Biodiversity performance of organic farms in Austria - results from eight years of biodiversity assessment

Assessing the biodiversity performance of agricultural farms has gained importance in recent years since conserving and promoting biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions in cultural landscapes is a key aspect in making agriculture more sustainable – a demand expressed in science, politics and society. This contribution presents results from eight years of biodiversity assessments on organic farms in Austria applying a method developed at FiBL that estimates the biodiversity potential of agricultural farms (Schader et al. 2014)

INTEGRATION OF SEMI-SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURAL FARMS

Intensive agriculture, industrial type, contributed to environmental degradation and pollution. Thus, on the one hand, makes intensive use of chemicals has led to neglect of duty to maintain the natural fertility of the soil organic matter through proper fattening. On the other hand, organizing specialized industrial environments, high animal breeders, considered the only marketable livestock production, neglecting the production of manure, thus representing a break with the brutal nature of biological circuits Following the experience accumulated over two centuries, mankind has drawn valuable education obligation to safeguard the habitat of nature as a collaborator. In this respect, the main task of our times is to develop appropriate technologies humanist ideal, so that man can become a being as fully integrated into the social and cosmic environment. In the present period as a peasant household current form, is typical of developing countries. It is generated by the result of families who received income from farming and increase farm animalelor.Gospodãria organizational structure is the basic economic and agricultural economy. On the basis of the idea that organic production is the main cause of degradation of the biological quality of products is inadequate human intervention at various structural levels of the biosphere, and the most severe effects on humans resulting from the cumulation of errors relating to soil, plants and animals. Organic farming places emphasis on quality natural products, the quantity and productivity issues as a peripheral level. A balanced rural development policy for the future is not an option but a necessity, especially considering the fact that the issue of agriculture and rural development has important national connotations and is a very complex and timely in Romania Regional development is a concept that aims at stimulating and diversifying economic activities, encouraging private sector investment, helping to reduce unemployment and ultimately lead to improved living standards, according to the regions of the country\'s developmentPeasant household, sustainable development, farms, subsistence, european agriculture

Solar irrigation of small agricultural farms

U radu je opisan sistem za navodnjavanje poljoprivrednih dobara koji obezbedjuje tokom letnjih meseci do 12m3 vode za zalivanje sa dubine od 30m. Navodnjavanje poljoprivrednih dobara je poznat problem u sušnim oblastima gde ne postoji priključak uredjaja za navodnjavanje na elektrodistributivnu mrežu. Prikazani su rezultati merenja dobijene električne energije iz fotonaponskih ćelija tokom letnjih meseci 2012. godine kao osnov za dopunjavanje olovnih akumulatorskih baterija. Prikazana je Q-H kriva potapajuće vibracione pumpe „Katex“, 220W korišćena za ispitivanja sistema koji obezbedjuju dnevnu količinu vode od 12m3. Na osnovu obavljenih ispitivanja, projektovan je i prikazan sistem solarnog navodnjavanja malih poljoprivrednih dobara sa osnovnim komponentama i nekim ekonomskim pokazateljima.The solar irrigation system that provides agricultural farm during the summer months, up to 12m3 irrigation water from a depth of 30m is presented in this paper. Irrigation is well known problem in the dry regions where there is no possibility connection of the irrigation equipment to the electric distribution network. The results of measurements the generated electric energy from photovoltaic cells during the summer 2012th, as a basis for recharging lead-acid batteries are shown in this paper. The Q-H curve of the vibration submersible pump „Katex“ 220W used for testing systems shows that it can provide daily irrigation water than 12m3. Based on the testing results, solar irrigation system for small agricultural farms was designed and presented with the basic components and some economic indicators

THE MATERIAL FLOW ON AGRICULTURAL FARMS

Prestože význam logistiky v prumyslu, obchodu a dalších oborech je všeobecne uznáván, v zemedelství není tato problematika systematicky zkoumána. Predpokladem podrobných analýz je znalost objemu a struktury materiálového toku. Autori k tomuto úcelu navrhli vlastní metodiku, která vychází z technologických ukazatelu, publikovaných Ministerstvem zemedelství CR pro jednotlivé plodiny a kategorie zvírat. Tyto publikované normativní hodnoty Ministerstva pak slouží jako základní kameny, jejichž kombinací lze zjistit objem materiálového toku a jeho strukturu v podniku behem jednoho roku. Výhodou metodiky je rychlé zjištení potrebných dat a možnost zohlednení nekterých specifických podmínek ve zkoumaných podnicích.In spite that the great importance of logistics in industry, business and other branches is generally acknowledged, this problem is not systematically investigated in agriculture. As a presumption of detailed analysis, the knowledge of the volume and structure of the material flow is necessary. The authors have proposed their own methodical procedure which issues from technological indicators, published by the Czech Ministry of Agriculture for individual plants and categories of animals and which makes possible further classification of these data for enterprises with different level of farming. These published standards of the Ministry serve as basic stones and by means of their combination, the volume of material flow and its structure is possible to calculate during one year\u27s periods. The advantage of proposed method is a fast finding out of necessary data and possibility of taking into account some specific conditions in investigated enterprises

