Fulltext search in archive

Globalisation is at the beginning of the new century a double-edged weapon: a strong driving force of economic growth, the development of new technologies and the growth of the level of living in the poor as well as rich countries, but also a controversory process which damages national sovereignty, undermines the local culture and traditions and presents a threat of the economic and social non-stability. The key question of the 21^st century then is, whether the states will be able to keep the process under control or whether they will become its victims.

This work presents results of a qualitative empirical study on practices of farmers participating in the Czech system of organic agriculture (ecological agriculture). Growth of this sector has been seen almost solely in positive terms, without questioning its content. However, Czech organic agriculture does not stem from the organic movement as is the case in Western Europe and therefore it is necessary to ask what it draws on and to discover, with regard to its nature, whether it can meet the expectations stated in official policies. This paper briefly describes the development of organic farming in other countries and the current problem of its conventionalization. The research study then shows evidence that organic farming is not adopted only because of state's subsidies, but also due to the specific value orientation of farmers, despite the history and the lack of tradition of these specific practices in the Czech Republic.

The paper is focused on the problems of income disparity in agriculture. This economic as well as social phenomenon is often discussed, especially at the administrative level, nevertheless, it has not been exactly defined and methodically delimited yet. The comparison of average wages of farmers with average wages in inhomogeneous industry and with average wages in the very sector-differentiated national economy used today can be considered as problematic. In the paper, the possible system of income disparity monitoring is suggested which would remove the current deficiencies. In its frame, a special attention is paid to regional aspects of income disparity and the relation of wages and labour productivity.

The submitted paper analyses the development of food industry in the Czech Republic in 2000-2006, its position (in 2006) and development trends of main economic indicators compared to the development of manufacturing industry. In comparison with the dynamic development of Czech manufacturing industry, key position of food industry has decreased. The monitored food sector has heterogeneous structure with regard to branches. In connection with these differences, development trends of separate branches are fluctuating but labour productivity of the food sector as a total has markedly accelerated.

On the 1^st of January 2009, the Slovak Republic should implement the Euro currency and enter the European Monetary Union. The implementation of the Euro currency is in currently the most important theme in our country. Business companies will benefit most, but they will also bear most of the single-shot costs. Up to 80% of the costs are constituted by the adaptation of information systems (IS). At the end of the year 2007, only 14% of Slovak companies were prepared in the terms of the Euro adaptation in IS. This condition of the business sector is very important and also alarming. Accelerated preparations of the changes in IS are needful, but this project is highly complicated, primarily in big business organizations. The quality of the realized project and the continuous transmission of IS will be a critical point of the firm success on the Slovak and European markets.

The main attention of the submitted paper is devoted to the comparison of development of entrepreneurship in Slovak and Polish small and medium-sized he enterprise sector. The conditions for blooming entrepreneurship are created in the national economy. Especially the role of SMEs in the transition economy, both in Slovakia and Poland, has the impact on SMEs. The entrepreneurship of small and medium-sized enterprises is extended in the whole Slovakia. From the viewpoint of the regional structure, most enterprises are located in the Bratislavský region (30.4%), Košický region (11.8%), Žilinský region (10.1%) and Trenčianský region (10.1%). On the other hand, the least of enterprises were registered in the Nitrianský region (8.9%), Trnavský region (9.2%) and Banskobystrický region (9.6%). Small and medium entrepreneurship is diversed throughout Poland. The average small and medium entreprenership ratio is 44.5, while the highest is in the Mazowieckie region - 55.2% and the lowest in the Podkarpackie region - 30 %. The supporting system for private entrepreneurship in both countries, Slovakia and Poland, is very similar and the entrepreneurs are satisfied with its offer and help.

