Volume 116 - Issue 2

An enhanced research strategy supported by the ERA-NET RURAGRI In a context of significant changes and increasing complexity of economic and social systems, new challenges arise for rural research. It is commonplace that many research issues cannot any more be understood by regional or national studies alone but have to be framed in their international setting. A recent ERA-NET, the RURAGRI network, addressed the gap in European research organisation for providing a common research agenda on rural development research. It highlighted that this research field can be covered sufficiently only if the interrelationships between agricultural, ecological and spatial development are addressed appropriately and taken up as core research questions. The Strategic Research Agenda elaborated through the partners of this network, representing research organisations in 20 European countries, indicates the wide scope of issues for respective international research. Some of those aspects, and particularly the aim of increasing our understanding of these interrelationships, are taken up in a first set of selected international studies resulting from the ERA-NET’s call. The intensive discussion on research collaboration and the high status of rural development policy on the political agenda within the European Union also underpins the need for future international collaboration on research...

This paper explores the slow pace of structural change which has characterised the post-transition period in Romania and sheds light on the dynamics of labour adjustments. A multinomial logit is employed to investigate the determinants of inter-sectoral labour movements in the period 2003-06. The high share of farm employment in Romania, mostly characterised by family workers and self-employed, suggests that agriculture serves as a buffer against unemployment. Whereas the main channel of farm labour outflows is closely related to retirement, movements to other sectoral employment are significantly hindered by the low levels of education. The findings are important from a policy point of view, suggesting the need for investments in human capital, specifically in education of the rural population with the purpose of enhancing the mobility of labour and facilitating a smooth transition across activities. At the same time, priority should be placed on rural development to encourage the diversification of the rural economy and the creation of alternative sources of income from non-agricultural activities.

Rural regeneration is usually accompanied by diversification of the economy and creation of new employment opportunities. The cluster concept, introduced by Michael Porter at the beginning of the 1990s, and cluster initiatives are generally and uncritically offered as an adequate tool for the fulfilment of these objectives. This study describes the functioning of four tourism cluster initiatives from rural areas of Slovakia using the experience and knowledge from field work (supported by content analysis of newspapers and the Internet) and their (in)direct impact on selected regional indicators (net migration of population, number of tourists, overnight stays and unemployed persons). The data indicate the efforts of the tourism cluster founders in the initial years of activity are not automatically associated with broadly interpreted local and regional success. This result shows that cluster initiatives in tourism are not appropriate for all rural areas, economies and/or communities.

The 27 European Union (EU) Member States increased their total agri-food exports during the period 2000-2011. However, despite agri-food exports having grown, the shares of the world agri-food markets of 13 EU Member States and the EU-27 as a whole have declined. Those with increasing market share are mainly among the Eastern EU Member States. Constant market share analysis by 27 EU Member States suggests that the structural effects in agri-food and dairy exports are more important than the residual and second order effects. The declining market share is largely associated with negative residual and second order effects. Large positive structural effects cannot compensate for the impact of negative residual and second order effects and this results in declining agri-food market shares.

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of European Union (EU) membership on Hungarian agricultural trade with the EU-27 in the period 2003-2013, based on our own calculations using the latest statistical data. We concluded that the agricultural orientation of Hungarian foreign trade and the export orientation of the agricultural sector have strengthened during these ten years. Hungarian agricultural trade with the EU-27 grew dynamically, with expansion of exports being accompanied by increasing import penetration. As a result of the three-fold export and import value growth, the EU-27 became the leading market for Hungarian export products (with an 80 per cent share) and the main source of imports (with a 91 per cent share). While, owing to low competitiveness, the Hungarian export commodity structure is dominated by raw materials and semi-processed goods, the import structure is rather diversified, though processed goods oriented. The share of the Member States that joined the EU from 2004 onwards has increased to almost 40 per cent in Hungary’s intra-EU agricultural trade, at the expense of the EU-15. Following a post EU accession deterioration, the balance of Hungary’s agricultural trade with the EU had improved to a record of EUR 2.7...

We have experienced the emergence of New World wine producing countries (the Americas, South Africa and Oceania) in the last 10-15 years as they have successfully increased their market share in European markets. In this paper we perform a two stage model on a panel of most of the major wine producing countries over the period 1995-2007. We estimate a CobbDouglas production function and technical inefficiency using stochastic frontier analysis. We show that there is a significant difference between the major Old and New World countries in terms of technical efficiency in favour of the latter group. The analysis supports our hypothesis that the more efficient functioning of the sector in the New Wine World can be one of the drivers of their success. Moreover, inefficiency is related to some macroeconomic factors such as the development of the financial system, the quality of human capital and per capita wine consumption.

This paper provides an insight into the major policy measures that influenced Romanian agriculture before and after the country’s accession to the European Union (EU) in January 2007. It analyses the volume and composition of national and EU agricultural financial support between 2002 and 2012, and assesses how much has been transferred between agricultural farm support (Pillar 1) and rural development (Pillar 2). The findings show that, as membership drew near, Romania increased its efforts to provide farm support. The level of support has continued to rise (in nominal terms) year on year, from EUR 242 million in 2002 to almost EUR 600 million in 2005. By 2007, over EUR 1 billion (10 per cent of the Gross Value Added of the sector) was allocated to agriculture. Moreover, preparation for accession meant also significant changes in the structure of subsidies. This was redesigned so to emulate the Common Agricultural Policy, shifting the emphasis of support on to direct farm income. Overall, Romanian agriculture benefited from EUR 16.4 billion in subsidies between 2002 and 2012, of which almost half (EUR 7.8 billion) came from the EU. With accession, the share of EU financial support has increased, particularly in the form of...

Greater use of biomass for bioenergy has increased the need to evaluate above ground biomass removal (BR) effects on soil quality components, especially soil organic matter (SOM). A multifactor, 40 year field experiment was conducted in Kompolt, Hungary on a carbonate-free, slightly acidic chernozem brown forest soil (USDA: Ustolls) with the objective of determining the effect of different management systems with concurrent removal of the above ground biomass on the SOM content of the 0-320 mm layer. A multifactor experiment composed of treatments involving different crop rotation (CR), beef manure application, mineral fertiliser application, above ground BR (vs. biomass incorporation, BI) and lucerne management options for different rotations are the basis of this study. CR had no significant effect on SOM content. Management options that included a four year lucerne stand produced significantly higher SOM content in five out of six fertiliser and biomass management combinations. Continuous manure applications and manure + NPK fertiliser resulted in a significantly greater SOM content than management options that minimised or eliminated fertiliser or manure additions. SOM content for different soil amendments and biomass treatments ranked: BR < NPK + BR < BI < manure + BR = NPK + manure + BR with...