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This paper is related to the application of the land policies implemented in France in 2nd half of the 20th century, and their consequences on the economy of the agricultural sector and the operation of the farms. Starting from a framework of historical and institutional analysis, the object of this research is to analyse the economic and institutional determinants of these land policies. In France of small landowners, the existence of the right of ownership is considered as an obstacle for a fast evolution of the structures of farms which are sufficient size to implement technological progress allowing the profits of productivity. The aim of the land policy followed in France since the end of the Second World War was to encourage the development of such farms. The main measures were the statute of the tenant farming, the control of the structures and the control of the land market by the SAFER. This policy is implemented at a departmental level by the representatives of the Farmers Unions and generally supports the access to the land for young farmers or the middle-sized farmers.

A high level of communicative capabilities as an integral part of social skills in managers is an essential prerequisite of success in managerial position. The paper points out an opportunity of quantifying the level of communicative capabilities, as well as the way of delimiting deficiencies in communication and planning the process of development of communicative capabilities. The testing was done on a sample of 230 students of the Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, i.e. in the future agromanagers.

The paper is based on a special sampling survey of farms that was conducted under EU PHARE ACE research project P97-8158-R "Micro-economic Analysis of Farm Restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe" in 2000 in one of the NUTS 2 regions of the CR - in the South-East region. The region involves two administrative regions - Vysočina and South Moravian NUTS 3 and consists of subregions with different natural and market conditions (of hilly, lowland and suburban type) representing the conditions of agricultural production in the Czech Republic as a whole. The main results of the survey focused on farms of three different categories are presented: farms as legal entities (separately agricultural production cooperatives, joint stock companies and limited liability companies), officially registered individual farms of different size (formally licensed to business activities) and unregistered individual farms including small farming units - households with self-sustaining agricultural production.

The transition to the CAP and admission to the internal market triggered a shock wave in Austria which caused fundamental changes in the country's farming and food industries. Behavioural patterns stuck in traditional routines and petrified structures began to break up. The resulting thrust towards modernisation has been a major success of the EU integration. Eastern enlargement, about to be embarked on by the European Union, will have a greater impact on Austrian agriculture than the country's accession to the EU ever had. Farmers will have to brace for a loss of market shares and an additional pressure to adjust. The rural regions bordering the accession candidates will be particularly hit and thus require special attention in terms of economic policy measures. Agriculture and rural regions in Eastern Europe will profit from the EU-membership.

The aim of the experiment in test station was to evaluate productive performance with respect to feeding-technologies through the test for LWs × (LW×L) genotype in pigs. The productive performance as growth capacity, feeding intake and quantitative traits of slaughter value was examined for 144 hybrid pigs divided in two identical groups, where the 1st group was fed ad-libitum and the 2nd one semi-ad-libitum. On the base of profit formula, the ad-libitum system of feeding in pigs is better in all economic features.

The article deals with the evaluation of competitiveness in milling, feedstuffs, pasta, spirits, wine, beer and malt industries in the Slovak Republic. It further evaluates the impacts of economic policy tools on the stated sections of food industry by means of the PAM analysis. The impact of the policies on income, costs and profits of food production in the selected food industry branches has been discovered, based on the effects of divergences and coefficients of nominal and effective protection.

The paper provides some of the interim results of the Fifth Framework PRISMA project dealing with the impact ICT on government and citizen services in Europe. In the paper, the concept of one-stop government is described, the current state of the adoption of ICT both in Europe and the Czech Republic is briefly outlined and recommendations for the Czech agriculture derived from the major trends within the development of the use of ICT for better citizen services as well as for enhancing competitiveness of rural businesses.

BORM (Business Object Relationship Modelling) is a methodology developed to capture the knowledge of process-based business systems. It has been in development since 1993 and has proved an effective method, which is popular with both users and analysts. This paper presents BORM, its tools, and methods via a case study of the agrarian information system. BORM is based on the combination of object-oriented approach and process-based modelling. Also, an advantage of BORM is the small number of concepts required combined with a considerable expressiveness. In this way, BORM is in the tradition of pure approach established over the past years by structured modeling techniques.

