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Responsible behaviour or business? Social responsibility (CSR) in sport management
83-90Views:819CSR has become increasingly important in today’s business world and managers must consider not only the economic results of their decisions but also the legal, ethical, moral, and social impact and repercussions of each of their decisions. Some multinational companies’ CSR activities even clearly represent applicability of CSR in sport management. The aim of this study was to do a critical comparative analysis, present the changes, alterations in the traditional company philosophy, objectsystem; then to define the concept of CSR, its importance in sport, finally to analyze some of the top 20 World Food & Beverage Companies’ (Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestle) CSR activities in sport management. Similarly to the whole economics – beside traditional theoretical tendencies, parallel to them and not developing them – a new kind of company theory concerning the long-term balance problems of the natural environment and society is being formed. Although the notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is prominent in some of the current discussions and investigations about the role of business in society, the concept – integrate social and environmental aspects in their business activity – is not new. According to the websites and sustainability reports of the international parent companies and domestic subsidiaries, we can say, that the companies show similarity at several points with regard to social responsibility within the field of sport management. However we must emphasize that we can find in the domestic practice fewer examples. In this case probably the media plays important role, which prefer the news of scandals such as CSR-related initiatives. In the public the companies’ CSR activities are even less known. Finally we can establish, that about the sport sponsorship the parent companies we have more information, their reports and websites are more transparency. In contracts, in the case of subsidiaries we can meet deficiencies.
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The development of integrated accounting in small and medium-sized companies in the agri- and foodsector f the Russian federation
131-135Views:346This paper focuses on the regulation of financial accounting in SMEs in the agri- and food sector in Russia. The paper presents the factors which influence the accounting system and the quality of the information it provides. The information and reports that are prepared according to international standards are not comparable with reports prepared by Russian standards. They do not facilitate external users in gathering relevant information on the current financial position. The present usage of different systems for procuring information to satisfy the needs of multiple stakeholder groups takes time, distorts information, and often does not provide a true and fair view on business performance. One way to overcome this is the use of an integrated accounting system which allows, within the limits of Russian legislation, to provide a broad information base for external reporting. International standards could be used like IAS41 or those applied in the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The derived data could be used for attraction of investments, presentation of information to all interested users, comparison of results of activities in similar companies, and as a benchmark for the activities of companies in various regions and/or segments. They could be used to compare Russian companies with similar ones in the European Union. This paper describes the benefits and pitfalls which companies potentially experience from implementing an integrated accounting information system for company management and financial reporting purposes in the Russian Federation.
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Research and education in agrobusiness in Mosonmagyaróvár – the 200-year history
129-136Views:457In 2018, the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences of Széchenyi István University celebrated the bicentenary of its predecessor’s foundation. Agrobusiness courses played an important role in the university’s agricultural engineering program throughout this major time period. The aim of this study is to examine how the titles, the content, and the significance of the courses changed during the institution’s important periods. Institutional history publications and the academic textbooks of great professors provided the basis of this research. Business administration, accounting, and agricultural estimation studies courses were already dominant in the first curricula. Later, courses concerning business and agricultural economics gained more ground and were accompanied by other fields of study: agricultural statistics, agricultural politics, agricultural history, and agricultural economics. During this 200-year period, the education of economics and other social science courses was done within the departments of agricultural economics and marketing, work organization and factory management, and social science and business operations, with the contribution of internationally renowned professors: Pál Sporzon, Richárd Suschka, Árpád Hensch, Károly Világhy. The Hungarian Royal Economics Academy (1874-1942) can be considered as the first prime of the agricultural economics education. From the 1900s onwards, the courses became more specialized, their numbers continuously grew, the disciplines expanded, and the number of departments increased. The second prime is the first decade of the 2000s, when besides the traditional agricultural programs, the institution started teaching economic agricultural engineers in its undivided 5-year training. They were the most popular agricultural engineers in the labor market due to their well-balanced knowledge in agriculture and economics, as well as their excellent leadership skills.
Having abandoned the economic agricultural engineering program, the institution currently educates, besides other agricultural majors, rural development agricultural engineers, whose skills the labor market does not know very well. The proportion of business related courses show a significant decline in the curriculum of traditional agricultural programs as well.
