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A disaggregated analysis of monetary policy effects on the agricultural sector in Nigeria
47-58Views:416This study provides a disaggregated analysis of the effects of monetary policy shocks on the agricultural sector in Nigeria from 1981Q1 to 2016Q4. The study utilized the generalized impulse responses and the normalized generalized forecast error variance decompositions from an underlying VAR model, which are order-invariant. The four monetary policy variables used in the study are interbank call rate, monetary policy rate, broad money supply and exchange rate; while the four agricultural sub-sectors investigated are crop production, forestry, fishing and livestock. The study also controlled for the general price level and other economic activities in the overall economy. The findings indicate that the aggregate agricultural sector and its various sub-sectors consistently responded negatively to unanticipated monetary tightening in most of the forecast horizon; while the immediate impact of monetary policy shocks is transmitted to the agricultural sector through the interest rate and money demand (credit) channels. The findings further indicate that apart from these two channels, the roles of monetary policy rate and exchange rate are non-negligible in the long-run. The role of money supply channel in spreading monetary policy shocks to the agricultural sector remained muted all through. The study concludes that the monetary authority should evolve interest rate, credit, and exchange rate policies that will promote the development of the agricultural sector in Nigeria.
JEL CODES: E52; N50; C22; N57
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Adjustment of poland’s agriculture and food sector to challenges of agricultural policy of the European Union
39-44Views:168Paper is aimed in assessment of first period of Poland’s membership in EU and covering agriculture and rural areas with the support under the Common Agricultural Policy in the context of future challenges faced by the agricultural policy.Analysis shows that accession to EU became a strong impulse for growth of the Polish food economy, however the main challenge for the Common Agricultural Policy in future, from Poland’s perspective, will be strengthening the multifunctional agriculture, i.e. territorial cohesion and positive effects of agricultural activity on natural environment.
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Making agricultural support objective-oriented: a linear programming approach for Ukraine
79-83Views:114The overall aim of the paper is to analyse the distribution of state agricultural support in Ukraine with the purpose of drawing up proposals on how to make it more objective-oriented. The investigation is based on the results of a case study conducted in Zdolbuniv district3, in the Rivne region of Ukraine, where interviews with local agricultural experts were held. The research is founded on the Linear Programming (LP) methodological approach, which is applied to calculate an objective-oriented agricultural budget allocation. This approach also integrates judgements from district agricultural experts. The outcomes show that agricultural support should have been redistributed in a slightly different way from the district perspective. However, the calculated changes in most cases match with the overall development directions in the Ukrainian agricultural support policy. Furthermore, the developed model has proved to be a useful and, at the same time, quite simple tool in application support, and one which could have been used by the agricultural decision-makers in the process of the distribution of agricultural support.
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Agrarian budget as an instrument of agrarian development policy of Serbia
Views:146Purpose of the research is to emphasize the role of agrarian budget in development of Serbian agrarian economy and to examine the problem of agricultural and rural development financingsupport.Furthermore, in this research initial reforms of economic measures have been analyzed concerning Serbian agrarian policy. The goal of this paper is to provide an insight into the role of agricultural budget in agrarian policy of Serbia.The first part of the study gives an overview of macroeconomic situation in Serbia and impact of the financial crisis on Serbia’s economy. Second part includes analysis of the topic item, i.e. agrarian budget role in Serbian agrarian sector. It includes review of relevant literature and researches already conducted on legislation and practice of Serbian agrarian policy as well as examination of statistical data regarding present agrarian budget for 2009.The research focuses at the Serbian agrarian budget for 2009 and agrarian policy of the present Serbian government administration.
