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  • From the Concept of Sustainable Development to the Subsidies of Agricultural Environmental Management
    354-361
    Views:
    72

    The most important aim of the study is to introduce the theoretical background of my PhD dissertation – agricultural environmental management –, in order to help the scientific foundations for my dissertation, which is in progress. For this reason I will try to clarify and systematize facts found in the special literature according to my own thoughts, from a new aspect.
    In my study, I therefore attempt to introduce the theoretical background of sustainable development as pertains to the subsidies of agricultural environmental management (National Agricultural Environmental Management Program, National Regional Development Plan, agricultural environmental management measures). Having clarified the concepts I place sustainable development in the economic theories directed to the treatment of environmental problems, introduce where subsidies are within the environmental regulation implements and I dwell on to the institutional questions in the explanation. I then study questions of sustainable agricultural economics. Accession to the European Union has to be considered as one of the most important concrete motivities of domestically coming into prominence of agricultural environmental subsidies therefore I think it is important to study how the problematic of sustainable development, sustainable agricultural development and agricultural environment protection worked out in the EU. Finally I survey the main characteristics of domestic agricultural environment management programs fitting into the theories explained above, how the program adjusts to the theories of sustainable development and sustainable agricultural development.
    In the dissertation I begin with sustainable development as the broadest theoretical background, then I survey a narrower category, the theories of sustainable agricultural development and how concrete agricultural environmental programs fit into the studied theoretical relations.

  • Development of and Lessons from the Institution System of the Common Agricultural Policy in Slovenia
    43-53
    Views:
    61

    The 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.

  • Farms in the system of European supportpolicy
    79-83
    Views:
    73

    Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been having a great past, it is over numerous direction and structure changes in the last half century. After the Treaty of Rome, the harmonization of he agricultural structure and the production of Member States has been launched, during which the economic changes in the world and in Europe were continuously being kept track of. By using common experience, they strived to develop an agricultural sector that supplies the Member States of the Community with food, while the competitiveness and living circumstances of family farms are being improved. The general directions outlined in Stresa in 1958 were significantly redrawn owing to the transformed market conditions and EU accessions. The subsidization of family farms and the improvement of their profitability are having a stressed importance nowadays, too. Our country, as the fully qualified member of the European Union tries to meet its obligations undertaken in the accession treaty and therefore to develop an agricultural sector carrying out diversified agricultural production with a healthy age structure. The aim of the study is to specifically overview the issue of common agricultural policy by stressing the main development points and to introduce the Hungarian conditions of family farms. Besides, there will be an evaluation of the research works examining the income conditions of family farms in the North Great Plain region.

  • Regional Development Differences in Hungary and the Northern-Great Plain Region
    62-71
    Views:
    114

    The most important endeavour of European Union’s regional policy is to moderate disparities. An emphasised strategic objective of member states, based on the principle of solidarity, fairness and justice, is to develop regions and almost forty percent of the common budget is devoted to achieving this objective.
    Hungary, as a full EU member state, will get a new chance for underdeveloped regions, especially for the Eastern-Hungarian as well as the North Hungarian and North Plain Region.
    The differences in development among the regions are significantly influenced by the economic characteristics of the specific region, quality and quantity of human resources, accessability of the region and other factors influencing local quality of life beside natural conditions.
    The new spatial structure was formed by change of regime, processes of the nineties, primarily the economic renewal based on foreign capital investments and the crisis phenomena in parallel with these. The economic, political and social consequences of the transformation significantly changed spatial structure and increased disparities. New disparities formed which were further aggravated as a consequence due to the formation of the eastern-western slope and local crisis zones. As a result of the outstanding development of the capital, the long term differentiation of regional development differences can also be detected when examining the regional distribution of Hungarian gross domestic product. The collapse of heavy industry and agricultural mass production based on the eastern markets primarily affected the north-east counties in the eastern part of the country.
    Strengthening regional competitiveness is of key importance for the region, which requires the application of consistent development policy. The most important is economic development which, if it operates well, also infers the possibility of establishing welfare infrastructures. Drawing in external sources to ease the significant lack of capital is important for the processing industry and the development of supplier networks. Agricultural development also plays an important role in transforming economic structure, since the characteristics of the region, its traditions and long term competitive advantages are favourable, therefore it is going to represent a higher ratio within the economy than the EU average. The modernisation of the agricultural sector can be promoted by supporting market accession, quality agricultural production and stimulating producer-retailer cooperation. The development of transportation and informatics infrastructure as well as human resource development plays a significantly important role in the development of the region.
    In conclusion, the implementation of such a consistent regional development policy is required in the future, based on the strengths of the region, that serves the most efficient utilisation of regional development funds through the implementation of regional policy principles and prevents the irreversible decay of the region while promoting rapid development.

