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Determinants of Mongolian Economic Growth
61-66Views:465Mongolia is the second largest landlocked country, which has unique economic condition. This paper aims to examine Mongolian economic growth from 2000 until 2016 and identify its determinants. The growth was studied based on the growth rate of National Domestic Product. Initially, 20 macroeconomic variables are chosen and tested for the economic growth determinators such as; unemployment rate, human capital index, import growth, inflation rate, export growth, and interest rate, etc. The results showed that the growth rate of dollar exchange, inflation rate, and the growth rate of export were the main factors (81.4%). Mongolian GDP per capita and poverty rate were compared with other Asian lower-middle-economies, which are classified in the same classification as Mongolia. An increment of average salary was adjusted by the inflation rate, which showed the purchasing power declined in 2015. Statistics of Central Bank of Mongolia, Central Intelligence Agency, World Bank’s statistics, and the statistics from National Statistics Office of Mongolia are used for the research.
JEL Classification: H0, H30, H6, H70
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Multifunctional agriculture: An engine of regional economic growth?
7-15Views:289The historical role of agriculture in economic geography and recent conceptual developments – including multifunctional agriculture (MFA), the new economic geography, amenity-driven growth, and the “world is flat” and “creative class” hypotheses – are examined, and recent empirical research in NorthAmerica and Europe is reviewed, in order to assess the potential for MFA as an engine of regional economic growth. Ideal MFA policy corrects market failures and is mostly amenity-augmenting. It has the capacity to enhance opportunities for farmers on urban fringe; stimulate growth in high-amenity rural regions accessible to cities that offer opportunities for high-value work; and generate growth in relatively remote high-amenity regions. The scope for market-failure-correcting MFA policy to propel economic growth in lessfavored regions is limited – remoteness is non-responsive to policy in the short to medium term, and amenities that attract in-migration (e.g. proximity to sea, lakes, mountains, pleasant climate) are givens for favored locations but can at best be complemented by pro-active policy – but not trivial. While this paper focuses on regional economic growth, it well to rememberthat growth is not everything. Regions unlikely to experience growth need to create satisfying futures. Market-failure-correcting MFA policy has the potential to improve quality of life, well-being, and perhaps incomes in many if not all rural places regardless of location. This accomplishment would not be trivial – economic growth for all regions regardless of resources, amenities, and remoteness is not a serious prospect, and regions in decline face daunting problems maintaining essential services and quality of life.
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PROMOTING COCOA EXPORT FOR TRANSFORMATIVE AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL GROWTH IN NIGERIA
Views:278This study was carried out to assess whether cocoa export crop could serve as driver for transformative and sustainable agricultural growth in Nigeria. Data were collected from secondary sources. Vector Error correction, impulse response and variance decomposition were used as analytical tools. The results showed that the in the short run the coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.507 indicating that 50.7% of the variation in agricultural growth was explained by cocoa export, exchange rate, government expenditure and labour. There is a positive short run relationship and a negative long run relationship between cocoa export and agricultural growth. Labour exhibits an adverse effect in the short and long run on agricultural growth. Also, the result shows a short and long run positive relationship between exchange rate, government agricultural spending, and agricultural growth. Agricultural growth responded positively to a unit shock in Cocoa export and exchange rate in both the short run and long run. It was recommended that government should be proactive in its responsibilities by increasing budgetary allocation to agriculture and monitoring of its distribution, incentivize local investors and cocoa farmers, put in place viable export policy and appropriate exchange rate policy to stabilize the Nigerian economy. This will restore the place of Nigeria in the competitive cocoa market as well as increase agricultural growth.