JEL code: N30
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The new strategic directions of rural development in Hungary
143-150Views:368The notion of sustainability is the basis for our future possibilities. Local sustainability, in the centre of which can be found the livable settlement, is especially important in rural areas.Without developing rural areas, there is no developing society. The growth of the Earth’s population and the world economy has already surpassed the carrying capacity of this planet which may result in an “overshoot and collapse”. This can still be prevented today. The population of towns and cities is rapidly increasing. Urbanization is a very fast process, even in Hungary. In large cities with millions of inhabitants crime and lumpen lifestyle pose huge problems. However, the bases of a successful economy are morals and a puritan lifestyle, which so far have characterized rural villages. 70% of the poor and needy live in rural areas in the developing countries and agriculture provides livelihood for 40% of the world’s population. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was established in 2002 by FAO and theWorld Bank to learn more about the role of agricultural science and technology. After the positive decision some comprehensive summaries were made on all the related topics with the participation of 400 scientists. The assessment provided many lessons to learn and at the 2008 closing sessions in Johannesburg, the reports were accepted and it was proved that rural areas have a significant role in providing adequate means of earning a livelihood. The Ministry of Rural Development composed a domestic-level study with the title of the National Rural Strategy. The objectives stated in the study can be seen as the main directions of the Hungarian rural strategy. The land policy aims to support the 50–70 hectare family farms and have the agricultural lands under national authority. The population must be provided with ample and safe food. The priority of local economy, local sale, and local markets is important. The positive exploitation of our natural resources may result in the strengthening of rural areas. The deterioration of rural areas must be stopped. In order to halt these processes swiftly fundamental, patriotic economic and social policy changes, a strong people’s party, a short-run crisis treating and a medium-long-run strategic development and action plan are needed which is based on the respect of work and moral norms, national cooperation, solidarity, and the defense of our mutual interests rather than on speculation (ÁNGYÁN, 2010). The greatest problem of Hungary is low employment.Workplaces may be created in the least expensive and the fastest manner in irrigational agriculture. In order to achieve this, the role of the state must be reconsidered and EU rules on state intervention must be reviewed.
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Estimation of Armington elasticities: case of vegetables in Mongolia
Views:505Mongolian people often consume meat more than vegetable in diet due to traditional nomadic culture. Nowadays, the Mongolian people’s diet has been changing who consume more vegetables with associated urbanization (half of the population live in urban areas, mostly in the capital city). Even though vegetable consumption has been increased recently, the vegetable market is still a high reliance on imports and threatening national food security. Since 2016, the Mongolian government has especially paid attention to increasing vegetable's domestic production and substitution to import vegetables (Ministry of food and Agriculture, 2017). Therefore, this paper provided to substitution elasticity (the Armington elasticity) between import vegetables and domestic vegetables in Mongolia. Additionally, we estimated the home bias value of vegetables. The so-called Armington elasticities are widely used for computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis, which determines a degree of substitution between import goods and domestically produced goods. Several of the authors studied Armington elasticities at the product level. We choose six vegetables (such as potato, garlic and onion, tomato, carrot and turnips, cabbage, and cucumber) related to lack of information. The empirical result shows that the Armington elasticities in the long-run higher than the short-run with exception of potato which means that products are similar in the long-run. However, our estimated Armington elasticities are quite lower than the previous studies result which means that Mongolian people indicated more prefer home growing vegetables than import vegetables. Moreover, we found that the home bias value is high in the short-run even long -run, this appears to be a higher relative weight on home vegetables.
JEL code: F13, Q17, Q18
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Consumer attitudes and preferences about the pork meat in Hungary (based on cluster analysis)
151-158Views:559In my study I wish to investigate the fact that how the pork consumption of Hungary changed during the last years. This study focuses on consumer’s attitudes about (pork) meat, what do they think about the healthness of the different meat type, what are the strengths and weaknesses of pork meat, what are the main features of good quality pork meat, what are the major pork purchase influencing factors and what are the favourite food of the respondents from pork meat etc. Then I analyze the tendency of these values (cross tabs, bar/pie charts, means, Chi-square), where can be found significant differences, and make a cluster analysis to identify the pork consumers in Hungary.