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Comparison study of the agricultural subsidy policy applied by Ecuador and Hungary in the last 10 years
Views:181Agricultural subsidies have long been a consistent concern of government policies; they influence the use of resources for pursuing different goals in this sector. In this research, we are making a comparison study of the agricultural subsidy policies of Ecuador and Hungary in the last ten years by a comparative analysis applied for empirical generalization to explain and get a better understanding of the subsidies used in the two countries. The results show an enormous advantage for Hungary compared to Ecuador regarding the agricultural subsidies. Since they are part of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, Hungary's subsidies are institutionalized and planned in the long term within a series of programs financed by the EU and national funds. While in Ecuador, agricultural policies exist as a general framework, and the governing body manages the subsidies through programs and projects that do not remain over time and depend on the current political situation in the country. In the same way, the data collected reflects that although the share of the agricultural sector in Ecuador's GDP is higher than in Hungary, the subsidy amounts for this sector are 36% lower than in Hungary.JEL CODE: Q13 -
Agricultural policy and rural development
105-112Views:144The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a cornerstone of EU policy relating to rural areas. Initially, it aimed to provide a harmonised framework for maintaining adequate supplies, increasing productivity and ensuring that both consumers and producers received a fair deal in the market. These priorities have shifted to environmental and animal welfare concerns, as well as food safety and security aspects. As a consequence, the CAP has gradually moved from a production-based structure of subsidies to a market-oriented system, integrating standards for food, environment and biodiversity, as well as animal welfare. In 2010, the EU launched an extensive debate on the future of the CAP, as the European Union needs a better tailored, reformed Common Agricultural Policy to answer the challenges of food, growth and jobs in rural areas. The European agriculture must address the expectations of rural society and demands of the market concerning public goods, the environment and climate change. This raises questions of whether the CAP payments in the past have been effective in achieving their objectives and whether direct payments should be continued for supporting agricultural environmental issues.
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Disentangling the complexity of India ’s agricultural sector
35-42Views:151Agricultural policies in India directly impact the livelihoods of close to two thirds of India’s population. Through policies, the government manages food security, urban and rural poverty, energy, and infrastructure, among others. Given the current state of India’s governance, the connection between policy making and its results in society becomes a key issue for research. This paper presents a game for use as a research instrument. The game can facilitate research into the policy making process at various levels of the government in India. The design is intended to understand the complexity of the institutional arrangement that defines and implements agricultural policies. The game integrates with other games that simulate other aspects of the agricultural system in India. The paper presents the verification and validation cycles followed, and identifies further steps for field validation.
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HOUSEHOLDS’ FOOD CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOUR DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: EVIDENCE FROM RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Views:130The food consumption behaviour of households has been affected by the lockdown restrictions that were implemented to reduce the COVID-19 infection rate. This study was aimed at analysing the food consumption behaviour of rural households during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. To achieve this, a simple random technique was used to collect data from 120 in Merry Pebble (MP) Stream Village. Thereafter, an Ordered Probit Model was used to examine the extent to which households have increased, decreased or maintained the same quantity of food consumed during COVID-19. The results indicated that 46.7% of the rural households had consumed less food during COVID-19 pandemic, 32.5% consumed about the same amount of food, and 20.8% consumed more food. The variables that contributed towards a decrease in food consumption are employment status, household size, loss of income, and social relief grants. On the contrary, bulk buying and food parcels had stabilised food consumption, while the number of employed people in a household and food bought from restaurants contributed towards an increase in food consumption during COVID-19 pandemic. With regard to consumption behaviour per food item, fresh produce, meat, snacks and fast food were consumed less during COVID-19, while there was a constant consumption in dairy products, and an increase in consumption of canned food, frozen food, prepared food, grains and water. The study recommends that the government should continue with the economic and social relief programmes that were created during COVID-19, as they play an important role in increasing and stabilising food consumption by rural households.
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The influence of direct support under common agricultural policy on farm incomes in Poland
33-37Views:160The main objective of the paper is the analysis of changes on the level of income of agricultural producers, which took place in Poland in the early years of the accession to the EU, as well as a determination of the scale of the impact of financial support under the Common Agricultural Policy on the farm income situation. Poland’s membership in the EU gives rural farms opportunities to improve their economic situation. Financial aid, mainly in the form of a direct payment, has been the main factor determining the economical status of rural farms, whilst the other income making factors, such as improved productivity and increased agricultural production have played a much smaller role. The increase in revenue has enabled farmers not only to increase current expenditures, but also to carry out modernization efforts, which will determine the future economic and structural situation of the Polish agricultural sector and its competitiveness. However, a strong differentiation in terms of the economic situation of rural farms according to their size and specialization in production was also noticed. As a result, there is a still large number of farms in which the revenues received by farmers are insufficient to assure them adequate life standard. Therefore such farms are not able to both develop and invest. Only economically strong rural farms with high production potential have such opportunities, meaning that EU support will never be able to fully minimize the effects of small-scale production or to offset the insufficient efficiency and productivity of production factors.
