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In the study, some important herbal agricultural products with respect to their production have been clustered, in addition to determining the most important or the best countries in terms of the production of certain herbal agricultural products by using the factor analysis. The FAO data set has been used in obtaining production of 30 agricultural products in 86 countries. 8 factors have been achieved by considering the Eigen values the numbers of which are greater than one. Each factor contains certain herbal agricultural products. First factor explains 40.51% of the total variation whilst the last factor explains only 3.89% of the total variability. 10 best countries for each factor have been revealed.

The paper aims at the overview of the main approaches of state support implemented by developed and developing countries and the assessment of their distorting influences on the trade with agricultural commodities. The current state of state support is analyzed on the examples of EU-27, the USA and Japan. The experiences of developing countries are summarized on the examples of China, Russia and the CIS countries. State support tools are grouped according to the WTO classification. The alternative classification is implemented in order to compare the distorting effects caused by the state support. The EPACIS model is implemented to analyze the effects of trade liberalization for the distribution of agricultural commodities and trade policies in developing countries. The model is adjusted in order to assess the effects of state support for the production and trade with agricultural commodities in developing countries, recently accessed the WTO (the case of Russia). Imitation calculations allow formulating policies for the developing agricultural markets depending on the degrees of their sensitivity to foreign trade regulations and domestic support.

The southern area of the province of Alicante (Spain) embraces the regions Vega Baja del Segura (The Low Valley of The Segura River) and Bajo Vinalopó (Low Vinalopó) in the Valencian Community. Although both regions have a growing residential, touristy and industrial potential, agriculture is still an important activity here. In this study, a characterization of agricultural land distribution in the southern regions of Alicante is carried out, regarding the main crops where the most important current problems are irrigation water shortage and low harvest prices. Incomes received by farmers according to the level of harvest prices and the evolution of these prices in the last two years are studied. Besides, prices have been noticed to keep stable at the best. The evolution of land for different uses, mainly industrial, is also estimated. The competition for land and water use with other sectors has significantly increased the amount of land for these uses and what is more, it is still on increase.

Latin America has very good conditions for microfinance; the macroeconomic growth which Latin America had shown in the recent years created favourable conditions for the microfinance institutions' favorable conditions and its development. Profitability of the microfinance sector presents an attractive market for the financial institutions which already have a have strong position in the market. The purpose of this work is to focus on the current situation and performance of the microfinance sector while identifying some of the reasons that affect the microfinance institutions in this region. The work also provides a view on the microfinance industry development to get a better description of the sector. The microfinance institutions are earning an undeniable importance in the process of the regional development and represent an important factor in the alleviation of poverty and insecurity for large segments of the population. The work is based on information from relevant sources that allow us to identify the current status of microfinance in Latin America, especially in these times when the crisis affects also the region's economic dynamism.

The article describes the concentration process, structural changes and competitiveness in the German agri-food sector over the last decade. This descriptive analysis aims to outline the developments at the individual stages of the food chain and to identify the challenges the sector will face in the upcoming years. The study is based mainly on the data published by the German Statistical Office and the ZMP1, and the evaluation of the primary and secondary literature sources. The data shows that small and medium-sized enterprises were sustainable alongside the large ones and have played an important role in the German agriculture and food processing sectors in the recent years. Various business strategies can be expected to make the coexistence of small and large-scale enterprises also possible in the future.

Reasons to travel and to visit concrete destinations in the Czech Republic are especially the nature and cultural/historical sightseeing. The presented paper specializes on the first reason and it studies the specific landscape features together with the primary tourism potentials. It focuses on the protected landscape area of Kokořínsko, which is divided into 6 landscape units according to their landscape character. In these landscape units, the authors study the primary tourism potential and the elements of natural, cultural-historical and aesthetical characterization of landscape. The relation between the tourism potential and the landscape features is measured by the Spearman´s coefficient. Moreover, the expert's evaluation of landscape characteristics is confronted with the the landscape perception of tourists which were questioned in the PLA Kokořínsko.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are an important part of the Czech economy, they significantly contribute to the job and GDP creation, they are the source of innovation and technological progress. The paper is focused on the internationalization of SMEs, specifically in the wine sector, which is a specific sector closely linked to the specific area and it is significantly subjected to natural and climatic conditions. The authors focused on the specification of the most important aspects of the internationalization of Czech wine-growing small and medium enterprises based on the research via interviewing 450 SMEs wineries. The authors thus identified the key success factors in the process of internationalization of SMEs in the wine business.