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Economic analysis of some agrotechnical factors in maize production - a Hungarian case study
5-16Views:802This paper focuses on the economic and statistical evaluation of the production technology findings of the polyfactorial maize production experiments carried out between 2015-2017 at the Látókép Experiment Site of the University of Debrecen, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management. The examined agrotechnical factors included irrigation, previous crop, tillage, crop density, hybrid and N nutrient supply, while the effect of different crop years was taken into consideration. In addition to descriptive statistical methods, we used multivariate regression analysis during the statistical evaluation. In the course of the evaluation, we examined three models that differed in terms of tillage methods and the consideration of crop year. In our best fit model, the factors were 71% responsible for the change in yield value. We carried out efficiency and comparative analyses in the course of the economic evaluation.
Averaged over the three examined years, it can be stated that nutrient supply and crop year had an outstanding effect on yield, while irrigation had a minimal effect. However, global warming may justify irrigation in the future, not only from a biological point of view, but also from an economic aspect.
Ideal tillage is also greatly affected by crop year, too. Altogether, of the examined tillage systems, subsoiling proved to be the best from an economic point of view.
Our investigations confirm that it is better to perform intensive farming under more favourable market conditions. The optimum of N fertilisation is probably outside of the range we examined, if the extreme changes in maize and fertiliser prices are ignored.JEL Classification: Q16, Q12, Q13, O32
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The impact of the internet on Hungarian food consumers’ ways of seeking information from the aspect of health awareness
13-18Views:360One of the main components of healthy lifestyle is proper diet. When putting together one’s diet, lots of information are needed in order to be able to pick from various foods which contribute to converting to a healthier lifestyle and maintaining it. The main purpose of this study is to determine and show examples of the characteristics of online marketing which could help consumers in the conscious conversion to healthy lifestyle. Of the various factors, great emphasis is placed on online health-related information. Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that healthy lifestyle-related information has a significant role in online sources. Consequently, Internet can be regarded as a preferred source of information in terms of the conscious converting to healthy lifestyle.
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Sustainable initiatives in marginal rural areas of Serbia: A case study of dimitrovgrad municipality
7-13Views:267This paper is based on a 2009 case study research on the role and impacts of rural initiatives in Dimitrovgrad, South-eastern Serbia region. This area is of interest, because of local efforts to conserve autochthonous livestock breeds, and the work of small holders and independent professionals involved farming and rural tourism activities. The research used participant visits to initiative places, drawing on farm visits, meetings with stakeholders and analysis of secondary information. The study highlights that local organizations are running without link to initiatives.Although, Serbia country has well structured rural developments programs, those still are harmonising.Thus, throughActor-Network approach is suggested which turn around a farm manager. This may represent to all stakeholders within itiatives (on-farm and non-farm). Besides, local food products issues from initiatives may reconnect providers and consumers, revaluing local food products. However, is necessary the institutional and organizational involvement to encourage the initiatives. Furthermore, to promote touristic places, by an integrated rural tourism approach it may involve all stakeholders to promote local products and issues from initiatives. Indirectly it may create local employs.
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Fresh Produce Retail Price Comparisons in Trinidad and Tobago
29-34Views:321As the competitive landscape of the food and grocery retailing sector in Trinidad and Tobago is being transformed and consumers are separated from producers, shoppers are more reliant on price/quality cues in making their purchase decisions. The purpose of this study is to identify the retail outlet with the lowest and or highest price for a selected number of fresh produce items, in an effort to direct shoppers to relatively cheap nutritious sources of fresh produce. ANOVA and the Games-Howell test were the analytical procedures used. The ANOVA results indicated that there is statistical difference for all the items at the different retail outlets – farmers’ markets, roadside markets, public markets and supermarkets.
The Games-Howell results obtained indicated that the supermarket mean prices were the highest for all items. Shoppers who purchased pineapple at the farmer’s market instead of the supermarket in 2016 could have potentially achieved the greatest savings of $6.52/kg.
JEL Classification: C12, Q13, M31
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The political economy of agri-environmental measures: An empirical assessment at the eu regional level
71-82Views:346The paper deals with the political and economic determinants of EU agri-environmental measures (AEMs) applied by 59 regional/country units, during the 2001-2004 period. Five different groups of determinants, spanning from positive and negative externalities, to political institutions, are highlighted and tested using an econometric model. Main results show that AEMs implementation is mostly affected by the strength of the farm lobby, and the demand for positive externalities. At the same time it emerges a prominent role played by political institutions. On the contrary, AEMs do not seem implemented by the willingness to address negative externalities.
