mandate, network decision making
bodies composed of members, the use of ex-post evaluations and formal governance mechanisms (e.g. legal contracts), and the selection of staff endowed with a proactive and perspective taking behavior and able to show neutrality when conflict arise. -
Development of and Lessons from the Institution System of the Common Agricultural Policy in Slovenia
43-53Views:172The comprehensive agricultural policy of Slovenia during the setting-up of its agricultural institutional system for implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy has enabled the setting-up and design of the Paying Agency system to handle national and EU subsidies according to schedule. The country has acted on the advice of the European Union to use the introduction of SAPARD measures as a preparatory and experimental field for utilising subsidies after EU accession. Moreover, in addition to the importance of gaining practical experience in the field of implementation of rural development measures, Slovenia has recognised the necessity to become familiar with the application procedures for obtaining direct payments relevant for the largest group of beneficiaries, farmers. Accordingly, farmers have been practicing for 3 years how to fill in application forms, and have gained important experience before opening the most relevant resources. Also, the advisers supporting farmers to obtain subsidies have been trained during the last 3 years, in order to provide real assistance. EU agricultural subsidies are not divided among the Member States; there will be a strong competition not only with the new Member States, but also with the farmers of the more developed EU-15.
Slovenia has done its best in order to launch its farmers – due to the different development levels of the EU-25 Member States – into this very strong competition not like pupils, but at least like mature secondary school students. -
Energy forests or vineyards?
237-240Views:182This paper primarily aims at giving an introduction to an alternative opportunity for vineyards owners many of whom have come to a
decision about elimination of their vineyards. The paper is focusing on the Mátra wine-region as a study area, which is the largest mountain
wine region in Hungary where more than one third of supported clearing of vineyards have been implemented in the last few years. The
abandoning of vineyards is explicable in more than one way such as very small average size of land or the increasing mean age of owners
etc. The fundamental reason is the chronic doubtfulness of the grape and wine market and the low level of overall profitability of production.
Grape production has a long tradition in this region, thus the disappearance of vineyards caused serious problems in land use through the
absolute lack of plans for the future. The popularity of biomass production in the press and the biofuel resultant from vine stocks raise
interest for short rotation forestry within a group of farmers. Short rotation forestry offers a new chance for some farmers to cut oneself adrift
from the harmful effects of the market of agricultural products. -
Thoughts about the connection between spatial development and sustainable landscape at the region of the Northern Great Plain
179-185Views:186This paper tries to find connections between sustainable landscape and spatial development policy of the Northern Great Plain region on the basis of specific examples explained in scientific literature. Searching for the common roots of spatial development and sustainability the paper explains two interpretation of sustainability from the view point of landscape, than the most significant element of current landscape change, the polarization of landscapes, will be introduced. This trend in landscape change basically determines the direction of spatial development. This paper analyses the Northern Great Plain region form two different approaches. In the first grouping the region is exposed from the view point of landscape. In the second partitioning the area is divided into subject matters based on the principles of sustainability and polarization of landscape. This research – analysing development plans and strategies – considers the current situation and the tasks of the future within the subject matters.
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Regional economic achievements and reindustrialisation in Hajdú-Bihar county
65-74Views:675The North Great Plain region is one of the backward regions of Hungary. The low level of economic development is mainly due to the lack of industrial development. The region is poor in natural resources, its main resources are land, natural gas fields, carbon dioxide, thermal water and the clay mineral stock.
The structure of GDP per capita of the county is different than the country average mainly because of the high proportion of agriculture.
The proportion of the industry and the building industry is not significant. Of the various service provider sectors, trade, transport and telecommunications have a small proportion, while financial and economic service providers have even lower share, which is due to the fact that these sectors are mostly concentrated in Budapest. The share of public and human service prodivers is higher than average due to the University of Debrecen.
The GDP which expresses the economic development of the county in a complex way increased four times its previous value in nominal value between 1995–2009. However, if the real value is considered, the increase is less than 25%, as opposed to the country average, which was less than 40%.
The most complex index of the development level of an economy is GDP expressed either in nominal or real value. If expressed in dollars, GDP is suitable for international comparison with the correction based on the purchasing power parity per person.