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Off-farm participation and technical efficiency among smallholder farmers in the Northern Region, Ghana
35-43Views:238The study aimed at investigating the effects of off-farm participation on technical efficiency of maize production in the Tolon district of the Northern Region, Ghana. The Logit regression model was used to analyze the determinants of off-farm participation while the stochastic frontier production function was used to model the determinants of maize output and technical efficiency. The empirical results from the logistic regression model indicate that age of farmer, educational attainment, farming experience, farm size, and previous farm income are significant drivers of farmers’ participation in off-farm activities. Farmers’ average technical efficiency level was 90.7% suggesting a 9.3% potential loss to inefficiency. Moreover, participation in off-farm activities had a negative influence on farmers’ technical efficiency level. The study, therefore, recommends that farm-level policy should be directed towards making the agricultural sector attractive by promoting investment and agricultural employment opportunities in the rural areas so as to ensure full commitment to farming activities.
JEL code: Q22
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Proposals for low-carbon agriculture production strategies between 2020 and 2030 in Hungary
5-15Views:309When 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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Farm-retail price transmission in Malaysian pork sector
87-92Views:175This study intends to determine the farm-retail price transmission behaviors of pork in Malaysia to serve as a good implication for pork pricing system in Malaysia. Using monthly data from January 1997 to December 2008, markup pricing model, Houck, and ECM approaches were estimated. While many previous studies found that farm-retail price transmission is asymmetric, this study encountered different result where the findings in both the Houck and ECM approaches suggested that the Malaysian pork farm-retail price transmission is symmetric. A change in farm price of pork is likely to have similar direction in change of retail price of pork in Malaysia. The pricing system of pork can therefore be further described by the estimated price transmission elasticities (that derived from the symmetric mark-up pricing model) where retail price is very sensitive to the changes in farm price. A change in farm price is expected to result in a bigger change in retail price of pork while other things remain unchanged.
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Effect of uncertainty on farmers decision making: Case of animal manure use
7-13Views:161Due to the high levels of manure application and the poor use efficiency of manure, the European agriculture is held responsible for a considerable negative impact on surface water quality (Langeveld et al., 2007). This problem has emerged particularly in Western-European countries such as the UK, Belgium, The Netherlands and Denmark, facing a large expansion and intensification process in the livestock production since the 1960s (Van der Straeten et al., 2008). Policy measures related to the application of manure on the land encompass two major measures: emission rights, understood as the amount of nutrients which can be applied on the land, differentiated by crop and the N spreading calendars, whereby the manure can only be applied when the crop needs nutrients. The fundamental aim of this pillar is to maximising application rate while avoiding overfertilisation. Maximizing the application rate is related to the economic sustainability of the agricultural sector, by altering the manure surplus, while avoiding overfertilisation is imperative in enhancing ecological sustainability, by preventing nitrate leaching to surface and soil waters. For nitrate policy to meet its target, the farmers should not exceed their emission rights, however make optimal use of their emission right for manure. Consequently, the successful implementation of sink-related measures will strongly depend of the absorptive capacity of farmers towards new ways of nutrient management in general and of animal manures in particular.