In Hungary, after the political and economical transition period of the nineties, the transformation of agriculture, the privatisation and the partial compensation brought about fundamental change in the land ownership structure. Recently, the private ownership of land has become dominant. As a result of the land compensation and the restoration of individual shares of the co-operatives members, unfavourable farm structures were established in a great number of cases; and consequently the redistribution of land property has become indispensable. The revival of the market is hold up, on one hand, by the present legislation of land acquisition (by Hungarian legal entities and foreigners) and, on the other hand, by the repugnance of the land acquisition of foreigners by a great number of people. The political risks, the EU accession and the changes to be expected concerning the EU subsidy schemes might also affect the land market in the long-term.

In the framework of Slovakia entering into the European Union, there was done a PHARE-ACE survey in years 1999-2000. The name of this survey was "Micro-economic analysis of farming households restructuring in pre-accession period to the EU". The survey was finished in 2002. This survey was done in two regions of Slovakia, characterized by different natural conditions, production and economic conditions. This project was aiming not only at private farmers but also at other legal entities producing agricultural products. The monitored group consisted of 412 private farmers, farming in average 43.2 ha of agricultural land. Most of them are farming on 0-2 ha of agricultural land (20.8%) and on 25-100 ha of agricultural land (20.1%).

The paper addresses the first experience with the SAPARD Programme in the Czech Republic. Its theoretical background refers to gradualist and shock approaches in coping with social change. These approaches are connected either with theoretical fundaments of neo-classical economic theories (shock approach and methodological individualism; homo-oeconomicus), or classical sociological theories (institutions, norms and rules, social embeddedness, methodological collectivism and Durkheim's social fact). An empirical section of the paper is based on findings from field work and interviews with the SAPARD shareholders. It shows a sociological analysis of the origin of the SAPARD Plan and compares various measures implemented under the SAPARD Programme to indicate who was the winner (medium-scale businesses and farms understanding the SAPARD as a preparation for EU membership) and loser (and why) in competing for funding related to these measures. Also the issue how the SAPARD projects applicants master their action as for preparing and submitting projects is addressed. The role of social capital in the SAPARD Programme preparation is documented.

The benefits arising from adoption of information and communication technology by farming businesses are explored, and the prospect of a digital divide appearing in the UK agricultural sector is discussed, drawing on results of research at the University of Plymouth. It is proposed that countries in Central and Eastern Europe will be subject to the same phenomenon, and that the potential disadvantage suffered by non-adopters of this technology will be sufficiently severe to justify both policy intervention and further research.

In the enlargement process, the agriculture and food sector merits particular attention because trade and policy issues between the candidate countries and the EU are more important in this sector than in any other. In 2001, Hungarian agriculture's contribution to GDP was 4.5 percent and agriculture represented 6.2 percent of the total employment. The share of agricultural and food products in total exports was 7.5 percent. Agricultural policies in Hungary have developed in the context of a transition towards market economy and in anticipation of entry into the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Producer prices in Hungary are by up to 20 percent lower than EU domestic producer prices (with the exception of beef, maize and sugar-beet). Domestic consumer prices are, in average, closely aligned with the world market prices, and in 2001, consumers were paying the world market prices. Progress made so far by Hungary provides a good basis for implementing the acquis in the agricultural sector, however, strengthening of the administrative capacity with regard to the Common Market Organisation mechanisms and structures relating to the European Agricultural Guarantee and Guidance Fund is a priority. For Hungary, the issues of equality of treatment and no distinction between the old and new members of the EU are at least as important as the level of transfers it will receive. The revised draft common position of the European Commission does not seem particularly equitable and should be improved by the end of the accession negotiations.

The paper deals on theoretical level with the potential solution of unemployment of seasonal labour in agriculture and construction industry, i.e. in the sectors where the work is typically seasonal. It proposes compensation for salary and insurance premiums paid from the National Labour Office resources (so-called maintenance wage could be based on minimal wage or minimum subsistence income) during winter season. Recipients of those wage compensations would be employers who could employ these employees during winter season. The maintenance wage could substitute for unemployment benefit which is paid during their unemployment. This solution would not be applied nation-wide, only in regions where it would be economically efficient and socially required.

