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Strategic documents are considered the basic tools for managing and coordinating any company's development, setting the basic development directions and goals that the company wants to achieve and the ways to achieve them. It is always necessary to reconcile the diverse interests of interest groups in relation to the development of a given enterprise to make efficient use of resources and opportunities, as far as possible without conflicts. The classification, meaning, and contents of companies' strategic documents are most often based on their established practice. The article's main goal is to identify the level of implementation of a group of implemented strategic documents aimed at increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of agricultural enterprises in the Czech Republic. The data, which were subjected to factor analysis, were obtained via a questionnaire survey from 70 agricultural enterprises in the Czech Republic. The results part contains also results from qualitative research (focus group, n = 7). The results showed that agricultural enterprises implement groups of so-called conservative strategies and competence development strategies. Most of the surveyed agricultural enterprises have a formulated innovation strategy, while 56% of enterprises do not have an implemented environmental strategy.

In the present study, we have investigated several competing stochastic frontier models which differ in terms of the form of the production function (Cobb-Douglas or translog), inefficiency distribution (half-normal or exponential distribution) and type of prior distribution for the parameters (hierarchical or non-hierarchical from the Bayesian point of view). This last distinction corresponds to a difference between random coefficients and fixed coefficients models. Consequently, this study aims to examine to what extent inferences about estimates of farms' efficiency depend on the above assumptions. Moreover, the study intends to investigate how far the production function's characteristics are affected by the choice of the type of prior distribution for the parameters. First of all, it was found that the form of the production function does not impact the efficiency scores. Secondly, we found that measures of technical efficiency are sensitive to distributional assumptions about the inefficiency term. Finally, we have revealed that estimates of technical efficiency are reasonably robust to the prior information about the parameters of crop farms' production technology. There is also a resemblance in the elasticity of output with respect to inputs between the models considered in this paper. Additionally, the measurement of returns to scale is not sensitive to model specification.

High-quality information systems explicitly focused on working with people help companies meet the increasingly complex requirements for registration of attendance, forms, employment contracts, and much more. The article's main goal is to identify areas of human resources management for which agricultural companies in the Czech Republic use information systems to increase the efficiency of processes and evaluate the development of their usage with regard to the support of digitisation. The data, which were subjected to factor analysis, were obtained via a questionnaire survey from selected 70 agricultural companies in the Czech Republic and via qualitative research (focus group, n = 7). The largest share of monitored agricultural holdings is using IT systems in the area of personal data, while the smallest share of monitored agricultural holdings is using software for monitoring education and knowledge transfer. Factor analysis identified 4 factors that characterise agricultural companies according to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in human resource management. The results show that in terms of the current shift of the entire agriculture towards digitisation, the use of ICT in staff management of companies cannot be neglected. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates the use of ICT.

The study aimed to examine the changes in income inequalities in Polish farms and the impact of introducing the threshold of direct payments for farms (EUR 60 000) to form these inequalities. The research was based on data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) for the years: 2006, 2013 and 2018. In each year, the sample included at least 10 000 observations that represented over 700 000 farms. The results were verified using statistical tests relating to the comparisons of averages and distributions of farm income for two samples and the Gini coefficient. The study noted deepening income inequalities in Polish farms, as evidenced by the increasing value of the Gini coefficient in the subsequent years and the growing share of payments in the formation of these inequalities. Neither for the sample analysed nor the field of observation of farms will introduce the threshold for direct payments per farm of at least EUR 60 000 (including labour costs) change the polarisation of income.

Palm oil is a superior product from Indonesia that is continuously and widely used for daily needs such as cooking, grooming, and manufacturing. However, this potential must be supported by oil palm business actors' performance to maintain its intensity and competitiveness. This study investigates how various factors affect Indonesia's crude palm oil (CPO) export intensity and competitiveness by employing panel regression and the basic gravity model. The panel data used here is a 20-year time series with cross-sections from five major importers from 1999 to 2018. The results show that the importer's gross domestic product (GDP) and quantity of export significantly and positively affect Indonesia's CPO export intensity, while the exporter's GDP and economic distance has a significant and negative effect. The factors that positively and significantly influence competitiveness are soybean's import value and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification, while Malaysian CPO's export and population of importing countries negatively affect Indonesian CPO competitiveness.