The county represents 4.3% of the people employed in the industrial sector in Hungary, while its share in industrial production is only 3.3% which is lower than the regional and population share of the county within Hungary. As regards industrial production per person, Hajdú-Bihar was the 10th county in Hungary; therefore, it is considered to be a less industrialised county.
The product structure of GDP is suitable for drawing useful development conclusions, but the result is more reliable if the income creation ability is also analysed on the basis of the employment structure. -
The Target Areas of Regional Development, Tool and Institutional Background, its Present and Future Prospects
138-142Views:291Regional politics determines the aims of regional structures, and the tools with the institutional background on the whole necessary achieve these. Realizing the aims of regional politics is a precondition of executing the basic principles of regional development and politics. The regional institutional system for handling the decentralized financial resources has not evolved in Hungary yet. The professional institutes for preparing the programs have not been set up, and the management of execution is slowly taking shape. There are still deficiencies in the domestic application of concentration and addition principles. A number of funds are provided on a national level, that are directly or indirectly aimed at regional development. The obvious coordination among the funds is not carried out neither on a national, nor on a regional level, partly to avoid parallel consumption aims. The future of Hungarian spatial structure depends on the type of decentralization strategy the country will follow for the new resources after the accession. Total decentralization offers the most efficient solution for Hungary.
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Role of the landscape in spatial and rural development
37-41Views:196The study is going to reveal the role of landscape potential in spatial and rural development based on the analyses of scientific literature. The target area of the research is three micro regions in Hajdú-Bihar county. In addition to the analyses of scientific literature the study pays attention to the assay of local development concepts and programmes. The conclusion of the study is that the analyses of landscape changes on micro regional level are obstructed by the lack of micro regional spatial development and substantive landscape plans.
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Cultural landscape on the border: érmellék
197-200Views:208Cultural landscapes are haunting topic of the european spatial development. Cultural landscapes as cultural heritage determine the local and regional identity. The study shows the role and the significance of the cultural landscape by the help of UNESCO World Heritage Convention, the European Spatial Development Perspective and the European Landscape Convention. The article speaks about how can we maintain and develop cross border landscapes and cultural landscapes and through introducing Érmellék it would like to draw attention to the fact that landscape level planning and development of common landscape politics are one of the main interests of Hungary. That kind of politics play an important role not only in maintaining landscapes but in the regional economic development.
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Development of the reproductive tract of immature gilts
165-166Views:173Mechanisms of regulation of litter size in pigs are complex and depend on many factors, including genetic regulation and also physiological and anatomical development of the reproductive tract in gilts. Improvement of growth rate in present breed pigs raises the question as to whether, with the development of the reproductive tract, sexual maturity would also be attained.
The aim of the study was to assess the morphometric traits of reproductive tracts taken from gilts slaughtered at 100 kg body weight, i. e., just when they may become actively sexual mature.
This study was concluded on 80 prepubertal gilts of the Polish Landrace (PL) breed tested at the Pig Program Testing Station. The animals were kept in individual pens with control feeding and standard management. They were slaughtered after attaining 100 kg body weight. Immediately after slaughter, the reproductive tract was removed and carefully assessed. The morphometric estimation of the reproductive tract involved the
measurement of uterus weight with ligament, vagina-cervix length, uterine horns and oviducts length, ovaries weight, height and width. Uterus volume capacity was also determined, based on volumetric method of Kwaśnicki’s (1951) with own modification.
All pigs were divided into three groups in respect to age at slaughter: A – below 160 days (n=38), B – from 160 to 180 days (n=28) and C – above 180 days of age (n=14). The results were elaborated statistically computing the arithmetic means (x) for every traits and standard deviations (s). One-way analysis of variance ANOVA was performed. The significance of differences between age groups was estimated using Duncan’s test.
Calculations were performed with STATISTICA 8PL Software.
