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Impacts of the global financial and economic crisis on the agro-food industry and rural livelihoods in Serbia
113-118Views:294Sixty-five per cent of the Serbian land area is agricultural and 55% of the population is rural.Agriculture share of GDP is more than 10% and about 47% of the rural labour force deals with agriculture. The aim of this work is to analyse the impacts of the global financial and economic crisis on the Serbian agro-food sector and rural communities. Measures introduced, mainly by public institutions, for relieving the consequences of the crisis are presented and discussed. Easily accessible yet high quality data from the central Office of Statistics in Serbia and specialized literature have been used. Impacts have been assessed by analyzing and discussing the trends of many socio-economic indicators. The crisis has had general impacts on the Serbian economy (low GDP growth, unemployment increase, price volatility, purchasing power decrease, etc.). Due to the crisis growth in agricultural production has been very low (0.1% in 2009). Agro-food exports decreased dramatically in 2008. About 9000 agricultural jobs were lost in 2008 and 2009. Reduced exports and lower domestic demand impacted negatively on agricultural commodity prices and agricultural household incomes.Access to credit became more difficult especially for small producers. However, agriculture is still a very important safety net. Agricultural employment share has increased both for men and women. The importance of agriculture is even higher if we consider the “grey agricultural economy”. To mitigate the crisis effects, the Government provided subsidies to rural people and will adopt the National Strategic Plan and Programme for Rural Development. Nevertheless, public institutions - in partnership with private, civil society and international organisations - should improve rural producers’ access to market information and credits and foster investments in rural areas including non-agricultural ones and those aiming at improving physical capital.
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HEDONIC PRICE OF FREE-RANGE EGGS IN COSTA RICA
Views:339Eggs are a highly consumed animal product in Costa Rica. It is grown in different production systems and differentiation attributes, although there is little information about consumption and consumer preferences for grazing production. This study aimed to determine the effect of free-grazing on the price per kilogram of eggs paid by the consumer in Costa Rica. The results show a positive effect of 19.77% on price of eggs produced in free-grazing systems, but preference for other attributes such as nutritional fortification, egg size and brand names were also determined. Incorporating free-range technologies to replace caged poultry production can contribute to animal welfare and balance with nature, and producers can opt for differentiated prices in local markets.
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Extent and characteristic of diversification among Hungarian agricultural holdings
37-44Views:251Through the connection to rural resources agriculture has an impact on the three functions of countryside: ecology, society and economy. Resources of economy and production environment are continuously changing thus farmers have to adapt to these changing circumstances. One of the adaptation methods is the diversification of activities to promote effective capacity utilization and additional profit. However there is no standard definition of diversification from the point of agricultural economics aspect both traditional approaches and the influence of European Union should also be considered to define it. Diversification and alternative income opportunities could be subsistence possibilities for several farmers. This could be defined not only at private holdings’ but at enterprises’ level. According to a traditional approach Hungarian statistical databases collect on-farm and off-farm agricultural activities depending on the connection to resources of a farm business. Analysing this database an overall picture could be defined considering the position and characteristic of diversified farmers and the popularity of each activity among agricultural producers. Based on a study, published in 2011 (Hamza, 2011) this paper also involves the latest statistical data (2010, 2013). Analysing dataset of period 2000-2013 this paper gives an overall overview about national and regional position and characteristics of diversified holdings and activities.