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Green networks: Innovative capacity of SMEs in the Dutch greenhouse horticulture industry
43-50Views:303The Dutch greenhouse horticulture industry is characterized by world leadership in high-tech innovation. The dynamics of this playing field are innovation in production systems and automation, reduction in energy consumption and sharing limited space. However, international competitive advantage of the industry is under pressure and sustainable growth of individual enterprises is no longer a certainty. The sector’s ambition is to innovate better and grow faster than the competition in the rest of the world. Realizing this ambition requires strengthening the knowledge base, stimulating entrepreneurship, innovation (not just technological, but especially business process innovation). It also requires educating and professionalizing people. However, knowledge transfer in this industry is often fragmented and innovation through horizontal and vertical collaboration throughout the value chain is limited. This paper focuses on the question: how can the grower and the supplier in the greenhouse horticulture chain gain competitive advantage through radical product and process innovation. The challenge lies in time- to-market, in customer relationship, in developing new product/market combinations and in innovative entrepreneurship. In this paper an innovation and entrepreneurial educational and research programme is introduced. The programme aims at strengthening multidisciplinary collaboration between enterprise, education and research. Using best practice examples, the paper illustrates how companies can realize growth and improve the innovative capacity of the organization as well as the individual by linking economic and social sustainability. The paper continues to show how participants of the program develop competencies by means of going through a learning cycle of single-loop, double-loop and triple loop learning: reduction of mistakes, change towards new concepts and improvement of the ability to learn. Finally, the paper illustrates the importance of combining enterprise, education and research in regional networks, with examples from the greenhouse horticulture sector. These networks generate economic growth and international competitiveness by acting as business accelerators.
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New tools and opportunities in growth and climate friendly greening for small and medium enterprises in the European Union
25-31Views:338The role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is unquestionable in the European economies, while financial opportunities are still inadequate for them. The more than 20 million SMEs play a significant role in European economic growth, innovation and job creation. According to the latest EC Annual Report , SMEs are accounting for 99% of all non-financial enterprises, employing 88.8 million people and generating almost EUR 3.7 tn in added value for our economy. Despite the fact that there is plenty of EU funding available for these SMEs, for certain reasons these funds hardly reach them. But we have to see that the EU supports SMEs by various way, e.g. by grants, regulatory changes, financial instrument, direct funds. On the other hand, SMEs and decision makers realised that the environmental sustainability has to be attached to the economic growth, therefore more and more tools are available for these enterprises. Over the last few years, public institutions, the market, the financial community and non-governmental associations have explicitly demanded that firms improve their environmental performance. One of the greatest opportunities might lay in the Climate- and Energy Strategy till 2030 as 20% of the EU budget is allocated to climate-related actions, however the easy access to finance is still a key question. Does the EU recognise the actual difficulties? Is there a systemic reason behind the absorption problems? Is the EU creating a more businessfriendly environment for SMEs, facilitating access to finance, stimulates the green and sustainable growth and improving access to new markets? The paper analyses the current European situation of the SMEs and the effectiveness of some new tools, which are specially targeting SMEs.
JEL classification: Q18
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Global tendencies in pork meat - production, trade and consumption
105-111Views:2353World meat production is anticipated to stagnate in 2016, rising by a mere 0.3% to 320.7 million tonnes. Increases in output are expected in the United States, Brazil, the EU, India and the Russian Federation, while reduced production is foreseen for China, Australia and South Africa. Global meat trade is forecast to recover in 2016, growing by 2.8% to 30.6 million tonnes, which would represent a return to trend, after a fall in 2015. World production of pig meat in 2016 is forecast to decrease marginally, by 0.7% to 116.4 million tonnes, thus registering a second year of virtual stagnation. As in 2015, lower output in China, which accounts for almost half the world total, is the main reason for the slowdown. An unfavourable feed-pork price ratio in the country and new environmental regulations have caused farmers to reduce breeding sows, stalling growth. China’s production is projected to be 54 million tonnes, down 2.5% from the previous year. Elsewhere in Asia, the Philippines and Vietnam could boost output. Also, production in Japan and the Republic of Korea may expand, as the industry recovers from outbreaks of PED, which reduced piglet numbers in the previous two years. Recovery from the effects of PED has been faster in the United States, where a second year of growth is anticipated, when production could increase by 1.9% to a record 11.3 million tonnes. Output in Mexico also continues to recover, following a PED outbreak in 2014, and may rise in 2016 by 2.0% to 1.3 million tonnes. Pork meat trade could experience a second year of growth, increasing by 4.4% to 7.5 million tonnes – a record level. Lower international prices have stimulated trade. Most of the principal importing countries are anticipated to increase their purchases, including Mexico, China, the Russian Federation, the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Australia. In response to rising demand, exports are projected to grow, in particular those of the United States, Canada, the EU and Brazil (FAO, 2016). Summarizing, in this study we wish to examine how evolve the world pork meat production, trade and consumption, and to demonstrate the main consuming countries, highlighting the role of China, as it is the most populated country in the world with its 1.4 billion inhabitants.