  • Contradiction in the agrofinancial regulation of agricultural producers
    97-107
    Views:
    71

    Hungary is a country of favourable conditions with agropotential, for this reason the regulations regarding agriculture is constantly the bone of legislative contention. The
    purpose of this study is to present the actual agropotential contradictions concerning the agricultural producers, specifically focusing on certain problems without any detailed representation of the valid rules of law. The agrofinancial anomalies referring to agricultural producers can be found mostly in the system of the personal income tax (allowance, tax immunity), the value added tax (special agricultural legal position) as well as the social insurance.
    The severity of the problem is supported by the agricultural producers’ behavioral types of paying taxes, globalisation process of these days and our place in the European Union. The resolution of the contradictions in agriculture does not lie by any means in the proper way of making the rules of the law of taxation, but in a comprehensive economic policy, which is to be waited for.

  • Distribution of family farms according to estate size and land usage in Hajdú-Bihar County
    130-136
    Views:
    61

    In harmony with European tendencies, the role of agriculture and its share in GDP output, as well as in employment, is continuously decreasing in Hungary and Hajdú-Bihar County. At the same time, according to the specialized literature, the role of agriculture is still extremely important in the income of the rural population and in easing the present social tensions, and this will not change in the future. The economic and social processes of the last one and a half decades caused radical changes in agriculture. The above-mentioned processes resulted in new property and organizational structure in the field of leasehold and land structure. The rational land concentration which came to pass in the last few years can be mentioned as a favourable tendency that improves the efficiency of agricultural activities, as well as the more effective land usage accompanied by this process. In addition, it supports the integration with principles formulated in the Common Agricultural Policy. In this study, I survey the effects of established processes and the change of land usage in the case of individual family enterprises in Hajdú-Bihar County. The choice of the examination area was motivated by the higher proportion of agricultural area in comparison with the national average and the fact that this sector has great importance today, too.

  • Agri-environmental subsidies and the National Rural Development Plan
    52-59
    Views:
    57

    The 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.

  • Dr. Károly Ihrig: the Scholar and the Person
    5-9
    Views:
    81

    The paper – in a form of abridged version of an oral presentation – analyses scientific works and  human qualifications of one of the greatest Hungarian scholar, Károly Ihrig. The study deals with the most important works of the great Hungarian polymath on co-operative theory and  agricultural policy, as well as with the story of his works later on.

  • Validation of the competence profile of agri-environmental engineering bachelor course
    63-71
    Views:
    149

    As member of the European Union, the development if the Hungarian agriculture is determined by the Common Agricultural Policy. After the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2003, the environmental protection has got a crucial function. The constant changing role of agriculture has reacted students in higher education. For firms connected to agriculture, human resource management based on competency has an important role in custody of competitiveness. One of the most important goals of firms is to supply the demands of their economic partners. To make it successfully, highly qualified human resource is required. The quality of human resource is determined not only by its qualification, language skills, professional experience, and practise, but extant competencies that can also be developed. To choose the expectant employee, it is not enough for them to have intelligence and proficiency; it is also decisive to examine their particular competencies. All of these will define the employee’s
    achievement that will definitely contribute to the success of the enterprise. Basically, closer cooperation is needed between higher education institutions and employers to achieve this goal. At the same time, the higher education institutions can revise their training systems considering the actual requirements of labour market, and accordingly, they can form syllabus in a way to train auspicious experts. In this article examination of the requirements of labour market for graduates from agri-environmental engineering bachelor course is presented.