The paper deals with the crucial phenomena of changes of the entrepreneurial environment of agriculture caused by the globalisation processes in the agrarian sector and their connection with the criteria of competitiveness of the present agricultural enterprises. It examines the influence of forming agribusiness and the demand driven terms of commodity chains functioning on the position of agricultural companies and the directly related segments in the field of the processing of agricultural products from the perspective of achieving competitive advantage. In this connection, the methodological approach to competitiveness is discussed according to the horizontal level, i.e. the particular stage of production or processing of the final product, and the vertical level, i.e. the interconnection of the individual stages of the vertical and their share in the value added in the final product as a prerequisite of the successful participation in forming competitiveness.

The paper deals with the analysis of the typology of unemployed people in agriculture. Approximately 35-40% of people from this unemployment group have already no more chance to be reintegrated into the labour market. The analysis points to out the regional occurrence of this type of unemployment (less urbanised sub-mountain areas, stagnating and backward regions facing various processes of de-industrialisation, etc) and evaluates its wider socio-economic impacts. After 2000, the fragmentation of employment contracts in the corporative types of farms (agricultural co-operatives and companies) begins to appear in the agricultural sector. The category of seasonal agricultural workers with decreased labour and social protection begins to emerge as well. As a result of the strategy to cope with the situation, a certain self-supplying (subsistence farming) subculture was established in the Slovak rural areas to mitigate the difficult economic conditions of the rural households endangered by income deprivation, including the decreased purchasing power of rural population.

The paper deals with the development of the organic sector in the Czech Republic and by this it joins the current debate on the conventionalisation of organic agriculture. Using the case study method, it explores the situation of organically reared chicken. The main goal of the study is to find out to what extent the methods of organic farmers comply with the model of sustainable food production. The empirical analysis is based on the quantitative and qualitative approach. The results point out three different groups of producers, which are then described in detail with regard to their practices. The study suggests that the organic sector in the Czech Republic is becoming more differentiated and some of its current forms may violate the principles of sustainability. At the same time, it argues that this situation results from a more general framework of the modern society, which entails structures that are contradicting per se the sustainable model of food production.

After 1989, Czech economy was transformed into free market economy and this brought many changes into agricultural sector. One of the changes was the decline of the volume of agricultural production which caused that many of objects used in agriculture lost their function and were not needed any more. Here begins the origin of agricultural brownfields. There was no interest in this problem for a long period; a bigger attention paid to brownfields started in the context of the Czech Republic entrance into the EU and with the possibility to draw finances for the brownfields' regeneration from the structural funds of the EU. This article deals with the problematic of agricultural brownfields in the Vysocina Region since there were located 44 brownfields of this type and it is important to know about this and to set up a strategy to solve this problem.

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 accession to the EU for our major trading partners shows that the active balance of the CR with Slovakia increased to 12.0 billion CZK per year; on the contrary, in relation to Poland, the trade deficit of 6.4 billion CZK per year was recorded while Germany strengthened its position in relation to the CR by an increase in the negative balance to 5.4 billion CZK and in relation to Austria, our adverse balance is maintained at the level of 1.1 to 1.2 billion CZK per year for a long time. After the accession to the EU, it was confirmed that the former EU 15 countries took a greater advantage of the customs union enlargement in the framework of the EU 27.

In connection with the conception and realisation of the principles of sustainable development, profound changes happen with regard to the position and role of agrarian sector in the frame of the national economy development. Not only developed states respond to these changes, but also the so-called "candidate countries" should react. The contribution is applied to the problems of determination and definition of indicators that characterise regions so that it would be possible, based on them, to determine the prosperity of individual regions.

The paper deals with the FDI spillover effects in production of beer and malt in Slovakia. Malt producers have a dominant position in the market. The use of the almost monopsonistic power of malt producers is constrained the by low asset specificity of primary producers of barley, other outlets for the disposal of barley (export), and demand for high quality of malt from malt producers. Because of high dependence of malt producers for high quality and reliable deliveries of barley, malt producers provide a significant assistance of primary farmers.