JEL Code: Q13, Q12
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Methane reductions to moderate the global warming effects
59-64Views:345The case-study overviews the possible reduction for the methane gas emission in order to avoid of the more global warming effects and climate change caused by the human activity at latest decades. To collect international data base is for analysing and valuing methane gas emission based on the different country-groups, emphasizing responsibility of developing countries and highly developed countries for gas emission, also the methane emission based is on the economic sectors. China and India have share 8% of China and 2% of India respectively of cumulative CO2 emissions over the period 1900-2005, the US and the EU are responsible for more than half of emissions. Based on the estimation the global gas emissions of methane in the whole world has increased by 37% for period of 1990- 2030, as four decades, and this was 0,92% annual rate growth, while the OECD has increased the methane emission by 8,5% for this period, which means 0,21% growth rate annually. Scenario in developing countries for 2013-2020 the methane gas emission reduction could have been 8200 Mt of CO2e (Equivalent) and less than 10 US dollar per ton in more cost financing. Highly developed and developing economies (last one their methane emission share 56% in 1990, estimated 66,8% in 2030) increase their economic growth by mostly fossil energy resulted in increasing also methane gas emissions. The methane gas emission can be solved by those results-based-finance forms relevant to Kyoto Protocol, which can extend in the world by financial institutions.
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Demand and supply of labor market: A case of UAE
145-153Views:389United Arab Emirates (UAE) witnessed a progress of growth booming since its establishment, which as result puched all economic componets to indicated a active movement in term of employment and capital investment as well. This steady economic growth has been marked by an increase in the income by the country’s citizens, both national as well as the foreign residents This paper to axamine the supply and demand of labor market in UAE. The technique used to source the data is a secondary resource and methodology employed in descriptive and analytical. The study found that, the diversification of the economy, and enhance the role of private sector increased the demand for labor as well as increased the diversification for nationalities in the country. From other side, because of diversification strategy, the foreigners labor have more numbers in total employment structure.
JEL CODE: O12
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Impacts of the global financial and economic crisis on the agro-food industry and rural livelihoods in Serbia
113-118Views:318Sixty-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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Role of innovations and knowledge – infrastructure and institutions
7-10Views:571There is a well known saying: Research converts money into knowledge, innovation converts knowledge into money. The knowledge-based economy has four pillars: innovation, education, the economic and institutional regime, and information infrastructure. Transformation towards a knowledge-based economy will necessarily shift the proportion and growth of national income derived from knowledge-based industries, the percentage of the workforce employed in knowledge-based jobs and the ratio of firms using technology to innovate. Progress towards a knowledge-based economy will be driven by four elements: human capital development, knowledge generation and exploitation (R&D), knowledge infrastructure. Increased investment in these four areas will certainly have an impact. National experience, however, suggests that an incremental approach will not work. Nations that have achieved accelerated growth in outputs and capabilities have acted decisively, targeting investments in areas of strategic opportunity. The organizational and infrastructural improvement of research requires supranational cooperation and the promotion of the free movement of knowledge. Therefore, the EU decision on the establishment of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which ensures that the GDP proportion for research and development (R&D) shall achieve 3% stipulated by member states in the long run, is particularly welcome.