JEL code: Q19
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Agricultural policy and rural development
105-112Views:303The 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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The influence of direct support under common agricultural policy on farm incomes in Poland
33-37Views:310The 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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Marketing opportunities of local products in the catchment area of Csíkszereda town
38-44Views:436Agriculture plays an outstanding role in Romania, since there are nearly three and a half million small farms operating in the country, accounting for almost 90% of the total number of farms, and scarcely more than 32% of the available farm land is cultivated by 35% of the population. In the settlements found in the catchment area of Csíkszereda, the majority of farms consist of family farms smaller than 5 hectares. The marketing of good quality products made from local raw material by traditional methods contributes to the sustenance of the family farms. Researches show that as a result of the education of the farmers on a local level more and more processed products appear in the markets of Csíkszereda town. Farmers involved in the local market intend to expand their farms on the long run. The respondents consider that “a piece of land can be sold only once”, that is why the sustenance of the farm became the main goal of multi-generational effort. Younger farmers are usually more educated and more open to innovation. The vast majority of farmers under 45 find it important to market their products through rural tourism and they are also more eager to join producer groups. Young farmers need to merge traditional methods and knowledge inherited from previous generations with modern opportunities and methods that facilitate production and marketing. Knowledge gained this way makes it possible for small farms to market their products through short supply chains.
JEL code: Q12,Q13
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Complex problem analysis of the Hungarian dairy farms
93-100Views:459Hungarian dairy farms went through significant changes in past two decades. The most significant changes were caused by our accession to the European Union in 2004. In Hungary milk production remarkably declined after EU accession due to the decreasing level of support and decreasing milk prices. Size of our dairy herd has been practically reducing since the political transformation (1989); meanwhile the relative yields per cow have been continuously increasing. Relatively low prices, high production costs and tightening quality requirements ousted several producers – mainly small farms - from the market in past years. Feeding cost represents the highest rate in cost structure of production, but animal health expenditures and various losses are also significant. Applied technology of the Hungarian dairies lags behind theWestern-European competitors’; in addition they have handicaps in efficiency and product innovation. Moreover Hungarian milk and milk product consumption is about half of the Union average. In 2007 at the University of Debrecen the opportunities and the problems of this sector were discussed in the framework of a research and development project entitled “Project-generating based on sector-specific innovation”.At this workshop farmers, experts and advisers shared their ideas which were all gathered. The main objective of our paper is to provide useful information for the decision makers and the most important members of the sector. Using the practically successful ideas plus the ideas based on previous experience a new strategic concept was created. To reach the objective of this paper we collected, synthesized and analysed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the dairy farms and performed a SWOT analysis. On the basis of this SWOT analysis we set up a well organised problem hierarchy which would help to identify the main weaknesses of the sector. This analysis gives a great framework for the researches and it also gives a useful tool for the decision makers to improve the competitiveness of the Hungarian dairy sector.
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Importance of the generic segment of thye plant protection products – the case of the Polish market
25-33Views:282Authors present results of the analysis of developments in the plant protection products industry, with a focus on its generic part. Authors concentrate on long-term changes of prices, volumes and values of generic pesticides launched into the market. There were two strategic groups of producers identified: research and development (R&D) and generic. The analyses conducted prove that there is a relationship between the amount of generic products on the market and their prices. It is also clear that the number of competitors significantly influences the speed and range of price erosion. Used as examples generic plant protection products were placed on the market with an average price 15% lower comparing to branded pesticides.
JEL code: M31
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Price risk management using by a specified futures model
97-101Views:212The principal achievement of this paper is to introduce the operation of a specified ‘Futures’ model and it’s practice for decision makers of financial institutes through an example based on the price data’s of grain futures market from EU assessment 2004 to these days in Hungary. Based on a theoretical foundation, the calculation model was developed in order to assist short and long-term marketing decisions. The economical basis of the model is the combinative use of two market institutions: public warehousing and futures market. This electronically developed and working model ‘using excel background ‘allows all of the participants of the market: producers, consumers,banks and traders, to use this model in immediate calculations. In addition it helps in order to establish the own business strategy. The model can be used to analyze price influencing factors therefore; it can also be used for policy-making decisions for market participants as well as banks dealing with trade financing activity.