The study is engaged in the problems of competitiveness and the performance of the Czech food industry. Both these attributes are evaluated in the framework the domestic manufacturing sector and market, as well as from the point of view of the relations in foreign trade, that means in context with the European and world market. The study applies in the frame of methodology the economic model based on input-output analysis in CZ conditions. In majority of assessed indicators, there were used databases from 2000-2008, i.e. the period before and after the accession to the EU. The outcome of the study is the evaluation of the situation in the macroeconomic environment that influences food sector and the use of input and output in this sector. The SWOT analysis shows, among other, the occasions that could improve the current stagnant or rather decreasing situation of competitiveness of the assessed sector. The study also indicated new directions of the further development in this area. The analysis of the food sector development demonstrated that the sector competitiveness is not in a critical situation. However, the sector competitiveness assessed by the RCA index and foreign trade is not going to be improved. The stagnation has come. As it follows from the SWOT analysis, the reason is that the opportunities of the sector are not fully utilised. Food producers are facing the basic problems in the output sphere mainly in the domestic market. Above all, it is necessary to strengthen marketing with regard to improving the Czech products competitiveness.

The agrarian sector has a non-substitutable position in most world economics - including the CR. From the viewpoint of functioning of own agrarian trade it can be stated that the CR is roughly self-sufficient by 70-80% in products of a competitive nature. In case of products of a non-competitive nature, the CR shows almost zero self-sufficiency. It means that agrarian foreign trade occupies a non-substitutable position in the CR economy (at least from the export point of view). In the light of our own trade flows, the CR performs as an active exporter and importer (about 100 billion and 130 billion CZK respectively, in 2009). However, together with the still growing needs of the national economy and the inhabitants' requirements for a varied composition of agri‑food products, the CR does not succeed in the long term to decrease the negative balance of the agrarian foreign trade. It is, however, indisputable that if a serious discussion should be held about the competitiveness of Czech agriculture in confrontation with foreign producers or suppliers of agricultural and food products, the priority task to reach a balanced agrarian foreign trade balance can be accepted only for the competitive products segment. The complexity of a greater participation of the basic Czech agricultural and food products on the EU unified market deepens simultaneously with the acceleration of the liberalisation process on this market. The gradual process of the world agrarian market liberalisation then means that the cost and price relationships are determined by such world producers as are able to offer agrarian products for the most advantageous prices, or offer goods of exceptional quality, with a high added value, brand products, national specialties and so on. Potentially, the space for improvement of the active balance of agrarian foreign trade (AFT) is given to us in much the same way as to our competitors, but actually, our possibilities are limited. The stagnation or even growth of the negative AFT balance was, and is influenced by non-substitutable imports of non-competitive food raw materials and foodstuff products and many other raw materials required by the non-agricultural sectors of the national economy.

Oligopoly can be defined as a market model of the imperfect competition type, assuming the existence of only a few companies in a sector or industry, from which at least some have a significant market share and can therefore influence the production prices in the market. Many models of oligopoly that differ from one another mostly in the nature of the competitive companies' behaviour can be found through the study of oligopolistic structures. Some models describe only the behaviour of two companies in the monitored market (duopoly), others describe several companies of the same power (cartel), still others assume that one of the companies has a dominant position in the market, etc. The text of this article deals with oligopolistic competition in the food market in the terms of the behaviour of grocers and with the impact of this competition upon the market competition in the sector. First, it mentions the agreements on common cooperation and procedure, when cartel market structure originates. It also analyzes the examples of behaviour of oligopoly with a dominant firm on the market with products in the food sector, with the goal of detecting whether the market with these products is significantly influenced by the oligopolistic behaviour of companies.

The primary purpose of this article is to discuss the trade practices used by retail chains from the point of view of the possible solutions of conflicts between the members of the distribution channel, which have an influence on selling prices for the end users. It is based on the knowledge of the theory of the transaction cost analysis, which makes it possible for the members of the distribution channel to make decisions on the number of forms of the organization in order to realize their activities successfully. In this framework and using the example of milk, the article shows the trade practices of retail chains to improve the relationships manufacturer - retailer in the Slovak consumer market.

The project of the AGRIS WWW portal proposes from its very beginning to establish a platform for providing information from the spheres of agriculture, food industry, forestry and from other areas related to the countryside. The main objective is to provide access to the already existing information sources, to run its own news service and to help with publishing of the information to the subjects that have limited conditions for electronic (Internet) presentation. This leads to creating of a complex block of information from the industry. This block is to serve for improving availability of the respective information for managers, public administration, students, teachers, consultants and other users.