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Forecasting with X-12-ARIMA: International tourist arrivals to India and Thailand
43-61Views:434Forecasting is an essential analytical tool in tourism policy and planning. This paper focuses on forecasting methods based on X-12-ARIMA seasonal adjustment and this method was developed by the Census Bureau in the United States. It has been continually improved since the 1960s, and it is used by many statistics agencies and central banks. The secondary data were used to produce forecasts of international tourist arrivals to India for 2007-2010 and also these data were used to produce forecasts of international tourist arrivals to Thailand for 2006-2010. From these period the results confirm that the best forecasting method based on the X-12-ARIMA seasonal adjustment is X-12-ARIMA(0,1,2)(0,1,1), X-12-ARIMA(0,1,1)(0,1,1) and X-12-ARIMA(2,1,0)(0,1,1) for India and the best forecasting method based on this method is X-12-ARIMA(0,1,1)(0,1,1) and X-12-ARIMA(2,1,0)(0,1,1) for Thailand. Furthermore this method predict that international tourism arrivals to India for 2007–2010 will growth at a positive rate as same as in this during period the number of international tourists arrival to India will be 5,079,651 million, 5,652,180 million, 6,224,480 million and 6,796,890 million, respectively. Also this method predict that international tourism arrivals to Thailand for 2006-2010 will growth at a positive rate as same as in this during period the number of international tourists arrival to Thailand will be 12,211,033 million, 12,699,532 million, 13,187,591 million, 13,674,669 million and 14,161,998 million, respectively. If these results can be generalized for future year, then it suggests that both the India government sector and the Thailand government sector also the private tourism industry sector of these country should prepare to receive increasing numbers of international tourist arrivals both to India and Thailand in this period.
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ANALYSIS OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR IN THE EUROPEAN POULTRY MEAT MARKET
Views:855This research has also confirmed that poultry meat is currently in its golden age, not only in our country but also globally. The beneficial physiological effects of poultry meat, its nutritional value (high protein content), and its role in modern nutrition and diets have made it the most popular and 'fashionable' meat product of our time. Healthiness as a megatrend has favoured the consumption of poultry meat, which has been consumed for decades, and is reflected in the growth in production, trade and consumption. The trend of environmental awareness has also pushed the meat market towards the consumption of poultry meat as it is one of the least environmentally intensive compared to other meat types. Poultry meat is the second most commonly consumed meat in the EU, but in some European countries, it has taken over the overall lead (e.g. Hungary, Cyprus, and the UK). Poultry is not only preferred for its healthiness and low environmental impact, it is also an easy, versatile, quick-to-prepare, cheap source of protein. These advantages are expected to lead to further growth in the future in terms of production, trade and consumption, China, the US, the EU and Brazil dominate the poultry sector.
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Growth and venture capital investment potential for university spin-offs in Hungary
31-38Views:339Venture backed spin-offs represent a low proportion of companies, even of innovative companies. The research question was, whether these companies have an important role in innovation and economic growth. I present the most important indicators of innovation in connection with entrepreneurship, the measures of start-ups, mainly the high-tech ones. I describe the position of venture capital industry nowadays, detailing the classical venture capital investments, targeting high-growth potential small firms, even university spin-offs. The study presents the results of a survey made as a counterpart of an academic research team, examining spin-offs, entrepreneurs and technology transfer in the most important Hungarian universities. I found that the most important obstacles of venture capital investments in high-tech spin-offs are the information gap between demand and supply side, the lack of entrepreneurs’ willingness to give up freedom in decision making, despite of low managerial skills. The low quality of financial environment is also an obstacle of the segment.
JEL Codes: G24, M13
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Food waste in EU countries
Views:843The biggest challenges of our time include meeting the demand growth resulting from the explosion in population growth and achieving sustainable management. In terms of food, the most significant problem is, on the one hand, that a large part of the population is hungry and, on the other hand, excessive food waste, which results not only in wasted food but also in wasted resources used for its production, transport, packaging and storage. Do to this the unconsumed food has a profoundly negative impact on the environment and the economy. There is a pressing need to prevent and reduce food waste to transition to a resource-efficient Europe. In this study, we would like to show how food waste changes in different countries, focusing on Europe. Our results show a significant discrepancy between Member States' data and where waste is generated. We find no significant correlation between GDP per capita and total food waste, but we find a moderately strong correlation between GDP per capita and restaurant waste at the point of generation.