This paper analyses the development of agricultural foreign trade in Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic with the aim of uncovering the changes that have impacted the Central European agricultural trade over the ten year period (1999-2008). It issues from the results of the analysis of agricultural trade in the aforementioned countries, which has changed dramatically in terms of the commodity structure, the territorial structure and primarily the value structure. The main changes to have caused most of the changes to the individual characteristics of agricultural foreign trade in the particular countries under analysis are the process of the EU enlargementy, the adoption of obligations to ensue from the EU membership and the concentration in the internal market of the EU countries. We can see the actual changes in the commodity and territorial structure of the trade carried out in the individual countries under analysis. The changes which have occurred resulted in a dominant share of the member countries of the EU 27 in the agricultural trade of the individual countries under analysis.

This contribution deals with the concept of the Enterprise Architecture, the practice that tries to describe and control an organization structure, processes, applications, systems and technology infrastructure, software components, services and roles in enterprise. It links the goals, resources and rule in enterprise with the processes and activities in business organization and creates a large document for planning, investing and the enterprise information strategy. The aim of the article is the methodological approach, the common method for development of the Enterprise Architecture document. What is important in this document? All business managers must make sense of the architecture to optimize their activities according to the specific business goals and to develop a strategy for the innovation and for the introduction improvements in the current business situation and into the future. The Enterprise Architecture can serve as a basis of business knowledge. The description principles should be applied in every area of industry also in the Czech agriculture area. The conclusions of the paper evaluate the knowledge context and discuss the necessity of establishing the Enterprise Architecture in the company.

The article presents the results from the monitoring analyses of the buying/selling prices of agricultural land in accordance with the deposited contracts in the Real Estate Cadastre in years 2001-2008. Agricultural land sales, land areas and market prices are observed and evaluated under the size structure of the sold estates and their anticipated further utilization in the counties Dunajská Streda, Topoľčany, Rimavská Sobota, Liptovský Mikuláš, Michalovce and Svidník and for all observed counties as a whole. By data analyzing and evaluating of the agricultural land purchases/sales, there was taken into consideration the fact that the average price of the sold estates is to a large extent influenced by their size, location and the purpose of further utilisation. The estates of small area characterized as agricultural land are selling for the highest prices, but they already figure in the development studies and the land-use plans of the villages or they are regarded as building estates in the future. Therefore, the sold estates were divided into two categories in accordance with the expected further land utilization. As the estates for further agricultural utilization, there were considered the estates with the area above 1 hectare of agricultural land. In the case of smaller estates, it is assumed that they will be of building, recreational, sporting or other utilization after the landowner change.

The article discusses the prediction of the agrarian employment development in Slovakia in the new programming period, i.e. in the perspective of 2014-2020. The introduction covers the analysis of the current state in 2009 when 65.3 thousand of persons were employed within agriculture. The development of employment in the target years will be characterised by the increased number of self-employed persons, the increased social polarisation between the owners of enterprises or managers and agricultural employees. The class of the socially degraded agricultural pensioners characterised by income deprivation will be formed. Under the influence of the EU CAP reform, the decline in agrarian employment in the less-productive Northern districts of Slovakia and significant spatial changes in labour force distribution are being expected in dependence on the productive conditions of the agricultural production.

The contribution presents the modelling solution of the potential scenarios impact of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union after 2013 in the selected sectors of the Slovak Republic national economy. The solution is accomplished using the Computable General Equilibrium model with the emphasis on the productive and less favourable agricultural areas and the theoretical rents for agricultural land. If we take into consideration both pillars of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, according to the modelling calculations in Slovak conditions the most favoured is the Conservative scenario, the Reference and the Flat Rate scenario are neutral and the least favourable is the Liberalisation scenario.

Significant price volatility has been observed at the world agri-food markets in these latter years. It has been caused by the triggers of the so-called market shocks that negatively influenced the stability of supply and demand of agri-food commodities. The contribution analyzes the causes of the price volatility incidence, it calls attention to the potential jeopardy of the price volatility transmission on the territory of Slovakia and it finds appropriate measures for its elimination. The price volatility of the Slovak agri-food commodities was reviewed pursuant to the variation coefficient calculation in three consecutive five-year intervals.

