Agricultural Economics, 2009 (vol. 55), issue 12

Index of Agricultural Economics (Volume 55) Authors Index of Agricultural EconomicsIndex

editors

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2009, 55(12):I-IX | DOI: 10.17221/2453-AGRICECON

Design of diversification classifier for agricultural entrepreneurs activities

J. Hron, T. Macák, J. Huml

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2009, 55(12):565-570 | DOI: 10.17221/112/2009-AGRICECON  

In current business management, diversification strategy is often connected to the possibility of creating a competitive advantage, based mainly on a wide range of production benefits. One of the critical factors to initiate diversification is the increasing frequency of changes in a company's environment, and also an increase in competitive pressure expressed by shortening a product's life cycle. As a result, the advantages resulting from both vertical and horizontal process integration are reduced. Because there are usually more innovative ideas to widen a business' activities than it would be normally possible to implement, it is essential to choose...

Historical, environmental and socio-economic driving forces on land ownership fragmentation, the land consolidation effect and project costs

P. Sklenicka, J. Hladík, F. Střeleček, B. Kottová, J. Lososová, L. Číhal, M. Šálek

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2009, 55(12):571-582 | DOI: 10.17221/115/2009-AGRICECON  

Land consolidation (LC) is an effective program for land ownership defragmentation. The main objectives of this study are: (i) to analyse the characteristics of 487 study areas before and after implementation of the LC; (ii) to evaluate these study areas according to the influence of historical, environmental and socio-economic driving forces on the pre-LC ownership pattern, on the consolidation effect and on the financial costs of the LC projects. In average, the plot size has been increased twofold and the plot shape has also achieved an evidently positive change, but the average owner still has a holding of 2.72 ha divided into more than three plots...

Czech foreign agricultural trade after joining the European Union

V. Bašek, J. Kraus

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2009, 55(12):583-595 | DOI: 10.17221/65/2009-AGRICECON  

The objective of the paper is to assess how the Czech agricultural sector has withstood keen competition in the EU single market as measured by the basic indicators of foreign trade exchange. The impacts expressed by the indicators of active and/or adverse balance of trade were monitored for the post-accession period (the average of the years 2005-2007) in comparison with the pre-accession period (the average of the years 2001-2003). The assessment of the impacts of the accession to the EU is based on an analysis of the commodity and territorial structure of Czech agricultural foreign trade. The comparison of agricultural balance before and after the...

Integration and independence in the perspective of rural municipalities

H. Hudečková, M. Pitterling

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2009, 55(12):596-604 | DOI: 10.17221/98/2009-AGRICECON  

In order to develop the quality of life in small rural municipalities, their representation faces the thoughts about the perspective of these municipalities in economic terms (the capacity to finance long-term investments) as well as in the socio-cultural terms (the development of participation in public life embedded in the local identity). This article presents the results of the pilot empirical survey in one micro-region of the Czech Republic. The results of the in-depth interviews clearly indicate the preference of the investigated communities to choose the strategy of supporting their independence (which might result in the risk of lower ability...

International business and the reasons of the internationalization activities in the Slovak agri-food complex: The case study of the Slovak milk processing industry

I. Ubrežiová, M. Bujňáková, Z. Kapsdorferová, M. Majorová

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2009, 55(12):605-610 | DOI: 10.17221/78/2009-AGRICECON  

The main goal of the submitted paper is to evaluate the reasons of internationalization activities in the selected subjects of the Slovak milk processing industry with the identification of the basic development trends from the viewpoint of their internationalization activities. The data were obtained by the questionnaire technique during the period 2007-2008 in 12 milk companies producing more than 2 million litres of milk per year. The questions were focused at the form of business, realization of foreign and business activities as well as at the reasons of internationalization.