The contribution deals with the analysis of methodological approaches to the general evaluation of enterprise results. It is concerned mainly about the methodology of evaluation of financial health of enterprises in the frame of the program SAPARD and further about the possible outline of methodology in the frame of the Sector Operational Plan for agriculture and the Payment Agency. This contribution was prepared in frame of solution of the Institutional Research Intention MSM 411100013.

A full liberalisation of the sugar market is hardly acceptable for Slovakia, because it would significantly affect not only the economic performance and employment across different sectors, but also their production structures, particularly in the farming-intensive regions. We nonetheless believe that the reform is necessary as the sugar sector remains the last unreformed CAP sector in the EU, which puts it in a better position vis-ŕ-vis other producers and farms. On the other hand, the justified claims of producers for the compensation of losses, similarly as the claims laid during the 1992 CAP reform, would disrupt the EAGGF budgetary framework through 2013, because only the claims of Slovak sugar beet producers would amount to some € 200 million during 2010-2015. We believe that the solution and consensus lies in the combination of reforms based on the scenarios of fixed quotas and falling prices, and/or the application of the "Midway situation" after 2011. The alternative setting of quotas, based the administratively assessed production efficiency levels for the individual EU countries, would also be unacceptable for Slovakia. In the recent past, the volume of investments in the Slovak sugar industry has been considerable and the most viable sugar refineries have already emerged from the selection process. The situation in the sugar beet sector is similar and the results of the "Fall in Prices" scenario until 2011 are largely similar to the situation before the accession to the EU.

The paper focuses on the evaluation of the contemporary situation of two economic sectors in the frame of the European Union, namely the wholesale and retail of agricultural and food products. For these industries, the structural profile with the indicators of turnover, value added and employment was elaborated. Hereafter the costs, productivity and profitability indicators ranking of the top 5 Member States were compared to the EU-25 averages. After a 3.1% increase in the turnover index in 2000, the evolution of sales for the agricultural wholesaling sector recorded a series of small increases and decreases in the turnover, ranging from - 0.6% in 2002 to 1.5% in 2004. Between 2000 and 2005, the agricultural wholesaling sector generally recorded a slower rate of expansion for turnover than the wholesale trade average. The specialised in-store food retailing sector generated EUR 120.4 billion of turnover in 2003. The wealth creation of the specialised in-store food retailing was valued at EUR 23.8 billion; equivalent to 6.5% of the retail trade and repair total, while this activity employed 1.4 million persons, some 9.0% of the retail trade and repair workforce. Half (49.9%) of the turnover in the specialised in-store food retailing sector in the EU was generated by enterprises selling fruit, vegetables, meat, fish or bakery products.

The article discusses economic development of Slovak agriculture in the period after the accession of Slovakia to the EU and after adopting the CAP. It evaluates agriculture as a whole and its contribution to the national economy, as well as the economic performance of the individual legal forms of business and production sectors. The results achieved by agriculture in 2004-2007 suggest that the income within the sector (except of 2005) has improved also due to the inflow of the EU subsidies. On the other hand, despite the growing aid the production output is shrinking, wages stagnate and the employment is falling. This suggests that the CAP should be changed after 2013, especially as regards the ways of subsidy payments. Economics of the individual products are largely affected by input prices, realisation prices, as well as by the volume of direct subsidies, namely in the plant production - the subsidies for crops grown on arable land, and in animal production - the subsidies per 1 Big Cattle Unit.

The paper presents the results of simulations for the Bruntál district as a remote rural area and Ostrava as an adjacent urban centre, based on the Computable General Equilibrium model. The model assesses spatial impacts of various agricultural policy and other economic conditions on the regional development of the study areas. The model utilizes a regional Social Accounting Matrix with economic inter-linkages between the rural-urban localities in the study areas. Four agricultural policy scenarios are assessed. All scenarios have negative impacts on the economy of the Bruntál district. Nevertheless, the scenario based on the switch of funds from the Pillar 1 to the Pillar 2 of the Common Agricultural Policy and on the degressive modulation of direct payments shows to be the most significant for the agricultural sector and the overall economy of the district.

This paper addresses (ex ante) the issue of the potential impact of the modulation of direct payments on a sector and regional scale in the Czech Republic. The ultimate version of the compulsory modulation measure adopted under the Health Check of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) assumes the reduction of direct payments if the total individual claim exceeds 5 thousand € or 300 thousand € level. The Czech agricultural sector will be impacted by this measure substantially, given the large scale farming enterprises. In 2013, the total farmers' direct payments will be cut by more than 10% (€ 91 million). Moreover, there are regional differences in farm structures (the average farm size and the extent of collectivization) which will bring about various effects of policies in the heterogeneous regions. The analysis further shows that the regions that are least affected are at the same time more environmental sensitive and are mostly situated in the mountainous or sub-mountainous parts of the country or more urban areas than the average. Hence the effect of the modulation, from a purely environmental perspective, may not contradict the objectives of other environmental policies. That is to say the regions that need support the most will be reduced the least. However, the picture is less obvious in the regional economies where more rural regions (potentially more vulnerable with socio-economic problems) tend to be more affected.