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The impact of the “greening” of the common agricultural policy on the financial situation of Polish farms
49-55Views:340This paper presents an assessment of the impacts of introducing the greening scenario of the CAP, proposed by the European Commission as an alternative for the reformed CAP after 2013. In the past, the CAP has undergone numerous transformations in response to the changing macroeconomic environment and in reaction to developments in the farming sectors in EU countries. On the 12th of October 2011, the Commission presented a set of legal proposals designed to make the CAP a more effective policy to encourage more competitive and sustainable agriculture and vibrant rural areas. The proposal brings various new elements under consideration, some of them raising strong controversies such as introducing “greening” as a component of direct payments. Changes in the direct payments scheme in line with the EC proposition include forcing adjustments in the cropping pattern and creating ecological focus areas (EFA) on 7% of the farm land ; the consequences of such a proposal on the size and structure of agricultural production, and thus on the economic performance of farms and the whole agricultural sector are uncertain. The authors analyse historical changes to the CAP with a focus on a growing importance of the environmental component of the CAP, discuss different scenarios of shaping the direct payments system and present the results of modelling the impacts of greening the CAP on the Polish farming sector with the use of the LP optimisation model. The study was based on Polish FADN data. Results show that the majority of farmers in Poland comply with the crop diversification constraint of greening. However, establishing the required EFAs and necessary diversification on farms with simplified cropping structures will have a negative impact on the volume of agricultural production as well as on farm incomes.
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CAP 2013 reform: consistency between agricultural challenges and measures
47-55Views:181The latest reform of the Common Agricultural Policy has just been accepted, identifying important challenges for EU agriculture but proposing only limited changes to the previous CAP. Now it is time for the implementation of the new measures. However, from a theoretical point of view, it seems that the CAP can hardly meet the challenges it faces due to the inconsistencies between the predefined challenges and the measures proposed to meet them. The aim of the paper is to analyse the consistency between the challenges of European agriculture and the policy measures aimed at meeting them. It seems that not all measures are consistent with the challenges.
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Liquid bio-fuels in Hungary: effects and contradictions
89-94Views:143The increase of living standard requires ever more energy, despite energy saving measures. Domestic growth was 100 PJ between 2000 and 2006, and 77% of the total utilization was importe (Hungarian Central Statistical Office, 2008).Sustainability was endangered not only in our energy and commerce policy. Our domestic natural conditions are suitable for plant production; however, the stagnation of the domestic population and decreasing livestock numbers restrict in land marketing. Therefore, significant surpluses from year to year had to be stored and sold abroad, and the fact that the interventional purchase of corn and the expected stringent new EU regulation of the sugar beet sector, make the strategic significance of these branches uncertain. The difficult marketing opportunities make the better utilization of our opportunities in producing liquid bio-fuels possible from marketing aspects, while environmental issues and realizing the EU directions enforce to do so in a longer term. Over the short term, agricultural and competitive aspects will determine its spread, which cause different effects in Europe in comparison with the developing countries. According to Nábrádi-Ficzeréné Nagymihály, 2008, one of the breaking points of Hungarian agriculture lies in the utilization of alternative energy sources. During the past period, many contradictory opinions came forward relating to economies, agricultural effects, food risks as well as the energetic and environmental efficiency of bio-fuels. One thing is certain: these fuels are already used today and their significance has been increasing. Although due to technological development, spread of new products and processes (cellulose-based bioethanol, bioethanol, biogas, hydrogen, biomethane) will obviously have to be expected in the future, at present biodiesel and bioethanol are determent among bio-fuels, thus I deal with these as well as their energetic and agricultural effects in my study.
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The Investigation of Factors Influencing the Market Prices of Agricultural Land in Hungary
5-10Views:142The role of land (as the basis and the resource of agricultural production) is the most significant among the resources of production. The ownership of land, its use, the issue of its price and value, they have been key problems of political, social, legal and economic decisions. There were theoretical and practical experts throughout the world, and we intensively have to deal with the issue of land evaluation. In our research using empirical data collection and statistical methods, we examined not only the factors have influenced on land prices, but its effect as well.
We have proven that the „golden crown”-based land evaluation system (golden crown is a measurement unit of the quality of agricultural land in Hungary) can show the land quality differences even today, but in spite of this, the results of calculations (and also the practice) increasingly justify and urge the necessity of the introduction of a modern land evaluation system.
namese professionals graduated in Hungary, the reputation and popularity of Hungarian agricultural products and technologies, the achievements of R&D in the field of agriculture – could not be utilized from Hungarian side. Vietnam, however still preserved its socialist political establishment,but in terms of its economic development strategy and economic policy has gradually been standing on the basis of market orientation. Vietnam, with its population of ninety million shows a rapid and successful development and it means good opportunities even for Hungarian entrepreneurs.