  • Adequate responses to plant protection policy
    33-35
    Views:
    69

    The head of crop protection in the Central Agricultural Office offers a survey of the lately reconstructured official structure, outlines the sections of Central Directorate, sketches the roles of County Government Bureaues. To keep the standard of knowledge changes are necessary to make in the higher education of plant protection specialists. The prersentation will concern the contacts between researches made on universities and agricultural official directorates. It is analized the regulation of present and future pesticide usage, the possible alternatives of reduced quantity pesticide usage including the application of Integrated Plant Management (IPM) as well. The tasks of national activity according to the EU direcives about sustainable pesticide usage touch the problems of plant protection machinery and environment safety. It is summarized the tasks of official directorate, chamber of crop protection specialists, moreover practice of plant protection for the nearest future.

  • Post-control of agricultural subsidies provided by EU
    31-35
    Views:
    84

    The greatest part of the incomes (nearly fifty percent) of the European Union is spend on the agriculture and the agricultural policy is the most complex field among the common policies. In Hungary the payments from Guarantee Section of EAGGF are carried out by one Paying Agency (Agricultural and Rural Development Agency), the post audit of payments are carried out by Investigation Network of Hungarian Customs and Finance Guard on the base of Council Regulation No. 4045/89. A full co-operation of the business operators is expected during the audit, which means the presentation of the complete accounting file related to subsidies. To avoid declarations on irregularities during the audit and the following order on repayment of the subsidy, all requirements of gaining subsidies have to be kept. The state authorities, in present case the customs authority should pay special attention to the risk analysis activity, and its harmonising with the proposals and guidelines of the Commission. Getting acquainted and using in practice the actual requirements and proposals of the Commission’s guidelines is expected at all levels of the control service of the HCFG, but primarily the Special Service has to continue its present practice in this field. The measures mentioned above, respectively the effective period taken under analysis teens from the date of accession until June 2005.

  • Greenhouse gas emissions and Europe 2020 strategy
    241-244
    Views:
    58

    Common 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.

  • Conceptions regarding sustainable agriculture – the national sustainable development strategy
    42-51
    Views:
    71

    The task of the national sustainable development strategy is to provide a long term conception for the economy and society, so that this might function and develop in harmony with the environment. Creating the conditions for sustainable agricultural production requires the elaboration and implementation of long-term programs spanning generations. The objective is to find a compromise between the conceptions appearing in the long-term and the short-term programs.
    In Hungary, several principles, conceptions and proposals have been suggested regarding sustainable agriculture. In the present study, I intend to systematize the above mentioned principles and conceptions, and compare them to the conceptions regarding agriculture in the national strategies of the EU member states. Furthermore, I examine to what extent the agricultural policy of the European Union supports the conceptions regarding agriculture in the strategies. This topic deserves special attention, as the Hungarian national sustainable development strategy is being prepared and is supposed to be finished by the end of 2005.

  • Application of environmental accounting tools for agricultural companies
    60-68
    Views:
    74

    Today there is an ever stronger requirement for companies to consider the environmental aspects of their operation. The incorporation of these aspects into the economic practise of agricultural firms in our country is still in its infancy and, moreover, it usually follows from outside coercion (legal regulation) rather than voluntary behaviour.
    Consequently, in the Hungarian agrar-economics – contrary to the example of Western Europe – the application of environmental accounting in agriculture is a barely researched subject; this has been so even though the environmental policy of companies can be made more conscious by adding an environmental dimension to the organizational information systems.
    The aim of our investigation is two-fold. The first goal is to form a method that quantifies the environmental load of companies, is capable of comparing environmental performance of companies with different sizes, and takes into account the specific attributes of agriculture as well. The second is to apply this method in practice, to prove that estimating the environmental load of companies is possible by processing already available data (fiscal, accounting and statistical) using new concepts.
    In this publication we present the joint application of three methods – each belonging to the toolset of environmental accounting – for two companies dealing with both crop and animal farming in the Pannonian region. The three methods are partly built upon each other and partly complementary. The company-level environmental balance is capable to show the relations between a given firm and its surrounding, but realistic comparison between environmental performance of different companies or periods is only possible by using specific index quantities.

  • On the connection between spatial development and sustainable landscape in the Northern Great Plain region
    145-148
    Views:
    58

    This paper tries to find connection 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 interpretations 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 from two different approaches. In the first grouping the region is exposed from the view point of spatial development. In the second partitioning the area is divided into subject matters based on the principles of sustainability and polarization of landscape. This research – analyzing development plans and strategies – considers the current situation within the subject matters.