Obtained results are presented in the tables below. The most pronounced differences in the development of the reproductive tract are dependent on the age of gilts concerning only the uterus weight (P≤0.01) and uterus vagina-cervix length (P≤0.05). Gilts at age 160-180 days attained the full stage of reproductive tract development. Differences between the compared age groups of gilts dealing with the other morphometric traits
and ovary characteristics were statistically not significant. -
Mitigation and adaptation measures in the hungarian rural development programme
245-250Views:201In the Hungarian Rural Development Programme (RDP) climate change adaptation is addressed through the measures in Axis 1, 2, 3 and 4. Under Axis 1 farmers can receive support for farm modernisation that will help them adapt to climate change. The processing industry will also be able to use the available resources for capital expenditure on buildings and new equipment. Axis 2 and especially the soil and water package within the agrienvironmental
measure aim to support production methods, which protect soil quality and will help adaptation to climate change. Measures of Axis 3, such as basic services for the economy and rural population, village renewal and development will provide local communities the opportunity to identify actions that can be undertaken to deal with the effects of climate change. On the other hand, the extension of forest resources contributes to climate change mitigation and enhances carbon sequestration. New methods have been elaborated to the sustainable regional water management, irrigation, water regulation, defence against internal water, and soil protection established. Water management contributes to the balance of water quantity on one side, but also to mitigating the climate change on the other. -
Additional information for the interpretation of the practice of rural development in the light of the corporate relations of the Agricultural Centre, University of Debrecen in the North-Great Plain Region
65-69Views:193In the spirit of the Lisbon strategy, the European Union has set out the primary aims of innovation development and competitiveness. A potential method to reach these aims is to enhance the relation between science and practice and to apply scientific results. This is the case at the Agricultural Centre of the University of Debrecen as well, since the tighter and looser cooperations of the institution provide a scientific structure, which is now a significant prerequisite for Hungarian agro-innovation, primarily for rural development processes in the North Great Plain Region. The present study, based mostly on empirical findings, strives to analyze the field of activities in relation to rural development performed by the Agricultural Centre, University of Debrecen.
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Some context of the multifunctional agricultural and sustainable rural development
29-37Views:280The paper first negotiates the concept of multifunctionality, then the main steps of the development of the connection between agriculture and rural development are discussed. It presents the situation of a most disadvantageous sub-region that is aided by a complex program. The local rural resources are estimated by the multifunctional rural resource analysis method considering threefold function of the rural areas. It is concluded, that the land use systems and labour-intensive cropping systems have specific missions in multifunctional agriculture and rural development in the sub-region.
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Relationships of Fruit Production and Regional Development in the Northern Great Plain Region
181-187Views:262The role of retaining population in agriculture is stronger and more significant in the long run in the North Great Plain Region compared to other regions. The region has a significant processing industry along with a good basis for producing raw materials, developed food processing capicity and high quality agricultural products typical of the region. The GDP in agriculture, forestry and game management is somewhat higher than the national average.
Variety is of cardinal importance when establishing the quality of horticultural products and determining the product value. The Hungarian breeding results of apple, quince, apricot, cherry, raspberry, red and black currant are promising.
The regulation system of EU the vegetable and fruit market is based on Retail Cooperatives Producers. With the establishment of national vegetable- and fruit production and retail organizations, the market regulation, production and quality development issues of the sector can be handled and solved. Reaching EU standards in fruit production can only be achieved with up-to-date plantation systems and breed selection. A key issue in development is establishing the required financial resources for investments and updating production. In order to reach these standards, significant state subsidies and good credit conditions are needed. By solving these tasks, the sector is expected to become self-financed without government help.
The pursuit of safer production, improving quality and increasing yields require the establishment of up-to-date irrigation systems. The improvement of family farms, motivating land concentration is necessary for increasing average size of plants. Establishing the above mentioned conditions is important since the vegetable-fruit sector is of great significance in the employment of rurally based population, improving their living conditions and executing rural development programs. -
Greenhouse gas emissions and Europe 2020 strategy
241-244Views:225Common Agricultural Policy has identified three priority areas for action to protect and enhance rural heritage: (i) the preservation and development of natural farming and traditional agricultural landscapes; (ii) water management and sustainable use and (iii) dealing with climate change. Measures of Rural Development Plan in EU countries promote the development of agricultural practices for preserving the environment and safeguarding the countryside. This is achieved by targeting rural development and promoting environmental friendly, sustainable practices, like agri-environment schemes. Farmers are encouraged to continue playing a positive role in the maintenance of the countryside and the environment. Changes in total emission between 1990
and 2007 do not show any correlation with the total GHG emission. GHG emission was reduced in Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, Estonia and Bulgaria, where GHG efficiency is low. -
The role of agriculture in regional development
25-30Views:723Agriculture is the leading national economic sector of Hajdú-Bihar county. The proportion of employees in this sector and the share of pro ducts produced in this region is above the country average. The contribution of agriculture to the GDP is 6.3%, as opposed to the average value of the country (3.3%). Based on their primary activity, 8% of the enterprises in the county are classified as agricultural and forestry companies, while this proportion is only 5.3% in the whole country.