It would be a mistake to leave these potentials unused.
JEL Classification: Q10, Q24, Q30
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Determinants of credit access of cocoa farmers
73-78Views:323Access to credit is one of the critical areas that are of prime interest to development practitioners, agribusiness entrepreneurs and agricultural economists, mainly access to credit by farmers in order to increase their production and also reduce poverty. This study sought to analyze the determinants of credit access among cocoa farmers in the Asunafo North of the Ahafo Region of Ghana. The multistage sampling procedure was used to collect data from 100 cocoa farmers with the aid of a questionnaire. Sources of credit, factors influencing access to credit, and constraints to credit were analyzed with the aid of descriptive statistics, multiple linear regression, and Kendall’s coefficient of concordance respectively. The results of multiple linear regression revealed that, age, marital status, education, experience, and family size were significant factors that influenced access to credit. The constraints analysis with the aid of Kendall’s coefficient of concordance showed that, high interest rate was highly ranked with a mean score of 1.93 whilst the need for a guarantor was least ranked with a mean score of 7.40. Based on the results, the study recommended that a policy aimed at expanding formal and semi-formal financial institutions credit portfolio to embrace cocoa farmers by finding alternative to collaterals and also reducing the interest rate will improve credit access with a positive externality effect of poverty reduction among cocoa farmers in the study area.
JEL Classification: Q14
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The new strategic directions of rural development in Hungary
143-150Views:115The 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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Composite indicators and sustainable development of regional agriculture applied to the Stavropol Territory in Russia
81-88Views:238The aim of this paper is to understand and evaluate agricultural sustainability in the Stavropol Territory by means of a composite indicator. In particular, the paper applies principal component analyses to calculate a composite sustainability index by integration of selected economic, social and environmental indicators. The results demonstrate the utility of analyzing several indicators in conjunction. The results also may indicate which variables influence development of regional agriculture. This information is important in order to design agricultural support policy and to implement an increase the sustainability of the agriculture sector.
JEL Code: O13, Q11
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Hungarian endeavours for the enhancement of economic relations in Southeast Asia focusing on a new partnership with Vietnam
5-12Views:249Beyond a brief review of the economic integration process among the states of the ASEAN region, the authors of the present study aimed to examine and analyze the main economic, social and political characteristics of the Hungaro-ASEAN relations. The importance of the topic of this research is underlined by the fact that the Hungarian government considers big importance to the improvement of the foreign economic relations with Asian economies. This intention was expressed by a new foreign economic strategy „Eastern opening” announced by the government in 2012, even though the foreign trade statistical figures did not justify its success by now.The authors believe that increasing opening towards Asia serves Hungarian economic interests. Therefore, it is a right and desirable direction to proceed, they consider that in the background of the modest results there might be the insufficient knowledge of the market mechanisms, the actors of the local supply chains and the potential partners. They believe that in order to make the Hungarian foreign economic endeavours in this direction more successful a more thorough examination of the local characteristics – including the actual demand arising at the targeted markets - is necessary. This opinion is prevalent to not only the Asian „Giants”, like China, India and Japan, but also to smaller states, like the ASEAN members, which – together - in terms of population and economic performance – reach the dimensions of an economic great power as well.
Furthermore, the integration of the ten Southeast Asian countries develops rapidly, which is coupled by their increasing weight in the world trade. The dynamic economic and social development in the ASEAN region – and in parallel with this the growing demands and purchasing power - may encourage the Hungarian ventures in theory. However, there are still very few Hungarian entrepreneurs, who are ready to enter the market in the region and able in long run to operate there successfully. It is a well-known fact that the since the regime has changed in Hungary, foreign trade became strongly concentrated towards the EU members.