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WHAT DRIVES FEMALE FARMERS’ PARTICIPATION IN OFF-FARM ACTIVITIES? THE CASE OF RURAL NIGERIA
Views:329Women often lack access to productive resources such as land and capital in most developing countries. This forces them to take part in off-farm activities to augment their little farm income. This study investigated factors that affect the involvement of women farmers in different types of off-farm entrepreneurial livelihood activities in rural Bauchi state, Nigeria. A purposive sampling method was used in selecting three local government areas in the western agricultural zone of the state and a random sampling method was used in selecting ten wards. 5% registered women farmers in each selected ward, making 134 respondents. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to women farmers in 2017. The results revealed that food processing, farm product sales, trading and tailoring are the major off-farm livelihood activities engaged in by rural female farmers. Logit regression results revealed, as expected, that different factors affect their involvement in various types of off-farm activities. Food processing and tailoring required relatively high start-up capital and access to electricity as an investment and the use of machines was needed. Thus, access to credit or remittances and to electricity increases the probability of being involved in these activities. The requirements of trading being lower and access to market increases the probability of being involved. Provision of extension services, rural credit facilitation programmes, rural electrification, road and market structure development are instruments that are appropriate to support women farmers' involvement in off-farm activities.
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Master training in Agribusiness and Rural Development at the University of Zagreb
87-91Views:435The title of the proposed JEP project is: “Agribusiness Higher EducAtion Development” with the acronym AHEAD. This curriculum development project – in case of acceptance – will last for three years, from July 2005 and June 2008. The primary project site is the University of Zagreb, Croatia; the contractor and the co-ordinator institution is the University of Debrecen, Hungary. In the consortium, 3 further European universities (University of Hohenheim, Wageningen University and Scottish Agricultural College) will participate, from the Croatian side the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management and an additional 7 Croatian institutes will also be involved. The total number of members in the consortium is 13.
The main objective of the AHEAD project is to establish new BSc and MSc programmes in Croatia at two Faculties of the University of Zagreb. These are as follows: Agricultural and Rural Development, Food Safety and Quality Management and pilot MSc training in Agribusiness and Rural Development. These are preceded by faculty retraining programmes in food safety and quality management, as well as agribusiness and commerce within the framework of a MBA programme accredited by the International MBA Network. The professional content of the project is a modernised curriculum and training palette that would be available by the end of this project at the University of Zagreb, serving not only the higher education of the country, but the demand of the Croatian national economy as well, in line with the basic principles of the European Union. -
The effects of climate change on cereals yield of production and food security in Gambia
83-92Views:1416Increasingly, empirical evidences are substantiating the effects of climate change on agricultural production is a reality. In the early part of the 20th century many were skeptical about the so-called climate change that is due to global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) defines climate change as follows: “climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes in the mean or variability of its properties and that persists for extended periods, typically decades or longer” This study analyses the impact of climate change on cereals production (millet and maize) in the Gambia using a time series data for a period of 46 years (1960 – 2013) at an aggregate level to assess the relationship between climate (temperatures and rainfall,) and non-climate variables fertilizer, area planted respectively and yield. The specific objectives of the research are: (1) How climate change affects the expected cereals (Millet and Maize) output or yield in the Gambia. (2) How the level of output risk within cereals (Millet and Maize) farming is affected? In order to achieve these set objectives, the paper will adopt Just and Pope modified Ricardian production functions for climate change impact assessments (e.g., Chen et al. 2004), the paper will also control for the impacts of regular input factors in the production process. The study used a data set for the Gambia comprising variables relevant for cereals production and climate information from 1960 through 2013. There is strong evidence that climate will affects Maize and Millet; according to the analysis 77% and 44% of the variability in the yield of Maize and Millet respectively is explained by the climate and non-climate variables included in the model. Given the effects of climate variables on cereals production, and increasing climate change vulnerabilities on other food production section, the result of this paper will add voice to the growing call for policy makers to step up funding in research and development in climate change adaptation and mitigation.