The problem of international debts is, by its character, one of the most complex problems which the world economy is now facing. It complicates both the global balance of payments and the financial - credit system stability, with pronounced negative impacts on the currency stabilisation. It hinders the development of international economic co-operation and its higher forms - international economic integration. It is one of the reasons that the symmetrical forms of interdependence are pushed off and displaced by the asymmetrical ones. The global debts problem deteriorates, namely during the last time in interaction with the negative manifestations of the global problems (for example, at present very strongly with the environmental problems), the complex international co-operation climate.

The article concentrates on the changes of ownership ongoing in Polish agriculture in the period 1989-2004. Since Polish agriculture was above all private in nature throughout the period of communism, the changes in question were actually more limited than in other Central and East European Countries (CEEC). Those that have taken place have first and foremost involved the privatisation of the old State Farms, whose assets were taken over by individually-owned farms or commercial-law companies, with the intermediation of the Treasury Agricultural Property Agency established for the purpose. A major element of the assets undergoing privatisation was agricultural land. The size of the ownership change has varied from region to region. In the West and North, where more than half of all farmland was in the State Farm hands to 1989, there was a marked increase in the share of land under private ownership. On the other hand, in Central and Eastern Poland, the changes were very limited, concerning only the transfer of land between private farms. Important reasons accounting for the limited activity on the market for land in this part of Poland include the agrarian overpopulation and the widespread treatment of land as a form of the "insurance policy" against job losses. The ownership changes have further encouraged polarisation where farm size structure is concerned. Farms increased in size in the regions where the large average area has long been a typical feature. In turn, the areas characterised by the excessive agrarian fragmentation have not seen any more major changes in the size structure over the recent period. A detailed analysis of the changes in ownership over the market economy period is preceded by a discussion of the history of land ownership in Polish agriculture, with a particular emphasis being placed on the Communist era. The legal and social bases conditioning ownership change are also discussed.

Every year, an analysis of economic results of a sample of agricultural enterprises farming in various production and climatic conditions in the territory of the Czech Republic is carried out by applying economic statistical methods. Based on these results, long-term trends of economic results and their influencing factors are defined. This article is based on the analysis of development of economic indicators of a sample of agricultural enterprises in the Czech Republic in the period 2003-2009, divided according to the proportion of the LFA. The year 2009 brought, in comparison with the previous years, a strong deterioration in economic results. In 2009, the economic result was the worst during the whole monitored period. The decrease in the average number of workers together with the increase in labour productivity manifests a long-term tendency. Agricultural subsidies tend also to grow in the long-term even though their growth has been slowing down.

The article is interested in the problems of consumer's behaviour in the food market and namely the determining factors of his (her) behaviour according to the neoclassical theory approaches and its modern modifications, which are compared here with the concepts of other authors. It also is interested in the possibilities of the marginalist analytical apparatus in the consumer's decision-making.

The paper analyzes the main indicators of the economic position of companies in the field of food industry in Vojvodina. The examined nine-year period coincides with the final stage of the ownership transformation in the Republic of Serbia. Given the length of the examined period, a considerable devaluation of the national currency (60.6%) and a high inflation rate (125.7%), all values are shown in Euros. The increasing business activity in the period of interest is not accompanied by the appropriate financial effects. Food industry enterprises achieved a positive financial result for most of the years in the given period, but with modest profit rates (0.15-3.18%). Net working capital covers only 42.5% in average of the base stock, indicating an unfavourable financial structure and serious liquidity problems. An unacceptably high level of indebtness has been achieved (58.1%), which significantly reduces financial results due to the high financing expense. A further increase of export, combined with the recapitalization by the owners and a partial refinancing of credits, is the way to the companies' financial recovery.