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The role of agribusiness in stimulating on-farm investments – case-study of the armenian dairy sector
85-91Views:258This paper analyses the impact on investments of contractual arrangements between farms and agribusiness in the Armenian dairy sector. Our empirical evidence is based on a unique survey of 300 Armenian dairy farms. The dairy sector is of particular importance as it provides vital employment and income, in an environment of weak social security and scarce job opportunities. Furthermore, milk production is predominantly organized in small-scale farms, which are most likely to be affected by adversarial financial conditions and limited in their opportunities to raise resources to invest. The results show that a large share of milk producers in Armenia is actively investing to upgrade their farm business. Furthermore, investment activity is not limited to large dairy farmers as over 30% of respondents with less than eight cows have made dairy-specific investments. We find that the linkages between farms and agribusiness – and more specifically the support programs that agribusiness firms offer to their suppliers – have been crucial in stimulating this restructuring process at the farm level. Interestingly, farmers with a more exclusive relationship to the buyer and farmers that deliver to more internationally oriented buyers are more likely to receive support. On the other hand, buyers that operate in a more competitive market are less likely to provide support to their suppliers. These findings have interesting policy implications. On the one hand, our results point to the gains that can be made from openness to international firms. On the other hand, the negative competition effect indicates that buyers are unable to enforce repayment of the provided farm services in an environment where a lot of buyers are competing for the same supply. Policy makers should look at ways of improving the enforcement capability of dairy companies under these circumstances.
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TODAY'S CONSUMERS ON THE MARKET IN CSÍKSZEREDA (MIERCUREA CIUC)
Views:223Due to the geographical situation of Harghita County, farming mostly in small agricultural areas encourages farmers to engage in more integrated agricultural activities. As a result, more and more farmers who are open to development are starting to appear on local markets with processed products. The traditional knowledge passed down from generation to generation on small local farms is similar in families living in each area and therefore socially reinforcing. Older farmers in our countryside have mostly shied away from the new knowledge of the mega-manager, but their younger, more highly skilled counterparts are more willing to open up to new knowledge.
The demand for local products with a historical basis has been gradually increasing in recent years. To save costs, they also sell their products at the market themselves. In order to meet today's consumer needs, in addition to the production, processing and packaging of raw materials, producers must also think about branding, logistics and design. Customer relations and quality communication are essential for a well-functioning business (PG Balogh et.al, 2021)
In Harghita County, farmers running a traditional small-scale farm mostly face marketing problems. At the same time, the demand for high quality products produced in a sustainable way is increasing.
The aim of our empirical study is to investigate the expectations of consumers visiting the Traditional Products Fair in Csíkszereda (Miercurea -Ciuc) using artificial intelligence methods. These habits have their origins in the market habits of the past centuries, therefore, our research tries to reveal the atmosphere of the markets of the past.
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Integrated agribusiness in the dairy industry of Ukraine: main characteristics and success factors
59-68Views:268Ukraine belongs to the TOP 20 global producers of milk. Despite its position, the Ukrainian dairy industry is suffering from a permanent deficit of raw milk supplied for processing. on average, in 2007–2011 over half of the produced raw milk did not reach the processors. one of the reasons behind this lasting trend is that the structure of initial production of raw milk is dominated by households (having a share of 80%); the latter produce milk mostly for their own consumption and leftovers are sold at marketplaces where they can get more attractive prices. nevertheless, already today we observe results of largescale investments into the industrial production of milk made in the last few years. This article stresses an important place of the dairy industry in the agriculture of Ukraine, as it provides the population of vital food products, many of which are strategic in the export potential. Authors present essential characteristics of the concepts “agro-industrial integration” and “agroholding”, discloses their role and place in the agrarian sector of the economy, and justifies the necessity of the creation an integrated production in the Ukrainian dairy sub-complex. The study aims at identification and description of latest trends in Ukraine’s dairy market. Moreover, authors present a successful Ukrainian example of Milkiland N.V. as one of the TOP 5 players in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) dairy market.