Nearly three quarters (71.1%) of the sowing area is occupied by maize and other cereals, mainly wheat. This proportion is slightly more than the country average (69.2%). The proportional area of oil crops - including sunflower – and roughage is nearly the same as the country average. However, there is a significant difference in vegetable production. Due to the higher intensity of vegetable production, the area occupied by vegetables is three times the country average. 19.4% of the crop products, 23.5% of animal products and living animals, 25.8% of the income generated by production factors and 29.8% of net enterprise income of Hungary originates from the North Great Plain region.
The facilitation of creating local markets, e.g. local public food supply, satisfying the needs of food trade with local goods, the necessary awareness raising actions, secondary and higher education of experts, as well as the more specific and targeted utilisation of development resources are agricultural development tasks.
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Regional restructuring, reindustrialization and development of the higher education
173-176Views:211The development of the new economy in Hungary involves a complexity of economic and social processes. The sectoral structures and territorial location of the industy and the higher education show significant inequalities. Capital city concentration, low level of research orientation and insufficient linkages with industries are the most important barriers of the development of higher education and reindustrialization. The regional and cohesion policies need strong relations between economic restructuring and higher education development. The paper focuses on demonstrating the regional differences in these fields in southern and eastern Hungarian regions.
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Development of LEADER in Hungary
37-40Views:209The development of the Hungarian LEADER programme was organised by the Institute of Rural development, Training and Consultancy under the control of the Ministry of Rural Development. Starting the programme without earlier experiences, lead to problems, but these were solved by the efficient work of the organizing institutions. The changing European economical situation makes it necessary to review and update the Local Development Strategies along with opening the programme again. This makes the programme work more effectively with every new turn. Continusing LEADER in Hungary after 2013, by using the hungarian and Western European knowledge, can bring economical and social benefits for rural areas and for the whole nation as well.
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Milestones in the development of agronomic management practices in crop production
203-209Views:282From the dawn of the history of the human race, agriculture has always been a profound activity of mankind producing food and feed as well as various plant originated materials for further processing.
Agronomy, like any other human activity, depends on the perpetual development of knowledge and technical skills, - in a modern context – science and innovation. This paper is intended to provide the reader with information regarding the main phases of the development of agricultural production from the Neolithic societies through the early Mesopotamian and Egyptian empires to the inventions of first organised learned society of Rome. The major research findings of the past two millennia including agro-chemistry, genetics and technical development are presented.
Such a review should not lead to any scientific conclusions, but rather a philosophical postulate similar to that of Jonathan Swift written some centuries ago: “And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground, where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together”.
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The role of networks and clusters in rural development
57-62Views:151The development of rural areas is a key role for the European Union and its member states as well. The rural development primarily achieved through the development of agriculture, because the main beneficiaries of the grant are the farmers. Hungary today is close to 1 million units in agriculture, but only 10% are competitive. Agriculture as an industry according to its economic characteristics needs closely managed decentralization, where the autonomy of the units remain, but there is a central governing body, which constitutes a proffesional manager function. This is a superorganization, which stay above agricultural units, called cluster.
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Development Level Analysis of the Settlements and Micro Regions of the Hungarian-Ukrainian Borderland
73-78Views:207This paper aims to make a settlement and micro region-level analysis in case of one of Hungary’s most backwater regions, the Hungarian-Ukrainian borderland. After a brief methodological and theoretical review, it creates a complex development indicator with the help of certain ratios belonging to appropriate groups. It analyzes the exceptionally heterogeneous settlement-level values with applied statistics methods and tries to determine the role of population, population density, the distance from the nearest border-crossing point and the travel time from the centre of the micro region and the county. As its main findings the followings can be mentioned: there are significant development level differences in case of the „periphery of the periphery” micro regions which depend on the number of population, population density and the travel time from the centre of the micro regions.