We use chaotic artificial neural network (CANN) technology to predict the price of the most widely traded agricultural futures - soybean futures. The nonlinear existence test results show that the time series of soybean futures have multifractal dynamics, long-range dependence, self similarity, and chaos characteristics. This also provides a basis for the construction of a CANN model. Compared with the artificial neural network (ANN) structure as our benchmark system, the predictability of CANN is much higher. The ANN is based on Gaussian kernel function and is only suitable for local approximation of nonstationary signals, so it cannot approach the global nonlinear chaotical hidden pattern. Improving the prediction accuracy of soybean futures prices is of great significance for investors, soybean producers, and decision makers.

This paper proposes a model for determining the most advantageous merger within a set of dairy farms. It uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to estimate the total technical efficiency improvement that the merger would produce and for decomposing it into a learning effect and a pure merger effect. A design of experiments has also been carried to test the effects of various factors (the total number of farms, the standard deviation of herd size, the percentage of farms exhibiting increasing returns to scale, the standard deviation of the current technical efficiency of the farms) on different response variables (the percentage of farms involved in the merger, the reduction of herd size and the efficiency improvement obtained by the merger). The results show that the disparity in the herd size of the farms in a region and the percentage of farms that exhibit increasing returns to scale increase the number of farms that enter into the most advantageous merger. The disparity of herd size also increases the number of cows that are not needed after the merger. Finally, the expected efficiency improvement increases with the total number of farms.

In this modern era, the detection of plant disease plays a vital role in the sustainability of agricultural ecosystem. Today, India being second in farming, well-timed information related to crop is still questioning. Indian Government's farmer portal is available for pesticides, fertilisers, and farm machinery. To alleviate this problem, the paper describes a model to validate the leaf image, predicting leaf disease and notifying the farmer in an effective way on the harvest failure to stabilise farming income. For specific consideration on the validation, a data set library with predefined, uniformly scaled, regular image patterns of leaf disease, is maintained. The research suggests that farmers utilising the model can predict the breakout of leaf disease predominantly acquiring 100% yield.

This paper examines the global soybean market in a holistic way, analyses the land use and other historical determinants of soybean exports, such as labour and capital endowments, soybean productivity, international prices and demand conditions through an empirical model. In addition, it pays particular attention to the role of leading exporters in the export changes and the nature of the connections between them in an interrelated system. The results suggest that the productivity per hectare and the land used to harvest soybeans are the main factors explaining soybean exports in a global context. The analysis also reveals that Brazil, the current market leader, positively influences the other exporters. On the contrary, minor exporters such as Ukraine, Paraguay, or Canada present competitive relationships with the major exporters. The nature of the relationships between the exporters and the pressure on natural resources highlight the importance of government involvement in developing joint strategies that ensure the growth of this sector and the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The purpose of the paper was to analyse changes in food consumption patterns in the European Union (EU) countries and link these patterns with food production and imports. The two research questions posed by the authors were as follows i): are the structures of the consumption, production and importation of food becoming more similar or more diverse among EU countries, and ii) are changes in food consumption patterns caused by changes in domestic production, or has food been imported to a greater extent from abroad. The study investigated countries which that have been continuously keeping relevant statistics since 1961. The food consumption structures recorded in the years 1961-1969 and 2010-2017 were compared among these countries. Following this, the countries were grouped into subsets using the criterion of greatest similarity in terms of food consumption structures. The same was done in the case of their food production and imports. The study found that countries were becoming increasingly similar in terms of their consumption patterns. An opposite situation occurred concerning food production. In the case of food imports, structural diversity between countries decreased. It follows that changes in food consumption patterns mainly occurred through the adjustment of imports.

This study aims to test the overshooting effect of agricultural prices and the absorber hypothesis of exchange rates by extending the existing overshooting model. Using a combination of modern time series methods and monthly aggregate data from China, we demonstrate that overshooting of agricultural prices does indeed occur since the impact of monetary expansion on flexible agricultural prices is significantly larger than on relatively sticky industrial prices. Granger causality tests confirm that monetary expansion is a possible determinant of the movements of both agricultural and industrial prices, thus providing a solid empirical foundation for the overshooting hypothesis. Our findings also confirm the absorber hypothesis, in that the overshooting effect of agricultural prices under a fixed exchange rate regime (ERR) is shown to be greater than that under a floating ERR. The main policy implication is that policymakers should pay attention to the spillover effect of monetary expansion on agricultural prices when adjusting macroeconomic policies, especially under a fixed ERR.