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Trends in agriculture and food production
99-110Views:277Agricultural reform resulted a shift from collective farming to small-scale production in China. This reform also has resulted a strong increase in gross agricultural output, which coincides with a slower increase in labour productivity. At the beginning of the reforms, agriculture accounted for 70 percent of total employment in China and still employs more than 50%. As a result of these reforms, China has undergone impressive economic growth also in the agriculture; the country has become one of the world’s top exporters and is attracting record amounts of foreign investment. The government has also stepped up investments in rural areas to meet the market demand for agricultural products. Results are very competitive compared to Central and Eastern European countries, where agriculture accounted for only 15 percent of total employment, but agricultural reform resulted a strong decline in gross agricultural output, which coincides with a similarly strong decline in employment. When approaching the issue of sustainable agriculture, we have to take into consideration, which China and India feed the largest populations in the world and both countries have had its own agricultural successes in the past 50 years. China has used land far more efficiently than many developed countries. With nine percent of the world’s arable land, China is responsible for the greatest share of agricultural production worldwide. Volume of produced pork, eggs, wheat, cotton, tobacco, and rice has increased and China exports an increasing amount of product each year. China has opened his borders, but do not expose food consumers to price shocks and producers to risks and disincentives. In this paper, the land-tenure system and the trends of agricultural developments are analysed in China and selected countries of EU.
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Legal-economic barriers to price transfers in food supply chains
27-33Views:291Recent price movements have put food supply chains under pressure. On the one side, upward price tendencies on commodity markets result in higher costs to processing firms. On the other side, these firms are confronted with a strong retail sector that is able to prevent compensation to protect consumers’ and own economic interests. Regulatory impediments of European law, especially with respect to foodstuffs, can adversely be utilized as barriers to protect the interest downstream the supply chain. The problem is that legal-economic instruments which can serve to smooth price volatility in supply markets can also opportunistically be used at the expense of the middlesection in food supply chains (i.e., mainly small and medium sized producers). The aim of this article is to identify the legal-economic mechanisms that effect price transfers in food supply chains in the European Union and define policy adjustments to improve pricing mechanisms, while safeguarding the interests of the processing industry. Policy alternatives to improve the smooth functioning of notably intermediate markets in food supply chains are the restructuring of competition law, improved processor information management and creating transparency of value added in the supply chain by means of labelling devices.
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A Value chain analysis of Sesame (Sesame Indicum L.) in South Omo Zone, Southern Ethiopia
Views:419Sesame is the main cash crop in Ethiopia and it is mainly produced in northern and southern part of the country especially South Omo Zone. In the zone sesame is highly produced, but it production is not known regionally and at a country level. So this study was aimed to research sesame value chain of the Zone. Simple descriptive statistics and value chain approach were employed for data analysis during this study. It attempts to deal with mapping and identifying sesame value chain actors and their roles, examines marketing channel, cost margin structure and assessing challenges and opportunities within the study area. The results of the study indicated that out 5589.3 quintals were supplied to markets for various actors and five alternative marketing channels were identified to transact the sesame product through intermediaries. The most important volume of sesame (4900.8 quintals) was marketed through channel V and the lowest volume in channel I. producers get the highest share in channel IV and the lowest in channel II. Barriers to entry traders into the market are that the capital requirement and therefore the wholesalers govern by volume transacted and internal control criteria within the market. Fertile land and high demand for the product were essential opportunity. Pests and disease, Low level of input utilization, Shortage of input supply and high price of inputs were the challenges of sesame production whereas lack of market information, price variability, delay of buyers, low bargaining power and poor product quality were the challenges sesame marketing.
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Integration Efforts in Agriculture
91-96Views:287The economic and political transition brought many challenges for the Hungarian agricultural sector. The break-up of large agricultural holdings had serious negative impacts on food production and on the export of agricultural products. Capital intensive profit-seeking intermediaries dominate the trading of agricultural goods that has injurious effects in terms of downward pressure on production prices and an increase in consumer prices. Cooperatives have a key role in effectively tackling the common challenges that small-scale producers have to face. More vertical integration along the food chain could contribute to providing rural employment and to an increase in living standards in rural areas. This study reviews the development, the specific features and the driving forces of modern cooperatives in Central Europe in general, and in Hungary in particular. The focus is on the integrator role of cooperatives and their future role in our globalised world.
JEL Classification: Q10, Q13
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