JEL classification: Q54
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The efficiency of porkers production of intensively and extensively feeded
69-74Views:356The aim of this study is a comparative analysis of the costs of production of intensively and extensively fed porkers in view of the qualitative parameters of meat obtained after slaughter. The production experiment, which involved the parallel fattening of 3 groups of 30 porkers (fed intensively up to a weight of about 120 kg and extensively up to weights of about 100 kg and 120 kg), was carried out between 2011 and 2012 in a deliberately selected farm. The researchers assumed average prices of the means of production and prices of livestock pigs in individual meatiness classes noted in Poland in 2012. The fattening started when the animals weighed about 40 kg. The feeds used for extensive fattening contained less total protein, energy and basic exogenous amino acids, but more raw fibre. The analysis proved that the extensive production of porkers up to 100 kg in 2012 was not profitable. The most profitable production was the intensive production up to 120 kg (a profit of €0.100 per kg, whereas in the extensive feeding up to 120 kg the profit was €0.072 per kg. The porkers which were fed less intensively had a higher slaughter value, thinner fatback, higher dressing percentage and smaller content of fatback in the half-carcase, whereas their meat contained more water and less protein, fat and ash than the meat from the group of porkers fed with the mix richer in protein and energy.
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Sustainable initiatives in marginal rural areas of Serbia: A case study of Dimitrovgrad municipality
7-13Views:274his paper is based on a 2009 case study research on the role and impacts of rural initiatives in Dimitrovgrad, South-eastern Serbia region. This area is of interest, because of local efforts to conserve autochthonous livestock breeds,andtheworkofsmallholdersandindependent professionals involved farming and rural tourism activities. The research used participant visits to initiative places, drawing on farm visits, meetings with stakeholders and analysis of secondary information. The study highlights that local organizations are running without link to initiatives.Although, Serbia country has well structured rural developments programs, those still are harmonising.Thus, throughActor-Network approach is suggested which turn around a farm manager. This may represent to all stakeholders with initiatives (on-farm and non-farm). Besides, local food products issues from initiatives may reconnect providers and consumers, revaluing local food products. However, is necessary the institutional and organizational involvement to encourage the initiatives. Furthermore, to promote touristic places, by an integrated rural tourism approach it may involve all stakeholders to promote local products and issues from initiatives. Indirectly it may create local employs.
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FACTORS INFLUENCING FEMALE YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN AGRICULTURAL LIVELIHOOD GENERATING ACTIVITIES FOR SELF-CARE IN GWAGWALADA AREA COUNCIL, ABUJA, NIGERIA
Views:385This study examines female youth participation in agricultural livelihood generating activities for self-care in Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja. The objectives were to: examine the extent of female youth participation in agricultural livelihood generating activities and the income generated, determine the levels of female youth self-care responsibilities and perceived contribution of participation in agricultural livelihood activities on their wellbeing, determine factors influencing female youth participation in agricultural livelihood activities in the study area. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 133 female youths from 13 registered youth associations. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data while descriptive statistics and Logit regression model were used to analyze the data. The results showed that 30.1% of the respondents were engaged in crop production and generated an average income of ₦420,093.02 while only 3.0% were engaged in crop produce processing and generated ₦29,250.74. Also, almost half (47.4) of them spent money to take care of themselves of between 3-4 self-care responsibilities and about 41.5 spent an average of 130,078.95 on food per day. It also showed The logit regression results indicated that factors influencing female youth participation in agricultural livelihood generating activities include age, educational status, household size, income, occupation, and distance. While the study indicates that a significant portion of female youths is engaged in crop and poultry production, their overall participation in agricultural activities is limited. The study provides critical insights into the potential of agriculture as a viable solution to youth unemployment and is an instrument of female vulnerability reduction in Nigeria. The study recommends implementing policies to improve land access for female youths, including land reform initiatives that prioritize youth ownership and leasing options. Additionally, it suggests exploring strategies to reduce production costs through input subsidies, partnerships with agricultural suppliers, and community-based resource-sharing initiatives.
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Agri-environmental management and rural development: Hungary after EU accession
35-40Views:304In Hungary, similarly to developed countries, the share of agriculture in the GDP has declined. Even so, preparation of the sector’s long term strategy is crucial, as the role of agriculture exceeds the results represented in the GDP. Environmental and social functions of agriculture are revaluated in developed countries, and consumers at the end of the food chain actually govern the entire process. This is why information plays an increasingly important role, and gives signals (Verbeke, 2005) to the actors in the economy and society. This research area is diverse (including agricultural policy, environmental policy, rural development and sustainable development), and so I applied an interdisciplinary approach and conducted an integrated examination. The results show that in recent decades, the pressure of agriculture on the environment has been lower in Hungary than in the EU-15 and agri-environmental measures have taken hold in all types of land-use systems, even though they are more important in protected areas. Although this development provides a good basis for a long term strategy social capital has lost strength (Csath, 2002), so fostering the creation of internal and external rural networks – one instrument for this could be the Leader programme – is essential for sustainable rural development.