The ASEAN countries – because of the geographic distance and by other reasons - definitely cannot mean an alternative of the EU market, however in a certain extent they can relieve this one-sided concentration and may provide additional opportunities for the Hungarian export of goods, and rather to the export of Hungarian services and know-how. The ratio of the ASEAN region within the entire Hungarian foreign trade turnover is small nowadays, furthermore – according to the statistical figures – this region is rather an import resource for Hungary than being an export market. This fact – just itself – is should not be considered as problem. When the amount of the import exceeds the amount of exports, that means that it is more worthwhile to do business with suppliers from there countries than with others. By and large all this is prevalent to the field of the agricultural trade as well: Hungary imports a range of commodities which cannot be produced by domestic farmers or in Europe (spices, tropical fruits, etc.). It is obvious that the ASEAN region cannot be the major market for the Hungarian agricultural export, not even in long run. However, there are still a lot of opportunities to enlarge the turnover of goods and services and enhance the co-operation in this geographic region. In the last chapter, the authors outlined an example in case of Vietnam – co-operation of joint public warehousing of agricultural commodities – which may be a good example for the promising potential opportunities. In contrast with the majority of the ASEAN countries, the Hungaro-Vietnamese political and economic relations had started much earlier than the regime was changed in Hungary. However, the potential advantages arose from this fact – the network of connections and the sympathy of Vietnamese professionals graduated in Hungary, the reputation and popularity of Hungarian agricultural products and technologies, the achievements of R&D in the field of agriculture – could not be utilized from Hungarian side. Vietnam, however still preserved its socialist political establishment, but in terms of its economic development strategy and economic policy has gradually been standing on the basis of market orientation. Vietnam, with its population of ninety million shows a rapid and successful development and it means good opportunities even for Hungarian entrepreneurs. It would be a mistake to leave these potentials unused.JEL Classification: F14, Q17, R11, N75
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Human resource aspect of agricultural economy – challenges of demographic change
163-167Views:184Over the past decades, the agrarian policy has tried to contribute to the catching-up of the rural areas with varying dynamism and aid scheme. However, its result is significantly below expectations. Nowadays, the age composition of the population living in rural areas reveals an unfavourable picture; the rate of the elderly, deprived persons and people being inactive from the aspect of employment is high and it is also combined with the low educational levels. The young generations and intellectuals leave the rural areas and, consequently, the rate of the active population continues to grow narrow as well as the proportion of young and skilled employees decreases. As a consequence of changes in the past decades, the rate of agricultural employment has not led to an intensive change but a failing change in extensive direction which lays off jobs. Nowadays, this process also determines the Hungarian rural society. In the sector, the need for employment diminishes as a result of the development in technology and due to the expansion of services sector. The purpose of our study is to present and analyse the human resources of our country’s agriculture by skill level and age group and compare it with the needs of companies, by doing this we try to compare supply and demand. In details, based on secondary data source, we investigate the agricultural labour force and try to confront it with the advertisements of job search portals (three of our job search portals based on our predefined criteria), by which we achieve a current picture of the agricultural human resource circumstances.
JEL Code: J43
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Renewable energy resources in Hungary – solid biomass utilization in terms of necessity and opportunity
75-78Views:155In the 21st century a country’s success significantly depends on how it can solve the problems (supply safety, growing prices, climate change, etc.) induced by the application structure of the fossil energy sources with the means of energy saving, energy efficiency and the utilization of renewable energy resources. The utilization of renewable energy sources has positive effects on five key areas: environment protection, energy policies, fulfilment of EU expectations, agriculture and rural development and on the whole of the national economy. The bioenergy – beside fulfilling the national economic aims – it is putting up the value of the role of agriculture and rural development. The role of agriculture is multi-functional in the process. The agricultural sector has an important task in the area of bioenergy to ensure the proper quality and quantity of raw materials for the increase of bioenergy utilization. This also means new sales perspectives and opportunities for the producers. Above all this, the agricultural policy aims for the agriculture and the rural development segment to be the unambiguous winner of the new bioenergy sector and for most of the available profit to stay with the agricultural sector, with the rural players. For this reason encouraging the raw material production it wishes to encourage the producer their primary process and their local utilization. One of the fundamental objectives of the measures is that agriculture should go beyond the raw material production and take steps towards processing and utilization. The multifunctional role in the product chain might mean extra income and more added value for the producers and the active players in the process. The other objective is to promote the local utilization, the scatter of the environmentally friendly energy sources in rural areas, to change the energy is “lying on the ground unutilized” principle while local processing and promoting the utilization, to achieve a lower energy dependency and to optimize and disseminate cost efficient solutions. To realize all this means a great task and a huge challenge for the agricultural government as well as the rural societies and micro regions but might lead to a successful rural development. The range of the tools and measures to fulfil the aims might be very broad, from the regulating instruments to the various subsidies, coordination and dissemination tools. Part of the subsidy schemes are direct production-type of subsidies (the so called direct payments, for example the area based subsidies) and the other main forms are the investment-type subsidies which are for technology development, promotion of competitive production and local processing and for establishing a green energy industry. In the period of 2007-2013 the key elements of the development schemes were drafted in the frame of the New Hungary Rural Development Programme (ÚMVP) and the Environmental Energy Operational Program (KEOP). The available raw materials and the conditions are taken into consideration while designing the development schemes because a successful realization of a product chain means the assurance of the inputs and outputs. The starting point of determining the development direction is the principle of an operation which is sustainable and economical on the long run. In addition such developments are considered reasonable which are viable on medium and long term and bring numerous rural development, environmental and societal returns.