JEL code: M21
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The most relevant factors and trends in energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and China, focused on renewable energy sources (RES)
Views:760This paper analyses the good political and legal environments, mutually beneficial strategic policy, along with level of economic development and growth, superior geographical conditions and cultural integration degree of the important effecting factors of the energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and China. By using the main points listed above this article refers to related trade and investment theories, and it’s divided into two aspects: Kazakhstan's export of Chinese energy products with time series data 1998-2014 and China's investment in Kazakhstan's energy sector with time series data 1998-2016 to construct the vector autoregressive model (VAR).We selected relevant variables and data to construct an econometric model from the perspectives of trade and investment to make an empirical analysis on the influencing factors of energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and China. Our results show that China's demand for large-scale market and for opening to the outside world as well as Kazakhstan’s great energy potential are the most important factors their cooperation. It can be stated that in our days Kazakh legislation is suitable for promoting the Chinese energy investments, but in the long run it would be beneficial to mobilize national capital especially in RES investments and research. In the end, we found the most important reserves in competitiveness of electricity and heat (both from fossil and renewable energy sources) are power grid consolidation and waste heat utilization in the short run.
JEL CODE: F14; Q43
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The relevance of sports financing
19-22Views:412According to estimations sports exploit approximately two percent of world GDP. In addition sports represent an important function in culture, socialization and also in education, act an outstanding role in economy, as well, though academic researchers cannot find positive relationship between sports financing and economic growth. Sports were originally civil actions, with non-profit nature, where they did not aspire to reach high returns, but fulfilment of sport itself. However returns can be realized and reinvested in sports. This paper tries to collect the different aspects of sports financing in order to highlight its relevance.
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Adjustment of poland’s agriculture and food sector to challenges of agricultural policy of the European Union
39-44Views:349Paper 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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KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION OF LIBERIAN AGRIBUSINESSES IN THE AFRICAN CONTINENTAL FREE TRADE AREA (AfCFTA)
Views:264Liberia has signed and ratified AfCFTA and is pending deposit with the African Union Commission. The objective of the paper thus is to examine the knowledge, and perception of Liberian agribusinesses on AfCFTA. The primary data were obtained from four (4) main categories of stakeholders in Liberia’s economic growth and development. They included (i) agribusiness enterprises/agricultural micro-small- and medium-sized enterprises operating in Monrovia; (ii) apex business entities/associations; (iii) government actors and (iv) partnerships in trade and development in Liberia. Findings from engagements with agribusinesses revealed that even though few respondents had a fair understanding of the Rules of Origin protocol, central to trading under AfCFTA, most of the respondents knew or had heard about the AfCFTA and mostly associated AfCFTA with creating one African market. Concentration on AfCFTA in Liberia should not only be on the removal of tariffs as the removal of tariffs is perceived by agribusiness as bad.
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Education for rural development and agribusiness in post-socialist Slovakia
133-137Views:278Agricultural education and training in the former Czechoslovakia has traditionally focused on fostering the position of cooperatives and state farms. The destruction of socialist agriculture and the reduction of commuting opportunities in the urban space during the transition have resulted in the handicapped socio-economic position of the Slovak countryside and its population. The role of education and training in fostering agribusiness growth and rural development could therefore become a crucial strategy. The aim of this article is to analyse the current state of education and training for agribusiness and for rural development in Slovakia using the methods of literature research and document analysis. The article interprets general trends in the development of adult education in Slovakia during the transition period. The main priorities and perspectives formulated in the national strategy for education in agriculture (for the period 2007-2013) are discussed in the mentioned context. With a focus on the leading role of the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, the paper assesses the current status of formal and further agricultural education and training offered in academic and other educational institutions. The paper concludes by discussing implications, recommendations and challenges for developing education and training initiatives for agribusiness and rural development.