The research presented in the paper was aimed at analyzing the economic performance of organic farms in the Czech Republic and at evaluating their operation in variants (i.e. including or excluding subsidies). The research was targeted solely at legal entities due to a limited data base. The performance of organic farms (individual kinds of legal entities) was compared by regions with the agricultural enterprises farming conventionally. The organic farms economic profit was as well assessed in relation to their field of activity. Based on the analysis made, the economic situation is more favourable for the organically farming enterprises. Their economic results are actively influenced by subsidies without which an absolute majority of enterprises would be operating at a loss. (When including subsidies in the yields, 84.9% farms of the sample were profitable. On the other hand, while excluding subsidies, 95.7% of the enterprises were loss-making.) Economic success of the farms is influenced - together with subsidies - by the natural and climatic conditions as well as and by their field of activities. The enterprises farming permanent grassland (solely or in combination with a different culture) prevail. A lower intensity of this farming is reflected in the more favourable economic results.

This article examines the factor content of agricultural trade in the Central and East European (CEE) transition countries. It relates the factor content of agricultural trade to the cross-country differences in technology stemming from different farm organisations between the CEE countries agricultural sectors and to the differences in relative factor endowments. The relative factor endowments alone do not satisfactorily explain agricultural trade flows in the CEE countries. We find that transaction costs and market imperfections that affect the organisation of production also distort farm specialisation and hence V the actor content of agricultural trade.

Recent information campaigns of media and the ongoing substantive discussions of experts have been more and more devoted to the climate change issue and its impacts that could affect our future and threaten the sustainable and balanced development of the planet Earth. However, the categorical apparatus as presented at the above mentioned events is not always used correctly and the same is true about the objective interpretation of the very nature of the processes. Also the explanations of realistic options of governance to mitigate and streamline the effects associated with climate variability in order to achieve the least possible damage of global environment are not always given appropriately. Because of a lack of specific statistical data on climate variability, which are usually at the sole disposal of professional climate scientists, and owing to the attention the public pays to these phenomena only at times of climatic anomalies (floods, extreme heat and drought, etc.), the issue is still on the edge of a broader awareness of people and academic research. This paper is in essence an overview of scientific works, which aims to contribute to the understanding of the issue of climate change by the means of summarizing the main approaches and use of categories, defining their substance and especially clarifying the phenomena in relation to possibilities of global governance.

By the means of Land Consolidation is understood, in accord with law No. 139/2002 Coll., spending of funds on land consolidations and land offices, provided the accessibility of grounds in public interest. Land consolidations also ensure the conditions for improvement of the ecosystem, protection and reclamation of land resources, waterway management and the increase of the ecological stability of landscape. All mentioned measures are collectively called the Common Measures, rural roads being one of the most significant of these measures as far as the ground accessibility is concerned. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Land Office (MZe, ÚPÚ) statistics, for instance in 2008, over 707.4 million CZK was spent on the common measures projects from the public funds. Of this sum, 82 per cent was spent on financing of the land accessibility projects - rural roads and objects on them. The Cost & Benefit Analysis (CBA) method was applied. The analysis explains step by step what benefits the investment projects bring and to whom, as well as what and from whom it takes something away. Thus defined effects and impacts are aggregated, converted into financial flows and included in the calculation of criteria indicators. These calculations enable to make decision whether the concerned project is in its consequences generally contributive. There is a difficulty in the method - it is applied ex-ante, which usually leads to the exaggerated input parameters, which may be significantly affected by a number of variable effects (time factor, socio-economic impacts, inflation rate, etc.). The ex-post application of the method cannot be objectively used due to the absence of the statistically processed input data for the analysis. Such data must be collected during the operational period of the realized investments. This is caused by the fact that these analyses consider lifetime of these investments in terms of 25-30 years. The ÚPÚ statistics, however, say that the operational period of most of realized common measures has not reached one half of their lifetime yet. The ex-ante analysis enables to evaluate the possible difficulty and the general benefit of projects, including their impact on the broad spectrum of subjects.

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.