Global trends in world economy intervene into each sector of national economy. In the article, we focused on the dairy industry. The research was oriented at the national market of dairy products with the goal to assess the current situation on the market with these commodities. According to the acquired data, we compiled an overview of the current situation in the market and we pointed out the direction that should be followed by producers. The implementation of information systems is a necessary requirement to increase competitiveness in accordance with the specifics of dairy production.

This paper examines the productivity of hired and family labour and determinants of technical inefficiency of fish farms in Ghana. A modified Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function which accounts for zero usage of family and hired labour is employed on cross-sectional data of 150 farmers collected in 2007. The results reveal that family labour, hired labour, feed, seed, land, other costs and extension visit have a reasserting influence on fish farm production. Findings also show that family and hired labour used for fish farming production in Ghana may be equally productive. The combined effects of operational and farm specific factors (age, experience, land, gender, pond type and education) influence technical inefficiency although individual effects of some variables may not be significant. Mean technical efficiency is estimated to be 79 percent. Given the present state of technology and input level, the possibility of enhancing production can be achieved by reducing technical inefficiency by 21 percent through adoption of practices of the best fish farm.

Along with the rapid economic growth, there has been a booming demand for agricultural products in China, but the increased land usage for the manufacturing sector has caused a decrease in the total cultivated land. Through the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, this study first constructs the index of the total-factor cultivated land efficiency (TFCLE) by taking the ratio of the actual cultivated land input to target the cultivated land input. Next, we examine the determinants of inefficiency on the cultivated land use. Based on a province-level panel data over 1997-2006, the empirical estimates indicate that the TFCLE is moderate and fluctuates during the sample period, ranging from 0.601 to 0.713, suggesting room for efficiency improvement in Chinese farmland use. The coastal regions are found to experience a significantly higher degree of the TFCLE compared with non-coastal regions. Overall, there is no significant competition effect brought on by the WTO entry on promoting TFCLE, though this effect differs between the coastal and non-coastal regions. The second-stage regression results show that the natural and artificial disasters, flood, drought, and pollution are the the main causes of inefficiency. Innovative activity and the FDI are evidenced to have a significantly positive relation with the TFCLE in Chinese agriculture. We also find the positive TFCLE-enhancing the effects of production diversification and import competition.

The article deals with the assessment of income situation of the Czech households with the head person working or self-employed in the farm sector. The actual analyses result from initial consideration of the rise and dynamics of income disparities in our country. The primary data source are obtained from the European Union survey project - Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Our reference period, in view of the data availability at the time of the article processing, is represented by the year 2007. The core studied variable is represented by the volume of the income calculated for each household. The information obtained by the study of this variable was complemented by other variables enabling the logical validity check and analysis of the socioeconomic environment of households under examination. The main findings and conclusions are derived from the analysis of the decile and quintile classification of the relevant equivalized income data. The prime goal of the study was to quantify the share of the Czech agriculture related households living in the monthly income lower than 60% of the nationwide median value of the income variable under consideration. The households identified with such income position are referred to as the "households-at-risk-of-income poverty". The results are calculated per 1 physical household member, which the authors found more illustrative and easy to understand. The household size equalization procedures according to the EU and the OECD methodology will follow. This will enable the international comparison of the achieved results.

The paper deals with the analysis of the proposals of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy reform (the EU CAP) after 2013 and modelling forecast of its impacts on Slovak agriculture. The behaviour of business entities in agriculture is significantly influenced by the current support scheme and the level of support within the EU CAP but also by market conditions. The impacts of the particular scenarios on the changes of production indicate that Slovak agriculture will approach just slowly the 2008 production level. This will be decisively influenced by the price development. Despite of this, it is evident that the most favourable result can be achieved under the Flat Rate Scenario while the absolute abolition of direct payments (Liberal Scenario) will bring very unfavourable economic consequences with impacts on agricultural production in Slovakia.