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Human resources management in small and medium enterprises
71-74Views:396Development of small and medium enterprises (SME) represents primary goal of every modern economy. It is complex challenge which includes great number of directly concerned parties in every sector of the state and economy. SME stimulate private ownership and entrepreneurship. Their characteristic is that they are flexible and can easily adjust to changes in supply and demand on the market. At the same time they open possibilities for increase of employment, promote diversification of economical activities, support sustainable growth and give significant contribution to export, trade and increase the competitiveness of the entire economy. Importance of SME for economy is undisputable. All research show that globally, more than 90% of all business activities are realized by SME. SMEs employ two thirds of total labor of European Union. Approaching to European Union presumes harmonization of the systematic environment and improvement of the climate of entrepreneurship, private initiative, development of SME. This determination has strongpoint in current world processes that prefer the development of SME, utilizing their profit efficiency and established advantages relating to the adaptability of small business to dynamic changes in economy. Problem of Human resources management is very sensitive issue in SMEs. Namely, in big companies there are entire teams of agencies or consultants are hired for selection and education of new employees, whereas in SMEs this work is done by owner or manager. Therefore, in this paper several facts were pointed out which need to be considered in selection of new employees, since every mistake in this activity can cause far-reaching consequences on functioning of SME.
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Statistical and multi-criteria decision making analysis for consumer attitude and behavior: in case of Mongolian organic food market
31-38Views:628Nowadays, consumers have a full of knowledge on products and services, and their daily consumption of healthy and environmentally friendly products has been increasing. Therefore, businesses need to implement green marketing activities, so they need to be aware of environmental issues and consumer needs while maintaining financial sustainability and competitiveness. (Belz & Karstens, 2002). Examples are the rapid growth of organic food products, as consumers are concerned with their health and environmental issues in their day-to-day purchasing decisions. Over 20 years ago, in 1999, the market for organic food products sales was $ 15.2 billion, while sales in 2017 increased to $ 97 billion, indicating that the world's organic food market is growing rapidly. The organic food market is growing by $5 billion a year, and as of 2014, 172 countries have organic food farm land according to the “The World of Organic Agriculture”. Since the market for organic products is a new market for Mongolia, previous surveys in are relatively small. Therefore, this is aimed at conducting a study on behavioral approaches of consumers of organic food products in Ulaanbaatar. We have run statistical and multi-criteria decision making analysis based on given data of consumers. We also apply Harker’s techniques for complete and incomplete evaluation matrices which are defined from consumers decision making. Numerical examples are presented.
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Climate change impact on crop production in Central Asian Countries
75-82Views:401Increased risk due to global warming has already become embedded in agricultural decision making in Central Asia and uncertainties are projected to increase even further. Agro-ecology and economies of Central Asia are heterogeneous and very little is known about the impact of climate change at the subnational levels. The bio-economic farm model is used for ex-ante assessment of climate change impacts at sub-national levels in Central Asia. The bio-economic farm model is calibrated to ten farming systems in Central Asia based on the household survey and crop growth experiment data. The production uncertainties and the adaptation options of agricultural producers to changing environments are considered paramount in the simulations. Very large differences in climate change impacts across the studied farming systems are found. The positive income gains in large-scale commercial farms in the northern regions of Kazakhstan and negative impact in small-scale farms in arid zones of Tajikistan are likely to happen. Producers in Kyrgyzstan may expect higher revenues but also higher income volatilities in the future. Agricultural producers in Uzbekistan may benefit in the near future but may lose their income in the distant future. The negative impacts could be further aggravated in arid zones of Central Asia if irrigation water availability decline due to climate change and water demand increase in upstream regions. The scenario simulations show that market liberalization and improved commodity exchange between the countries have very good potential to cope with the negative consequences of climate change.