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Externality effects of honey production
63-67Views:590Bee-keeping and honey production has a long history in Hungary. Honey is an important and healthy food of people and it can be consumed without any human processing. The honey production has important role, too. Some researchers say that if honey bee will extinct the humanity in the world would also extinct. It is true since plant pollination by honey bees is very important. It is confirmed by researchers’ studies that plant pollination by honey bees has significant positive external impacts on potential yields in orchards. Although the contribution of honey production to the GDP in Hungary is only a few per cent, other benefits play more important role. One of them is the positive external effect – mentioned above – and the other is the contribution to the biodiversity of the nature. This paper focuses on secondary research methods, gathering and evaluating data regarding the positive external impacts of plant pollination by honey bees as well as finding possible solution for the problem that bee-keepers have a lot of costs in connection with carrying honey bees to orchards, while farmers “only” benefit from the positive externality of plant pollination of their fields. To evaluate its economic effects a numerical HEEM-model was developed and applied for the Hungarian situation.
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Proposals for low-carbon agriculture production strategies between 2020 and 2030 in Hungary
5-15Views:668When viewed from the perspective of climate policy, agriculture as a separate sector is one of the most difficult development areas to assess. One of the reasons for this is the problem of the localization of greenhouse gas emitters, caused by the fact that production takes place in small or dispersed production units. The special circumstance that unit production takes place in complex interactive systems (food, feed, energy sources, main products, by-products, etc.) is yet another special factor, which in addition makes it significantly more difficult to measure and identify the GHGs they emit than if they were a uniform production plant. Additionally, there are few sectors outside agriculture where decision-makers encounter such strong opposition and lobby interests when developing limiting regulations. This stems from the fact that following World War II, European decision-makers and the Common Agricultural Policy elevated agriculture to a prominent role whose importance was indisputable. As a result, both climate policy and other measures that would result in any reduction of the priority of the sector are very difficult to implement, since the players involved always reason that limitations would restrict their competiveness and the security of their production. In addition, the uncertain nature of regulatory elements also poses a grave problem. As an example, the name of the sector itself – the LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) sector – shows that the strategy for reducing the greenhouse gasses emitted by the whole sector would be significantly different if these units were treated separately (agricultural land use, forest, not-cultivated areas). Taking the above into account, the present study aims to identify development directions that in turn allow those low-carbon development directions to be pinpointed within animal husbandry and plant production that have the greatest feasibility and can contribute to decreasing the GHG environmental load exerted by agriculture.
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Decent Employment and Poverty Alleviation for Socio-Economic Development and Its Implications for the Well-Being of the Citizenry in South Africa
Views:504The need for governments and private employers to adequately provide decent work within the economy for all its inhabitants cannot be over-emphasized. This imperative is even more important since most obtainable work have been characterized by many detrimental dimensions which can be considered as constituting ‘indecent employment’. From the viewpoint of human development, the paper examines how ‘decent employment’ can serve as an antidote to poverty. Thus, decent employment can positively affect both material and non-material social development which include health, education, social security, food security and overall well-being.. The present paper is borne out of the desire to empower the average South African citizen in specifically attaining an improved socio-economic living standard. This paper employs a qualitative, thematic analysis of selected reported cases of perceived ‘indecent’ or non-meaningful employment from both informal and formal sectors’ Additionally, this paper highlights instances in which employees have experienced challenges in getting ‘dignified’ or decent employments as a result of casualization, outsourcing, short-term contracts, and temporary employments. This interpretive, qualitative approach was adopted to put forward a somewhat empirical evidence of the potential beneficial effect of decent employment on human and socio-economic development. The main contribution of this paper is that it foregrounds the need for decent employment of the workforce in addressing the three-pronged societal challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty. The paper posits that decent employment significantly contributes to national socio-economic development and poverty alleviation or eradication.