Socio-economic backwardness is usually defined by common characteristics or classification. The differences between the DMEs and DCs in the case of resources (prevalence of DCs) and in the case of outputs and performance (prevalence of DMEs) is evident. The difference in the economic level and the level of living between the DCs and DMEs had deepened during the last three decades, however, it has to be pointed out again, that this difference is increasing still more slowly what can be a presage of an approaching turn (in the sense of the possible beginning of a slow decrease of this gap). While the per capita GDP indicator is regarded as one of the most important indicators of the economic level, the HDI can be regarded as the most important indicator of the given country population level of living and as such, it is hitherto rather underestimated. Similarly, the CPM indicator (as the measure of poverty), which is a composed indicator, has a higher testifying ability than a simple income level per capita in USD defined as the poverty level. It is obvious, that economic development is impossible without social development, and vice versa. Generally, the gap between the more developed developing countries, measured through the world income distribution, is then still widening. As a positive phenomenon, there can be, however, regarded the fact that deepening of this gap occurs at a lower rate. Through a more detailed analysis by the individual indicators, the most valuable from which are the indicators composed from several partial indicators (for example HDI, CPM), a certain tendencies towards the gradual improvement of the socio-economic situation in developing countries as a whole - but with the relevant differences in the individual regions of the world - can be discerned. In general, close ties have been proven between the economic growth and the growth of the population level of living, their mutual influencing and the main elements from which they are composed.

The study compares the role of agricultural green subsidies in rural development of the Czech Republic before and after joining the European Union (EU) in 2004. We use the perspective of multifunctional agriculture and contribute to the research on the contemporary trends in Czech agriculture by using the data collected through surveys in 2000 and 2006, as well as 2008 comparative statistical support, to ask if there have been significant changes and improvements in farmers' evaluations of these programs. The empirical case study results show some positive changes connected with the participation in the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). In spite of improvements, farmers continue to cite two primary weaknesses and constraints - administrative procedures and shifting program guidelines - that were evident prior to joining the EU. It can be assumed that the environmental subsidies in the Horizontal Rural Development Plan 2004-2006 have had an effect on the stabilization of the livelihoods of rural inhabitants. In general, there is a positive shift of valuation of the CAP among farmers in the Czech Republic.

The integration of Central and Eastern Europe into both the European and the world economy was in the last decade associated with a relatively high growth of gross domestic product and with a gradual increase in the economic level. The processes of convergence at the national level, however, were accompanied by an unbalanced spatial development. The paper analyzes, on the basis of the empirical statistical data, the impacts of the first years of the membership in the European Union on the development of regional differentiation and on development disparities between rural and urban regions. The evaluation of regional development is performed in regional units at the levels NUTS 2 and NUTS 3. Rural regions are monitored at the level of regional units NUTS 3. The examination based on the NUTS 2 units would not allow identifying of such a large number of rural areas.

The notion of international relationships is supplemented by other phenomena during the last time. One of them is globalisation, called on by technological, social and cultural changes, which have shortened the economic distance among countries. The improvement of transport and communication technologies has decreased transport costs of goods, people and information. Traditional governmental policies limiting the cross-border transactions were liberalised or removed what in consequence brought about the growth of international trade and foreign direct investments (FDI). Globalisation changes the properties of the world economy and influences the core of the successful economic approaches to development, what increases the need to secure the sustainability of economic development.

Whether the US Farm Bill 2008 has any impacts on China's agriculture, is highly related to the China's rural poverty alleviation and it deserves to be explored to see what will happen. According the existing empirical studies in the past, we expect that the US Farm Bill 2008 will exert an influence on the agricultural production and rural poverty in developing countries, especially China. In order to fully capture such an effect, we link two equilibrium models together: the multinational CGE model - GTAP and the China's partial equilibrium model - the China's Agricultural Policy Simulation and Projection Model (CAPSiM). A scenario based on the US Farm Bill 2008 will be constructed and compared with the baseline. A more liberalized scenario is also built for the simulation. The results have shown that the US Farm Bill 2008 has a little positive impact on the China's farmer income, and that the more liberalized the policy is, the more China will benefit.

Agriculture ensures the physical existence of the population and it creates a fund of basic foodstuffs. In addition, it produces non-food commodities as well as being a region forming and political element. It fulfils the function of an internal political stabilising factor and it is a requirement for an overall, balanced, development. The article puts into context: global agriculture; agricultural production within the expanded EU, which is developing under the conditions of the integrated Common Agricultural Policy. It also draws attention to the current trends characteristic of agriculture within the EU. Emphasis is also put on how the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is perceived, as well as its consequences for the agrarian production and the position of the EU in the international trade of agricultural products.

An increasing number of works on the rural-environmental connection can be found at present. However, their overview and classification are needed - this is the guiding idea of this paper. We distinguish three approaches to the rural-environmental connection and label them scientific approach, environmentalist approach, and development approach. In the paper, theories of environmental concern (post-materialism, paradigm shift, and ecological modernisation) are discussed at first and then a classification of works is proposed.