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Less favoured area measure in the Netherlands: a welcome or negligible addition?
23-28Views:184The Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) Directive (75/268) which was introduced in 1975, was the first common European instrument of regional agricultural structural policy. LFAs are areas where agriculture is hampered by permanent natural handicaps. The major objectives were to ensure the continuation of farming, thereby maintaining a minimum population level and preserving scenic landscapes and environmentally valuable habitats. In the Netherlands, the LFA measure is used as an additional payment, to compensate farmers for negative economic effects due to the conservation of these natural handicaps. It was not implemented as a stand alone policy, but is linked to measures aiming at active nature and landscape conservation management. In this paper, the effects will be examined of the regulations aiming at the conservation of natural handicaps on farm businesses within LFAs, when comparing them to farm businesses outside LFAs, where these regulations and handicaps do not exist. The main data source that was used is the Farm Accountancy Data Network. Reference groups of farms were compiled with the use of the simple and multiple imputation approach in Stars (Statistics for Regional Studies). Both analyses were tested with the use of a parametric and a nonparametric test. When comparing the results of both analyses, it can be concluded that there is no evidence that there is a statistical difference in family farm income corrected for and not corrected for LFA payment between the LFA farm businesses and the reference groups. Based on these findings it can be concluded that the size of the compensatory allowances is small and there is no evidence that it has a significant effect on the family farm income of LFA farm businesses. The main purpose of the Dutch LFA policy is to compensate farm businesses for negative economic effects due to the conservation of natural handicaps. Although this may be true for some individual farms, based on the methods used in this paper, it appears not to be the case for the collectivity of LFA premium beneficiaries as a whole.
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Cross-sector analysis of the Hungarian sectors covered by the Effort Sharing Decision – Climate policy perspectives for the Hungarian agriculture within the 2021-2030 EU programming period
17-24Views:185Ever since 2012, the EU ETS (European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme), which is the EU’s climate policy was extended to include the ESD (Effort Sharing Decision) sectors’ (agriculture, transport, building) regulations. As its name implies, this mechanism is based off of shared interests and efforts, all in order to reach the climate goals. Therefore, analysing the agriculture sector from an environmental viewpoint requires the analysis of related sectors as well, since their performances will have an impact on determining the requirements to be met by the agriculture. Seeing that those primarily present in said sectors are not various firms, but people and public utility management institutions instead, the level of regulations draws from the economic state of the various countries in question (GDP per capita). Therefore, member states like ours did not receive difficult goals until 2020, due to our performance being lower than the average of the EU. However, during the program phase between 2021 and 2030, all nations are to lower their GHG (greenhouse gases) emission, and have to make developments to restrict GHG emission level growth within the ESD, which means we already have to estimate our future possibilities. During the analyses, we will see that analysing agriculture from an environmental viewpoint, without doing the same to their related sectors and their various related influences is impossible. The GHG emission goals determined by the EU have to be cleared by the agriculture sector, but the inputs from transport, waste management and building are required nonetheless.
JEL classification: Q58
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