Agricultural Economics, 2026 (vol. 72), issue 7
Effects of different tillage practices on cropland carbon efficiency in wheat–maize rotation croppingOriginal Paper
Yu Wang, Boqian Wang, Xiuguang Bai
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2026, 72(7):407-416 | DOI: 10.17221/96/2025-AGRICECON 
Enhancing cropland carbon efficiency (CCE) is vital for carbon-neutral and sustainable agricultural development. In this paper, we use the minimum distance to strong efficient frontier with undesirable outputs model and survey data from wheat–maize farmers in the Yellow River Basin of China in 2020 to investigate the effect and mechanism of different tillage practices on CCE. The results show that the average CCE in the study area is 0.592 6, which has large potential for improvement. Among the tillage practices, reduced tillage with straw returning (RTS) achieves the highest mean CCE, followed by no-tillage with straw returning (NTS), and conventional...
Empowering farmers through agricultural supply chains: An ESR and IVQR analysis of income effects in ChinaOriginal Paper
Zhao Ding, Qianyu Zhang
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2026, 72(7):417-434 | DOI: 10.17221/366/2025-AGRICECON
Integrating farmers into the modern agricultural industrial system is key to sustaining rural household income growth. Based on field survey data from rural areas in three western Chinese provinces, this study uses an endogenous switching regression (ESR) model to analyse the impact of farmers' participation in agricultural supply chains on their income, and explores the heterogeneous effects of credit constraints and agricultural loans on the incomes of participating and non-participating farmers. The results show that supply chain participation significantly increases farmers' total and operational income, while driving the modernisation of agricultural...
Sustainable agricultural performance in the European Union in the context of ecological transition, economic fairness, and support policiesOriginal Paper
Valentin Marian Antohi, Jean Vasile Andrei, Costinela Fortea, Dumitru Nancu
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2026, 72(7):435-460 | DOI: 10.17221/329/2025-AGRICECON
This paper investigates the structural determinants of sustainable agricultural performance across the 27 European Union member states over the period 2012–2023, focusing on the interplay between economic efficiency, environmental sustainability, and social equity. Employing a panel quantile regression approach, the study captures the heterogeneous effects of organic farming practices, public support for agricultural research and development, income inequality, and environmental emissions on multiple dimensions of agricultural performance. The analysis underscores the importance of empirical evidence in designing integrated agricultural policies...
Corn price forecasts in the shadow of the Russian–Ukrainian conflictOriginal Paper
László Vancsura, Arnold Csonka
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2026, 72(7):461-472 | DOI: 10.17221/102/2025-AGRICECON
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has caused serious disruption to agricultural markets, affecting both food prices and food security. In our study, we examine how global economic problems, such as COVID-19 or wartime conditions, affect corn prices and their predictability. We used deep neural network models [Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU)], experimenting with both simple and hybrid versions, as well as univariate and multivariate types. The results show that the GRU model outperformed the other models in predicting corn prices. It was also found that multivariate models tended to yield...