Volume 116 - Issue 1

The specific conditions of local land markets could support strategic interaction among farmers. In this case, ideas from strategic competition imply that currently observed regional differences in farmers’ strategies should partly be explainable by reference to historical farm size distributions. We test respective hypotheses in a regression approach based on data on the Landkreis (district) level (NUTS 3) in Germany from a standardised survey among farm advisors and from secondary statistics. The results confirm the expected reflexive relationship between local land markets and farmers’ strategic orientation. Moreover, a complex relationship between farmers’ strategies, their general attitudes and farm development dynamics is identified. Thereby those explanations of regional differences among farmers’ strategies which rely solely on factors exogenous to agricultural production, be it alternative employment possibilities or cultural differences, are contested.

Following a transition year, the new Common Agricultural Policy period, starting in 2015, is expected to bring a number of major changes in the payment scheme of Pillar 1. Using the example of the Austrian small ruminant sector (sheep and goats), this paper describes the effects of an area-based payment scheme instead of the Single Farm Payment Scheme applied previously. The calculations are based on the specifi cation and simulation of seven different farm models and on an analysis of the Austrian Integrated Administration and Control System data sets. The results of both analyses suggest redistribution effects in favour of less extensive farm management systems. However, farms with high single farm payments per hectare are expected to face big cuts in direct payments by 2015. To avoid hardship the amount of the payments will be gradually amended over the coming years until 2019.

The article presents the results from a modelling exercise on five crops: wheat, barley, maize, sunflower and rapeseed. These crops cover 55 per cent of the utilised agricultural land in Bulgaria and over 90 per cent of the arable land. The main goal of the research was to project the development of the production and trade of these crops in Bulgaria between 2013 and 2017, as well as to implement an analysis of certain scenarios related chiefly to upcoming changes in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The model is linked with the global crop market through European Union prices, as the Bulgarian commodity market is considered to be a price taker, and it assumes the development of other agricultural sectors (livestock) and the macroeconomic situation in Bulgaria as exogenous variables. The research is an attempt to incorporate into Bulgarian analytical practice modelling methods that can provide useful figures and projections about the impacts of different political measures for decision makers, and market information on the prices and global supply and demand trends for farmers and agri-business organisations. The results show that the production of the modelled commodities will continue to increase in the coming years, mainly as a result of...

This study analyses the determinants of labour force transition to inactivity in the German labour market. Using German Labour Force Survey data the influence on the transition flow to inactivity of factors such as age, education, marital status, sex and registration with the public employment service are examined. We present estimates of degree of urbanisation-specific multinominal logit models to analyse the determinants of individuals’ transition probabilities in rural and urban areas. By comparing the influence of the factors that affect transition to inactivity before (2002-07) and during (2008-09) the global economic crisis, this paper contributes to the general understanding of transitional labour market flow dynamics during the crisis period. The findings suggest that during the crisis period education level and marital status have had different impacts in rural and urban regions on the transition to inactivity. While these two factors influenced the transition to inactivity before the crisis, their effect has been stronger during it. Additionally the results suggest that the interaction of individuals with institutional settings (e.g. registration with the public employment service) have to be taken into account when designing active labour market policy measures, especially during crisis periods. Knowledge about the influence of these factors on the...

This paper, firstly, identifies the scale and spatial differentiation of registered female unemployment in rural areas of Poland, defined according to the new Degree of Urbanisation (DEGURBA) classification of LAU2 regions used in the European Union (EU) for the Labour Force Survey, since the onset of the global economic crisis, and secondly, investigates the reasons for the occurrence of very high female unemployment rates that are either stable or increasing and very high gender gaps in unemployment rates. Quantitative analysis identified 27 rural communes in Poland affected by such problems. Most are situated in the north and several in the south-east of the country, mainly in post-state-owned farming areas. The results of semi-structured telephone interviews with representatives of local authorities of nine of those communes indicate that despite the different locations and different types of LAU2 regions, female unemployment is caused by similar factors: liquidation of state-owned farms not followed by any new job opportunities, peripheral location not attractive for external (out-of-commune) investors, lack of entrepreneurial skills, experience and finance to start own businesses, low income or poverty of inhabitants significantly limiting the purchase of goods and services, thus limiting the demand that could be met by local SMEs, and...

Since Hungary’s accession to the European Union (EU) most of the actions in rural areas have complied with the regulations of the funding programmes of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate why the focus of actions has to be changed from funding to learning. The paper is structured as follows. In the introduction, the author explains, in the light of her research experience since 2001, why a change in focus is needed. The main body of the paper shows how the need for this change can be explained from different perspectives. Firstly, structural change in the economy is given as a reason. Secondly, the need for change is explained from the concept of neo-endogenous rural development, i.e. the interplay between local and external forces. Finally the reason for shifting the focus from funding to learning is explained in terms of the endogenous and exogenous factors influencing rural development, based on the framework developed by the EU Framework 7 project ‘RuralJobs’. The paper concludes with some examples of the types of tools that have already been used and actions that should be implemented to achieve this change in focus.

The transformation of wine regions is one of the few success stories in the Hungarian countryside since the political changes in 1989-90. This paper explores the features of the transformation process in the Villány wine region. Within two decades the region has gone through five developmental stages, from mass production to a genuine rural experience economy. Breaking with the socialist mass production practice, local wine makers focused on quality, resulting in improved wine quality and the introduction of wine tourism. Out of the difficult situation after the political changes – high unemployment, bankruptcy of former companies and forced entrepreneurship – the small scale producers who started new ways of production and cooperation have achieved considerable success for themselves and their communities. This study identifies the turning points and consecutive changes in the social and economic transformation of a wine community, its qualitative characteristics and consequences.

Events are increasingly being used as a means to boost regional economic development through tourism, but are they truly effective to this end? In this article we attempted to answer this question by measuring the impact of the Christmas Festival ‘Magisch Maastricht’ on the economy of the municipality of Maastricht in the Netherlands. We used input-output analysis by which we calculated the number of additional jobs per sector created by the spending of visitors during the event. The results show that the impact on the urban economy is significant.