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• Viability and Economies of Scale in EU Farms

  332-338

  István Fürjész

  Views:

  64

  With this study, the author intends to draw up the main characteristics of the institutional background of the Farm Accountancy Data Network, operated by the European Union. Among the factors that contribute to the formation of the institutional background of the FADN database, special emphasis is laid on the Commission and member state level legal framework, in order to provide potential Hungarian users of the database with authentic and substantial information. Also, much attention is paid to definitional misunderstandings which cause, or might cause the farm business management type utilization of the database to be imperfect. As for this goal, some of the elements of the FADN information structure are investigated in a conventional Hungarian cost structure. In order to facilitate an easier understanding of the database, the different relations of economic size classes are also reviewed in this study. The author of this study is – in the first place – trying to analyze the meaning of Standard Gross Margin, the index used in the FADN structure to categorize farms, by localizing the position of the different cost constituents of SGM in a conventional Hungarian cost matrix. Last, but not least, the author is trying to draw all researcher’s attention on the possibilities, hidden in the FADN database by introducing some analyses from his own field of interest based on FADN information.

• Verifying the farm size – environment interaction

  33-41

  István Fürjész

  Views:

  148

  With this study, based on experience gained in the United States of America, the author intends to draw attention to the fact that farm size related questions in Hungary, which form an integrant part of farm policies all around the world, cannot and should not be discussed without taking environmental relations into account. In the United States, where the excessive use of agrochemicals poses a great threat to the environment, many researchers claim that the conventional large farm model is now getting outdated. These experts question the social and economic benefits of a large farm oriented farm structure and try to convince researchers arriving from Middle- and Eastern-European countries to reform their thought on optimum farm structure. In their opinion, it is essential to let countries in the region understand that they are not required to follow the US course of large farms, which many experts in the States also would prefer to leave. From the facts presented in this study, it can be concluded that large farms by nature can protect the environment less efficiently than small farms. It is also pointed out that the excessive use of fertilizers, which is a trait often attributed to large farms by researchers throughout the world, do not yet apply to large farms in Hungary. As regards the use of pesticides in Hungary, the unfavorable tendency portrayed in foreign literature is identified in this analysis, according to which the larger the farm involved in field cropping the larger per hectare doses they use to protect their crops.