  • Evaluation of sweet sorghum and sudangrass varieties by the viewpoint of bioethanol production
    57-61
    Views:
    122

    Bioenergy and biofuels are very important in today’s energy policy. These kinds of energy resources have several advantages against fossil fuels. Environmental protection is a cardinal point of widespreading these technologies but the economic considerations are important as well. In order to improve the rate of the renewable energy in the energy consumption, the European Union settled down a program which determines a minimum ratio of renewable energy in the energy consumption for each member country of the EU. To fulfil the requirements bioenergy and biofuels should be produced. This production procedure needs adequate stocks which are commonly agricultural products.
    One of the promising stocks is sorghum. This plant fits for bioethanol production due to its juice content being rich in sugar. In this study six sweet sorghum hybrids, two sudangrass hybrids and a sudangrass variety have been evaluated to determine their theorical ethanol production capacity.
    On the score of the results of the year 2009 it can be set that sudangrasses have a lower theorical ethanol capacity than sweet sorghums have. In the case of sweet sorghums 1860.29–2615.47 l ha-1 ethanol yields had been calculated, while the sudangrasses had only 622.96–801.03 l ha-1. After that throughout three years (2011–2013) the sweet sorghum hybrids have been evaluated in order to determine the fluctuations of the ethanol production capacity caused by the impact of the years. As a result 2425.44–4043.6 l ha-1 theorical ethanol capacities have been calculated, which means that sweet sorghums can be an adequate stock to produce bioethanol.

  • Technical Development and Agricultural Policy
    136-140
    Views:
    50

    Summarising a study work taken several decades four highly important fields are discussed in this essay:
    - theoretical and practical methods of technical development,
    - some special character of the technical development-friendly economic environment,
    - specialities of the present situation,
    - preliminary hopes for the future.

  • European Funds and the Evaluation of Their Application in the Northern Great Plain Region
    191-198
    Views:
    74

    Presently, the process of regionalization is slowly progressing in Hungary. The regional institutional system is young and the institutional experiences are limited. The Hungarian regional development agencies are operated with a limited number of personnel and their budget is only a fraction of EU regional agencies of similar size. There is no unequivocal cooperation between regional development agencies and county development agencies. In the absence of these, the strategical objectives of the region cannot be aligned and the application of consistent development policies cannot be achieved. In the past five-six years the supports from EU Pre-Accession Funds, along with the new tools of regional development policies, have all contributed to the development of the North Great Plain Region. Phare projects – beside supporting development – have played a significant role in forming the approach of individuals who are actively involved in regional development, in promoting cooperation among cross-border and other regions, as well as in preparing the regions to accept EU structural funds. Prior to the May 1st, 2004 EU accession of Hungary, the North Great Plain Region received 24-25% in direct regional development funds in the Nineties. The support per capita in the case of TFC, TEKI and CÉDE has exceeded the national average. The North Great Plain Region has received support from investment type agricultural supports, the Employment Fund and the Touristical Directives that well exceeded the national average, from the sectoral resource funds. However, the applicants of the North Great Plain Region have received little support in the case of environmental, water management and especially road development supports. About 200 applications have been submitted for the SAPARD calls nationally, 32 of these were from the North Great Plain Region. The significance of cooperation among sub-regions is demonstrated by the fact that, except for 15 settlements in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, all have submitted an application. The efforts of inhabitants is highlighted by the high number of submitted applications, as well as by the significant degree of own contribution. Still, the GDP of the North Great Plain Region has not increased, the rate and tendency of unemployment does not sufficiently reflect the positive effect of supports. The Regional Development Directive has provided support for the development of many small- and medium size enterprises, but their effect did not ensure a sustained economic growth.
    The greatest difficulty is that the number of dedicated professionals who are skilled in regional politics and regional development is few. However, advantages of our EU accession can only be exploited if a group of highly skilled professionals is provided on local, county, regional and national level as well. Thus, we need a group of professionals who are informed about the European Union, the EU support forms and most of all about the operation of Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds to establish the suitable institutional background for professionally handling the funds obtained from the EU, to prepare the professional documents to access the funds and to generate development projects to efficiently use the funds as well as establishing connections with the institutions of the EU. Appropriate share from funds coming from the EU is only possible if the country, certain regions, counties and sub-regions can achieve rapid results in the areas listed above.