Recently, the growing interest in healthy and organic nutrition has led to an increase in both the consumption and production of olive oil. The fact that olive and olive oil production is mostly concentrated in the countries with a coastline on the Mediterranean has rendered their olive oil exports important in meeting the increasing demand for olive oil. For the exporting countries, this has raised the issues of having a large share in the international olive oil market and increasing their competitiveness. The importance of increasing competitiveness, especially for countries that generate income from agricultural production, is the driving force for conducting this study. The aim of the study was to determine the factors affecting the comparative advantages of the leading olive oil-exporting countries. In this context, the olive oil production, consumption and unit export prices of Turkey, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Tunisia for the 2000-2019 period were tested with a panel data analysis method to ascertain whether these variables have any significant effect on the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index. According to the findings, olive oil production affects the RCA index positively, whereas olive oil consumption affects it negatively in a statistically significant way.

Having evaluated the situation in agriculture and rural areas, and having assessed the significance of new external and internal conditions, the European Commission has decided to reform the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. This article presents the essence of the part of the reform plan which affects the direct support system. The author of the article also examines the impact of the reform on the system's capacity to achieve the set goals, and on its efficiency. The research showed that the new legal framework proposed by the Commission would not directly improve the efficiency of the system, but the increased decision-making authority it grants to Member States provides an opportunity to reduce administrative outlays on the functioning of the scheme. Likewise, the effectiveness of a reformed direct support system in achieving the set goals will largely depend on decisions made by Member States, i.e. on the appropriate choice of instruments, and the accuracy of their form, as well as the equitable distribution of the available funds.

Unstable conditions in the milk market in the Czech Republic (CR) and in the European Union (EU), mainly due to volatility of milk prices, are increasing pressure on dairy farmers to maximise production at the lowest possible production costs. Break-even point (BEP) analysis is a useful tool in dairy herd management for determining minimum requirements for profitability. BEP values for milk yield and milk price were calculated based on data obtained from 95 dairy farms in the CR. BEP values were estimated also for another eight EU countries based upon production and cost data from the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). With the milk price ranging from EUR 28 to EUR 38 per 100 L and while excluding subsidies, zero profitability would be achieved on Czech dairy farms with milk yields ranging from 6 706 L to 13 151 L per cow and from 7 450 L to 14 088 L per cow in Czech Fleckvieh (C) and Holstein (H) herds, respectively. In order to achieve 5% profitability, the milk yield would need to increase by 21%. Considerable variability exists among EU countries in estimated BEP values depending upon average milk yields, input prices, and milk prices in different countries.

At present, the New Common Agricultural Policy for the period 2021-2027 has been currently formulated. Future of the agriculture and food industry is now widely discussed. These sectors play an important role, and it is necessary to maintain their competitiveness and sustainability. In this context, the main aim of the paper is to evaluate the technical efficiency of food processing firms by using Stochastic Frontier Analysis applying True Fixed Effect model on production function. It was identified, that increase of subsidies cause a slight increase in the mean of technical inefficiency. Also, the technical efficiency of the firms without subsidies is higher than in the subsidised firms and differs statistically significantly in the time and also with respect to the region of the firm. To summarise, the effect of subsidies is negative as the obtaining of the subsidies is not related to higher technical efficiency.

Farmers' markets have been booming in recent years and are becoming an important alternative food network. They enable farmers to sell their products directly to customers and thus shorten the supply chain. Market organisers must meet the needs of both consumers and vendors by ensuring customer satisfaction while maintaining profitability for vendors. The present study identified four basic segments at farmers' markets, as follows: (1) product-oriented customers; (2) personal social responsibility-oriented customers; (3) entertainment and emotional-oriented customers; (4) alternative food-oriented customers. These segments were analysed using Structural Equation Modeling in relation to the amount of money spent on average at a farmers' market. The results indicate that most money was spent at farmers' market segments that are oriented at entertainment and emotional-oriented and product-oriented customers. This indicates that farmers' markets are no longer just a place to purchase fresh, high-quality food, but also a place that people visit for its atmosphere, for the food that can be eaten on-site, and to buy products not for direct consumption (e.g. flowers). It also proved the negative moderation effect of entertainment-oriented motivation on the amount of money spent with connection to product-orientation, which suggests that entertainment-orientated customers spend more than product-oriented customers.