Effect of European funds on the development of agricultural farms in Poland

The paper strives to present the level of diversification of agricultural development in Poland resulting from the uneven utilization of European funds allocated to this aim. Development of agriculture is determined significantly by the scale of investment in this sector. Therefore, this article analyses the measure “Modernization of agricultural farms” of RDP 2007-2013 and the state of the utilization of its measures by agricultural farms in the individual regions of Poland. The degree of activity and efficiency of beneficiaries in acquisition of European funds were determined in the paper and an attempt was made at identification of factors diversifying i

Unpacking competitiveness of agricultural farms in Bulgaria

Abstract. Despite its importance and continouing debates, there is still no consensus on what is the competitiveness of farms, how to measure the competitiveness of different organizations in agriculture, what is the absolute and comparative competitiveness of different types of farms, which are the critical factors for increasing the competitiveness at the current stage of development, etc. This study tries to fill the existing gap by applying a holistic approach and assessing the competitiveness of Bulgarian farms as a whole and with different specializations. The multi-criteria assessment found that the level of competitiveness of farms in the country is at a good level, with low adaptive potential and economic efficiency to the greatest extent contributing to lower competitiveness. More than a third of all agricultural holdings have a low level of competitiveness. The most competitive are the farms specialised in the beekeeping, followed by field crops, mixed animal husbandry and mixed crops production, and the lowest for farms in grazing livestock. Most significant factors for increasing the competitiveness of Bulgarian farms are market conditions (supply and demand, prices, competition), direct government subsidies, access to knowledge, advice and counseling, participation in government support programs, available information , financial opportunities, and opportunities for benefits in the near future.Proposed approach should be improved and applied more widely and periodically, increasing accuracy and representativeness. The latter requires close cooperation with producer organizations, advisory service and other stakeholders, and improvement of the agricultural information collection system in the country.Keywords. Competitiveness, Agricultural holdings, Specialsiation, Bulgaria.JEL. Q12, Q13, Q15, Q18

Cooperative Agricultural Farms in Bulgaria (1890 -1989)

In this paper we have proposed an institutional reconstruction of the Bulgarian agricultural cooperatives’ history. The aim was to find the theoretical explanation of the complete deprivation of individuality of the agricultural cooperatives in the years of communism and their rejection respectively during the post-communist period. We consider that a relevant explanation was the accumulation of two institutional processes which were related to the nationalization of the cooperative sector and the cooperative idea. The first one may be referred to as being inertial and related to the specificities of the Bulgarian lagging behind and peripheral capitalism from the beginning of 20th century. That capitalism had a state character. The second institutional process occurred mainly in the wake of WWII. It was related to the large scale and actually mechanical application (despite some nominal specificities) of the Soviet model of agriculture and of the communist ideas of the place of that sector in the planned and all people’s economy. It must be underscored that the ideas of the agricultural cooperatives and the organization of agriculture coming from Russia and later from the USSR also played a definite role for shaping up the general understanding of cooperatives in Bulgaria

Cooperative Agricultural Farms in Bulgaria (1890 -1989)

In this paper we have proposed an institutional reconstruction of the Bulgarian agricultural cooperatives’ history. The aim was to find the theoretical explanation of the complete deprivation of individuality of the agricultural cooperatives in the years of communism and their rejection respectively during the post-communist period. We consider that a relevant explanation was the accumulation of two institutional processes which were related to the nationalization of the cooperative sector and the cooperative idea. The first one may be referred to as being inertial and related to the specificities of the Bulgarian lagging behind and peripheral capitalism from the beginning of 20th century. That capitalism had a state character. The second institutional process occurred mainly in the wake of WWII. It was related to the large scale and actually mechanical application (despite some nominal specificities) of the Soviet model of agriculture and of the communist ideas of the place of that sector in the planned and all people’s economy. It must be underscored that the ideas of the agricultural cooperatives and the organization of agriculture coming from Russia and later from the USSR also played a definite role for shaping up the general understanding of cooperatives in Bulgaria

Transition to the system of grades as a strategic direction of organization of remuneration in modern agroformations in Ukraine

The article focuses on the formation of new features of relations promoting the productivity of labor in the direction of stimulating of grading systems of modern agricultural farms in Ukraine