The goal of the contribution is to publish the results of the research EP 12/2001-2003 (Brno, 2001-2002) and of the research intention GA MSM 4300007 (Brno, 2000-2001) aiming at application of modern approaches and solving methods of decision-making processes with the utilization of the PC network and new information technologies, and namely in connection with the application of the results of the research EP 7260 (Brno, 1998-2000) defining the method and algorithm of formation, implementation and changes of business strategies. It results from the analysis performed that business subjects managed in a modern way cannot get along without a well elaborated process of strategic decision-making and the said processes are getting more and more significant owing to the growing turbulent management environment and to the need to respond to these changes by the company management.

The main focus of the future solutions will be sharing of knowledge. The coming systems will be designed and implemented as advanced distributed interoperable Web services that will share data, information, knowledge and services across Europe. The innovative systems will also implement advanced functionality for mobile data access; location based services, personalised and position sensitive services. The interoperability on the level of data as well as services will be important topic in next years. The WirelessInfo project was one from the first worldwide practical implementation of GIS interoperable standards on mobile platform.

Agriculture is a sector in Latvia which plays an important role in the country's economy and the same time performs a significant social, environmental and ethno-cultural function. Latvia has favourable conditions for the development of organic agriculture. The aim of land reform is to reorganise legal, social and economic relationships of land property and land use to facilitate the development of infrastructure, land protection and rational land use according to the interests of society. In Latvia, the land reform is practically carried out in three directions - restitution of real estate rights, privatisation of real property and compensation for previous real estate. At the moment, the main and urgent goal concerns strengthening of the results of land reform. It means that all the information on real estates (land and buildings), uses and area of lease obtained during the previous course of land reform must be reflected into the real property cadastre.

This paper is focused on: (1) Managerial accounting analysis as a source of information provided for product costs management (mainly from the point of view of exploitation of budgeting and costing in selected companies in agriculture), (2) Possibilities of integration and information processing for product cost management, provided by managerial accounting in the framework of managerial information system of the company.

The article brings the empiric reflection and results-based analysis of the "Programme of Rural Revival" realization in the territory of the Central Bohemia Region (NUTS II/III) in the time of regional self-governing organization in the Czech Republic. The primary interest of the authors was focused on the participation of microregions in the Programme activities, resp. on the item and object spectrum. The scope of the grant title 7 of the " Programme of Rural Revival" is assigned specifically for microregions. The successful request-analysis indicates varying spheres of activity and themes that microregions prefer in their demands for the Programme subsidy. It is, among others, observed through the interest for preparation of projects in the LEADER+ programme intention because the grant title 7 is also available for the LEADER+ preparation purposes. The preferences of microregions reflected in the requests indicate a further trend of territory-development supported activities. Unsuccessful requests analysis points towards broad relations of the Programme realization at the institutional-legislative level. Further evaluation concerned the fundamental Programme aims and their fulfilment presents the failure of agricultural undertaking in the grant requests. As the paper concludes, the authors suggest partial recommendations, in their opinion, for improving the "Programme of Rural Revival" application in the Central Bohemia Region.

The development of rural areas is solved by the regional policy from a great part. Since every country implicating and applying this support system is identified by its geographical and political specifics, many problems rise also in the Czech Republic and they complicate the implementation of the regional policy principles in the final result. The possibility of improving this situation is given through identification of the relevant problems and the realization suggested actions. The problem areas in rural municipalities development requiring solution are as follows: poor transport services, non-existing cooperation inside the transport and mutual losses compensation, poor technical equipment of municipalities, securing a constant support of rural development, establishing functioning ties to the community center areas in the micro- regions, establishment of foundations, decomposition of rural development aims, public administration. Respecting of the proposed solution areas in municipalities would help to decrease regional disparities in rural areas.

The paper analyses the economic and policy gap between the agriculture in Slovakia and the EU member states from the perspective of the future accession of this country to the Union. As it concludes, the deterioration of terms of trade during the transition period creates also problems for the accession negotiations, because this fact seems to legitimate the equitable implementation of the CAP in all member countries after the East-enlargement of the Union. The paper is arguing, on the basis of income simulation, that that the Commission proposal on reduced direct payments for the newly admitted countries would, in case of Slovakia, generate an improvement of the sectoral income only if they are topped by rural development measures.