JEL classification: Q11, Q18
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Economic Profitability of Sweet Pepper Production under Different Irrigation Levels and Polyethylene Mulch in a Plastic Greenhouse
109-116Views:338Field experiment was conducted, during two successive seasons of 2014- 2015 and 2015- 2016, at Dokki protected agricultural site, Giza Governorate, Egypt, to study the profitability of different applied irrigation levels and polyethylene (PE) mulch on plant growth and yield of sweet pepper, (Capsicum annum L.) cv. Godion F1, under plastic house condition. Three irrigation levels (0.50, 0.75 and 1.00) of crop evapotranspiration (ETc), using drip irrigation system and three PE mulch treatments (transparent, black and control) were applied. Data revealed that black PE recorded the highest values of early and total fruit yield per plant during the two seasons. Increasing water level up to 1.00 (ETc) enhanced yield with different PE mulch treatments, while water use efficiency (WUE) decreased with increasing water level. However, Using 0.50 (ETc), with different PE mulches increased WUE compared to using 0.75 (ETc) or 1.00 (ETc). The economic assessment of costs and returns from different treatments were calculated. It was found that the average yield was higher in 1.00 ETc with black mulch. Gross margin per 540 m2 were analysed using yield data, price structures and production costs. The 1.00 (ETc) with black mulch had the highest gross margin which is USD 416.8 and USD 533 (1 USD= 9 Egyptian pound) for the first and second seasons, respectively. The benefit cost ratios (BCRs) per 540 m2 were analysed, and 1.00 (ETc) with black mulch had the highest BCR with 1.36 in the first season and 1.45 in the second season.
JEL Classification: Q 01, Q 12, Q 19
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THE EFFECT OF FARMER BUSINESS SCHOOL ON HOUSEHOLD WELFARE: EVIDENCE FROM COCOA FARMERS IN ATWIMA NWABIAGYA NORTH DISTRICT, GHANA
Views:351Farmer Business School (FBS) is an educational programme aimed at improving the knowledge and skills of farmers in various aspects of agriculture, including financial management and marketing. The purpose of the paper is to examine the effect of FBS on household welfare among cocoa producers in the Atwima Nwabiagya North District of Ghana. Data was collected from a sample of 330 cocoa farmers, 200 of which participated in the FBS programme and 103 who did not. The study employed a range of statistical techniques to investigate the effect of FBS on cocoa growers, thus, independent samples t-test, binary probit model, Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance and perception index. The results of the study suggest that involvement in the FBS programme has a positive significant influence on household welfare. Cocoa farmers who participated in the programme experienced a significant increase in income and yield, as well as improved overall well-being against those who didn't take part. The research's findings offer evidence that FBS programmes can play a vital role in enhancing the welfare of farmers, particularly in developing nations where agricultural livelihoods play a crucial role in economic growth and poverty reduction. The study highlights the importance of investing in education and training programmes for farmers to improve their skills, knowledge, and overall well-being.
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Recent trends in the Croatian agricultural business sector
109-113Views:264The purpose of this paper is to explore recent trends in the Croatian agriculture and forestry business sector and compare it with the Croatian economy as a whole. This topic is considered interesting because recent business years have been heavily influenced by the global financial crisis. Many authors would say that agriculture, as a specific branch of the economy, does not follow general trends, but is affected rather by other factors, especially such as environmental ones. The global financial crisis had the most negative impact on the Croatian economy in the 2008/2009 period, when the GDP growth rate tumbled from 2.4% to -5.8%. Although some positive movements have been recorded since 2009, a recession is still going on. Based on information from the National Financial Agency (FINA) database we found that during the period 2007-2011, agricultural firms experienced the same trends as the whole economy, except in terms of average monthly salaries and employment. However, due to the impact of / on? agricultural products prices and yields, in two year period from 2008 to 2010, agricultural firms recorded an almost linear fall in revenues, while the national business sector on the whole experienced a sharp fall in revenues in 2009 and then only a modest fall in 2010.
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