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Diversification strategies and their impact on farm performance
57-61Views:373The objective of this study is to identify factors determining the economic performance of agricultural holdings in Italy, with specific attention to the impact of the adoption of on-farm diversification strategies, namely income diversification and product differentiation. The adoption of these kinds of strategies has been increasingly recognised as a viable business option in agriculture as they allow better allocation of farm resources and an increase in the quota of value added retained on farms and therefore not passed on to other agents operating at the end of the food supply chain. By using a panel of professional Italian farms over the time period of 2003-2009, we estimate random effect, ordinary least square and quantile regression models to estimate the impact of income diversification and product differentiation strategies on the levels of farm income per unit of labour income. Our findings show that scale economies are important positive determinants of farm economic performance. On the contrary, when the family play an important role in the farm business, economic performance is worse. Finally, we do not find evidence of a statistically significant impact of the adoption of income diversification and product differentiation strategies. This latter result may be interpreted as a signal that farms use these strategies as risk management tools rather than as income increasing ones.
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Resource use efficiency among rice farmers around fragile ecosystems: evidence from Kilombero Wetland, Tanzania
77-88Views:464Farmers have been encroaching fragile wetlands as a strategy to increase their rice production thus threatening wetlands’ existence and capacity to other critical ecosystem services. This calls for efficient production to strike the balance between food rice production and wetlands’ sustainable existence. The current study sought to provide assess rice farmers’ technical efficiency of resource use by detecting the determinants of rice yield and further identify the determinants of technical efficiency of the resources used by rice farmers in Kilombero wetland. A cross-sectional survey of 145 randomly sampled farmers aided in achieving the study objective. A stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model was used to analyze data. The mean technical efficiency among farmers was at 60.54% level. The positive determinants of rice yield were land and fertilizers while labor influenced it negatively. Age, education, farming experience, group membership, and credit access reduced inefficiency while the distance to the extension agent and off-farm income increased farmers’ inefficiency. The study concludes that there is a possibility of expanding rice production without threatening the wetland’s existence. It recommends that government and other stakeholders to ensure that rice farmers are up-to-date with optimal use of fertilizers in rice production since it will assist in improving rice yield while the rate of expansion of rice lands in the wetlands will lower. Policy implementers ought to establish initiatives that inspire rice farmers to capitalize on farmer groups and join education programs to take full advantage of their potential efficiency and might participate in community development activities.
JEL code: Q15
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The role of chamber system in development of agricommerce in Serbia
79-82Views:315This research is carried out in order to be determined the role of Chamber system in development of agricommerce along with successful preparation of Serbia for EU accession. On February 28, 1857 Prince Aleksandar Karaðorðeviæ signed the Decree, called THE CONSTITUTION OF THE TRADE. By this Decree, the first BusinessAssociation in Serbia was constituted. Under the Law on retail stores passed in June 1910, the first chambers were established. Those were the following:
• The Chamber of TRADE
• The Chamber of CRAFTS
• The Chamber of INDUSTRY
• The Chamber ofWORKERSToday, in conditions of economic and social reforms and transfer toward market oriented economy, chambers in Serbia chose to reconsider their role, by using experiences of chambers in countries with developed market economy.The chamber strives to be organized as independent, business oriented and expert association of economic operators. The structure of economy, from the aspect of important economic indicators (total revenue, profit), shows dominant share of manufacturing andagro-industry, trade, financial and other services sectors, transport, telecommunication, and construction industries. By generating over 30% of GDP and employment, Belgrade plays vital role in the economy of the whole Serbia. That is an advantage, but also the responsibility to constantly stimulate faster development and higher living standards by inciting the positive changes in economic and overall environment.
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Vertical price transmission analysis: the case of milk in the Slovak dairy sector
89-96Views:426Testing for nature price transmission and calculating elasticities of price transmission are important areas of research for providing insights into market efficiency issues. Symmetric or asymmetric price transmission has been the subject of considerable attention in agricultural economics. The concept of the price transmission is an important area of the research particularly in relation to the assessment of impact on the welfare of the vertical entities. The main goal of the paper is an analysis of the price transmission and its exploitation in case of price elasticity estimation in dairy sector. Work investigates vertical price transmission of milk in the Slovak agri-food chain. The research is based on Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) of the selected commodities at producer, processor and consumer level and the estimation of the parameters specified in the model. Moreover the paper determines the coefficient of elasticity of price transmission (EPT).
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