In Catalonia, agroecological cooperativism is part of a set of alternatives that appeared as a response to the current hegemonic food consumption model, controlled by large commercial establishments. It is defined by its promotion of short food supply chains (SFSCs), operates under the values of the social and solidarity economy (SSE) and holds a strong political commitment. This article, on the one hand, studies the setup of agroecological cooperativism understood as the outcome of a network of producers, intermediaries and consumers and, on the other hand, examines the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the development of this consumption model. The data has been obtained through on-site interviews and online research on the 56 consumer groups and cooperatives present in Barcelona. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis have been used to study them. The results prove the salient role that ICT has as a facilitator in the relational network established between the agents that take part in it, thus becoming a key characteristic element of the new agroecological consumer cooperativism.

Taking action aimed at creating an attractive agritourism product contributes to the development of rural tourism. The main purpose of this study is to present reflections regarding the assumptions of the experience economy and their possible application in developing an agritourism product. The conducted empirical research involved a diagnostic survey method based on a standardized questionnaire. The study results show that the owners of Polish agritourism farms, when focusing on the material components of their offer, should also recognize the need to design memorable experiences for their clients.

In the agricultural industry, many brokers exploit the benefits between farmers and customers and decrease the farmers' income. As the technology has developed, the internet has become the best advertising medium for many industries. In light of this, this study based on the Google Earth has designed an on-line Agricultural Products Navigation System operated by mobile devices which can easily exclude brokers, and build the bridge between farmers and customers in order to increase the farmers income and customer benefits. Moreover, based on the IS success model of DeLone and McLean, by using the qualitative methodology, it is expected that this model will be able to provide system developers with the knowledge to improve the success of their systems.

Thai economic growth lags behind all other ASEAN countries because its export dependence along with the political and economic vulnerabilities. With the growing bioeconomy worldwide, Thailand needs a clear bioeconomy roadmap as a new growth engine for its economy. Four potential clusters to build bioeconomy in Thailand include the bioenergy, bio-based industry, bio-food and bio-agriculture, and bio-medicine and health. There are roadmaps for only the first two clusters. The paper discusses the potential bio-based products for the bio-food and bio-agriculture as well as bio-medicine and health and proposes the use of the Pracharath strategy to build bioeconomy in Thailand with the main objective of creating the sustainable economy. Since a smart community is a key driver for the sustainable economy, five steps to smart community proposed in the paper will immune communities in the rural area of Thailand, make them self-reliant, and remove the dependency culture.

For the period 2007-2013 LEADER became the fourth axis of rural development policy. One of the main characteristics of LEADER is that it adopts a bottom-up approach. Local Action Groups (LAGs) have to define and implement area-based local development strategies (LDSs). In this paper, we examine the relationship between variety in the LDSs implemented by LAGs and employment safeguarding over the programming period 2007-2013 in Andalusia, the most populated region of Spain. Firstly, we construct several indicators to capture differences in the number of projects carried out, the grants awarded, the investments made and the safeguarded employment. Secondly, we carry out an exploratory factor analysis. We use cluster analysis to classify LAGs applying similar LDSs. The results obtained show that there is no ideal strategy for employment safeguarding and that spending high amounts of money in a few numbers of projects does not guarantee success. Thus, most LAGs do not show any clear specialisation pattern but obtain moderate results in terms of employment safeguarding. This supports the idea that LAGs need to have sufficient flexibility to find a balance among the different objectives of the rural development policy and to translate this balance into the funding of projects.

The paper deals with Czech households' subjective views on food waste. It examines households' attitudes to food waste, including the causes of food waste. The primary data were obtained via a questionnaire survey with 1 582 respondents. The analyses allowed the identification of three categories of Czech households with different attitudes to food waste and its causes. These findings provide a basis for a proper selection of corrective measures aimed at amending or even completely transforming the current behaviour.

This article analyses the competitiveness of dairy farms in Poland in relation to selected EU countries. The competitive advantage of dairy farms was evaluated and compared based on remuneration for family labour. Two variants of the above indicator were calculated: (1) Remuneration for family labour (FL1) as the relationship between farm net income and the farmer's unpaid labour input, and (2) Remuneration for family labour (FL2) as the relationship between farm net income minus the opportunity costs of own land and capital to the farmer's unpaid labour input. The calculations were performed based on EU FADN (European Union Farm Accountancy Data Network) data for an average dairy farm in 2005, 2010 and 2016. The study revealed the highest average remuneration for family labour (FL1) in Irish and German dairy farms. The value of the second indicator (FL2) was also highest in Germany, followed by France. The analysis produced interesting results regarding dairy farms in Denmark and the Netherlands which were characterised by the highest scale of production in the evaluated period (high net value added), but very low farm incomes and remuneration for family labour. The study revealed that Polish dairy farms were characterised by average competitiveness relative.