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Spatial environment analisys of the bioenergy production and utilization
235-240Views:227The backwardness of the rural areas compared to the cities poses a problem all over Europe. Rural development and the reduction of differences between the development levels of the regions have expressed roles among the programs of the European Union. Member States are even entitled to subsidisation, they just need to manage subsidies economically. In Hungary, a relatively small amount of the population lives in the capital, more than 80% of Hungarians live in rural cities or villages. The opposition between the countryside and the cities is rather intensified and the symbiotic correlation would need to be restored. Many people migrate from the countryside, especially youngsters, as they have no opportunities to find any job. This phenomenon poses big risks because getting a job is usually difficult everywhere and because fitting into a new environment always involves a lot of difficulties. Also from the aspect of the national economy, migration from the rural areas to the cities is a problem. The state budget will face significant excess costs if someone moves from a village to the city. It could cause unpredictable consequences if people leave the villages, as the maintenance and development of the village living space will face a hopeless situation.
Non-renewable energies are restricted and they will not be accessible after reaching a certain limit. People’s everyday activities and the functioning of the economy presupposes the availabilty of the necessary amount of energy. In the future, solution that provide the longterm stability of energy for the world will become increasingly necessary. There is a huge potential in bioenergy, more specifically in biomass. The building of biomass plants and putting them into operation creates jobs in the rural spatial environments. A locally available resource that can help in creating the energy safety of the country and the reduction of the dependence on import. The production of energy crops or the crops whose purpose of use is energy could help in strengthening the multifunctional character of agriculture and it can represent a source of income for those living off of agriculture under the current uncertain conditions. -
Bioreactor in the service of sustainable development
111-118Views:372The control of our relationship with our environment is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. This has an effect on the economic and social processes and the human activities. All of these are included in a new developmental strategy: the strategy of sustainable development.
The strategy of sustainable development prevails by the new technologies and it is realized on high-tech level as the fermentation manipulation of organic materials, biogas production and production of “green” electric current.
One of Europe’s largest bioreactors has been established in Nyírbátor in Hungary at first (chief executive: Mihály Petis). -
Regional innovation: State of the art in the Észak-alföld region
139-143Views:175Innovation and innovation performance is gaining increasing importance in European policy, as the targets determined by the Lisbon priorities related to innovation seem to be still far away from the reality in some European countries and at EU level as well. Although the economic crisis determined the priorities of economic development and made it more complicated to dedicate more budget of Research and Development, one of the five ambitious objectives of the EU’s growth strategy for the coming decade: Europe 2020: A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth is still focusing on innovation. As the Lisbon Strategy determined the paths for national targets in the given areas, Europe 2020 will be adopted as well by the Member States.
In this context, the current work would like to give a short overview how Lisbon Strategy effected the national and regional innovation system in Hungary and will analyze its impact on Észak-Alföld’s region Research, Development and Innovation performance in the recent years and the transition of regional innovation governance system. -
Agri-environmental subsidies and the National Rural Development Plan
52-59Views:198The financing of agri-environmental target programs which is a prominent area in the EU became possible during the implementation and successful operation of the National Agricultural Environment Protection Program (NAPP) launched in 2002. Through this program we gained experience in the field agri-environmental measures which are financed from the Guidance Section of European Agricultural and Guarantee Fund in the European Union. The agri-environmental measures which are included in the National Rural Development Plan (NRDP) were implemented in Hungary in the fall of 2004 when the farmers handed in their application after the publishing of the related law. The NAPP financing is still active, but not significant since most farmers have chosen NRDP measures.
We are examining the experience of the above programs after studying some theoretical aspects of the agricultural economics and the EU laws. We try to analyse the most important experiences of NAPP including the legal background, news opportunities yielded by target programs, the financing, organisation, and institutional background. We will present the results taking into consideration the data of the winning applicants.