In identifying perceptions and attitudes relevant to consumer acceptance of goods originating in different countries, it would be extremely helpful for marketers to have a meaningful and consistent measure that they could apply. This study examines to what extent consumer ethnocentrism as measured by the CETSCALE singularly, as well as in concert with selected demographic and psycho-graphic variables, can predict consumers' evaluation of domestic versus foreign produce. The findings indicate that consumer ethnocentrism is a strong and significant predictor of consumer product evaluations. Including the ethnocentrism variable in a set of demographic and psycho-graphic variables significantly improves the predictive ability of the set. Potential applications of the concept include identification of market segments that react more favourably to domestic or foreign produce, developing effective marketing communication strategies, and supporting location decisions for retail outlet sites.

Data collection, data processing, data presentation and data application in the System of Precision farming guarantee a success of this system in the market. Difficulties of technologies, which are currently and continually involved in this system, argue against its practical using by farmers. In this case, service company wants to create a suitable environment not only for data collection, but also for the high quality of the information distribution to customers. One of such tools is the MapServer placed on Internet web sites.

What regards the vision of the future relationship of the global and regional liberalisation, two variants are offered. According to the first, multilateralism will go on perpetually around the present trajectory and gradually will, supported by the processes of internationalisation and interdependence, accelerated by the condensing net of trans-national corporations and their activities, suppress regionalism. According to the second, regionalism will, closely connected to multilateralism, spread territorially into the shape of several macro-regions as a transitive stage to the unified liberalised world economy. In both cases, it regards of course the visions of a system and not matter-of-fact type. In the frame of each region, there will further exist different comparative advantages, which will influence the volumes and structure of production and trade, as well as certain specific fields of economic policy. However, that changes nothing of the fact, that namely multilateralism contributes to a considerable extent to reaching a higher equilibrium, adaptability and coherence of the world economy as a whole, even if reaching of this state is connected with considerable, mostly, however, short-time, costs. The contribution characterises globalisation and regionalisation: its contents, types and dimensions, TNC, unequality of the globalised economic development.

In the last decade, the character of agro-food chains functioning has changed significantly. Globalisation elements in the food processing and distribution are changing conditions in agro-food sector and influencing also agrarian markets. Due to higher food finalisation and market force of processing and distribution stages in the agribusiness commodity vertical, farm value share in the final food price has decreased. Increasing competition makes agribusiness firms look for possibilities to strengthen their competitiveness, which is increasingly determined by the ability to develop successful partnerships within commodity verticals, i.e. vertical integration, eventually co-ordination, enforces. In this study, potential benefits and risks of these forms of vertical interconnection are reviewed with respect on specific market and production characteristics of agro-food chains. The problem is presented on the example of the commodity chain of bakery and pasta production in the Czech Republic. At the end of the paper, main arguments for the interconnection of particular stages of this vertical are derived, especially between mills and bakeries.

The paper is focused on the evaluation of the development of financial situation of agricultural co-operatives in the CzechRepublic in 1997-2000 operating in both productive and marginal regions. The comparison of financial situation in these two groups of agricultural firms comes from the classification of firms according to productive regions. Presented results cover firms from the sample of agricultural firms observed in the RIAE Praha. Development tendencies of agricultural co-operatives in these two regions are analysed by means of chosen debt, liquidity, activity and profitability indicators. Non-financial indicators enlarging the above mentioned characteristics of firms' financial situation are suggested and analysed in the last part of this paper.

The paper deals with the institutional problems in the pig meat sector in the Czech Republic. The information was obtained in the frame of Project PHARE-ACE P97-8098-R "Institutional Economics in the Agri-Food Business: How can Structural Policy Help to Integrate EU?" The research was performed in year 2000 by means of a questionnaire method and a method of interviews with managers of individual entities in the food chain of pig meat sector. Problems of the execution of property rights in supplier-customer relations in the Czech pig meat sector are the following (institutional view): poor enforceability of property rights, sale for cash, refraining from long-term contracts, decrease of trust between business partners and trust in legal institutions, increase of transaction costs, lack of business ethics etc.