The paper aims to investigate family farm income volatility by decomposing disposable farm income (DFI) into the on-farm income, income from production support and off-farm income (OFI) over time. The research is focused on the OFI, assessing its role in achieving DFI above reference level based on the average net earnings. Three main indicators consistent with Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) were indicated. The research results revealed the significance of OFI. In 2017, 76% of the family farms were engaged in off-farm activities indicating, on one hand that such approaches as part-time farming or lifestyle farming are becoming more attractive to Lithuanian family farmers. On the other hand, research disclosed that farms mostly engaged in off-farm activities yield the lowest on-farm income levels. Moreover, the OFI tends to produce a stabilizing effect on quite a number of farmers as the majority of family farms cannot rely upon the on-farm income as their only income source. Thus, the agricultural and rural development policy makers, aimed at supporting viable farm income and strengthening farm resilience, have to answer the part-time farmers' needs.

Mexican agricultural production has been characterised by a lack of dynamism in recent years and is losing ground in terms of GDP. This may reflect the lack of funding from commercial and development banks. This research aims at studying the dynamics of the agriculture sector through econometric analysis using Vector Autoregressive (VAR) and Vector Error Correction (VEC) models in order to examine the short- and long-run relationships among agricultural production, terms of trade (ratio of agricultural prices and general price level), agricultural exports and lending from commercial and development banks. The main empirical findings, contrary to what was expected, is that even though there was a precarious level of funding from the banking sector, credit from commercial banking was higher than that from development banking in the last decades. Further, relative prices were found to have a negative relationship with agricultural exports, showing the importance of the external sector in agriculture.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) emphasizes the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food in its Rome Declaration. This article suggests how this noble FAO goal can be achieved. We suggest that a first step could be the introduction of a global meat tax, where the size of the negative externalities from meat production could be calculated based on foresight and big data. Applying the tool of a global meat tax will lead to a "double dividend" as negative externalities are reduced and at the same time huge tax revenues will be generated which could be used to make further steps in the direction of achieving the stated FAO goal in the Rome Declaration.

For at least 25 years, processes involving structural changes have been growing more and more intense in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with these processes including a decline in the number of small farms. The main aim of this paper is to present the mechanisms involved in, as well as barriers to and costs preventing the exit of farms from agriculture, including those that make it difficult to transfer production resources which are being released to other companies. This research takes the form of an overview and is based on the output of new institutional economics, and on transaction cost and rent-seeking theories in particular. The most frequent difficulties encountered in the process of exit from farming include low profitability of production and the shortage of capital among potential buyers, while the lack of sellers' financial resources and the necessity of incurring expenses related to preparing and finalising the sale of resources held by them (the actual transaction costs related to closing down farms) are frequently overlooked. The most important barriers preventing the complete liquidation of farms are the inherent transaction costs categorised as expenses, as well as the emotional costs and costs of alternatives, which are difficult to evaluate and estimate. The following notions are particularly helpful in explaining barriers to exit from farming: the concept of transaction costs and rent-seeking theory, which are both a part of the stream of thought of new institutional economics.

The contribution is focused on the food problem in the least developed countries, on the chosen areas where the overall situation is the most problematic. It deals with Burundi, belonging to the low income food deficit countries with one of the world's lowest rates of the gross domestic product per capita. The paper defines the food security situation in the global connection, representing a wide complex of economic, social, demographic, technologic and political aspects of production, distribution, shift and consumption of foodstuffs. The inter-related causes of food insecurity are mainly the long lasting civil wars, a limited access to land, environmental degradation, climatic shocks and the rapid population growth resulting from the high birth rates and the return of refugees. Subsistence crops and livestock products represent the main source of income for most households. The performance of these subsectors is very low, and generates chronic food deficits. Agriculture is thus the key sector in the predominantly rural economies and there is still a significant room for growth, diversification, increasing productivity and improving competitiveness.