Volume 113 - Issue 1

This paper assesses the impacts of the global financial and economic crisis on the agro-food sector of Central and Eastern European, Caucasus and Central Asian countries on the basis of research conducted in Hungary, Ukraine, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. The objective of the study was to propose policy options to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and other public authorities which can be applied to lessen the undesirable effects of the current or future crises in the sector. Results of interviews of stakeholders were analysed in the context of primary economic data and sixteen policy recommendations were formulated.

The accession of Hungary to the European Union (EU) in 2004 was expected to lead to price convergence to the EU levels. The influence of national and EU policies on Hungarian producers and consumers is important as they were facing a new situation. Consumers’ welfare depends on the constantly altering world- and common market, and political actions. The purpose of this study is to analyse welfare changes and distributional impacts on Hungarian food consumers. The paper focuses on Laspeyres index, compensating variation and elasticities of demand.

Chemical pesticides will continue to play a role in pest management for the future. In many situations, the benefits of pesticide use are high relative to the risks or there are no practical alternatives. The number and diversity of biological sources will increase, and products that originate in chemistry laboratories will be designed for particular target sites. Innovations in pesticide delivery systems in plants promise to reduce adverse environmental impacts even further. The correct use of pesticides can deliver significant socioeconomic and environmental benefits in the form of safe, healthy, affordable food; and enable sustainable farm management by improving the efficiency with which we use natural resources such as soil, water and overall land use. Genetically engineered organisms that reduce pest pressure constitute a “new generation” of pest management tools. The use of transgenic crops will probably maintain, or even increase, the need for effective resistance management programmes. However, there remains a need for new chemicals that are compatible with ecologically based pest management and applicator and worker safety. Evaluation of the effectiveness of biocontrol agents should involve consideration of long-term impacts rather than only short-term yield, as is typically done for conventional practices. But it makes sense to establish...

The cost-profit relations of organic and conventional farming were examined on the basis of natural and financial data of a large agricultural - company in western Hungary and of economic models characterising private farms in eastern Hungary. The differences in cost structures reflect variable conditions relating to certain crops, but they can be well explained by the differences in the technologies used. According to the production data, in organic farming direct costs per hectare were lower in all of the four examined crops. Even cost per production unit and contribution were more favourable in three of the investigated crops. Regarding the calculation done by economy models, the costs per hectare relating to the two production methods were not significantly different. Yields in organic plant production were typically lower but costs per unit and selling prices were higher. Differences in gross profits may be explained by different yields and selling prices. In a majority of the model variations organic farming is more profitable, but the extra bio price ensuring this, in accordance with trends from literature, is not sufficient for achieving a higher profit in every year.

This paper takes a new empirical look at the long-standing question of the effect of exchange rate volatility on international trade flows of transition economies in Central Europe by studying the case of Hungarian agricultural exports to their export destination countries between 1999 and 2008. Based on a gravity model that controls for other factors likely to determine bilateral trade, the results show that nominal exchange rate volatility has had a significant positive effect on agricultural trade over this period. This positive effect of exchange rate volatility on agricultural exports suggests that agri-food entrepreneurs are not interested in speeding up the process of joining Hungary to the euro zone.

There is a continuously growing literature on the agricultural transformation in Central and Eastern European countries (see some surveys in Brooks and Nash 2002; Rozelle and Swinnen 2004). The research has focused on various aspects of transition, including land reform, farm restructuring, price and trade liberalisation, but even though Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) data are now available for some years, there are only a few studies (e.g. Bakucs et al. 2010, Fogarasi and Latruffe, 2007, Baráth et al., 2009) focusing on Hungarian farm performance. The objective of this paper is to shed light on some methodological issues that are needed to study Hungarian farm performance. Here we consider one aspect of farm performance, namely technical efficiency. This measure refers to whether farmers are capable of using existing technology to its full potential by producing the most possible from a given set of production factor quantities.

The concept of sustainable development is currently one of the most important concepts in the world. The implementation of the global idea is in the hands of local communities. The success of LA21 initiatives largely depends on two important factors: the bottom-up initiatives of the community based on voluntary participation and the support from the national government. In the case of Hungary we examine central government initiatives to date, as well as the factors that determine the success of bottom-up initiatives. As an illustration we present some of the findings of a survey we conducted in the micro-region of Gyöngyös.