The irrigation system in Brăila – a farmer economic focused approach

In the present context marked by ever increasing global climate changes, the use of irrigations in agriculture represents not only an option but more and more a necessity for ensuring a higher yield of agricultural products whose demand increases every year based on population growth. The present paper focuses on the specific elements of the irrigation systems from Brăila County, the way the farmers have access to and the different implications derived by using these systems. The paper turns to quantitative analysis of available statistical data and qualitative analysis of the interviews with local farmers focused on economic efficiency of the water used for irrigations. 

PERCEIVE project - Deliverable D4.5 "Report on the comparative analysis of experts' and citizens' perceptions and views"

This report is a comparative analysis of nine regional case-studies selected in our project, based on original data collected through the PERCEIVE field survey that was conducted during the summer of 2017 and on the reports on regional case studies written by Perceive’s partners. Each report was based on the analysis of the focus group’s section that addresses the assessment of Cohesion Policy. The general objective of this report is to synthesize the citizens’ and practicioners’ views on EU Cohesion Policy and to compare them in order to understand if there are different perceptions of this policy and its implementation. For each region included in the study, the identification of the relevant regional needs are considered, followed by an assessment of the EU policy effectiveness in responding to the revealed issues. Both have been pursued at the level of citizens and of Cohesion Policy practitioners, and are followed by a comparative analysis that helps to understand whether the EU Cohesion Policy is perceived and understood by citizens in the same way as it has been conceived by practitioners. The comparative analysis helped shed light on the convergence and divergence points between citizens and experts with regard to the public intervention needs through Cohesion Policy and in the evaluation of the effectiveness of these interventions, thus contributing to a better understanding of the general perception of the EU by the large public

Acceptance of innovation diffusion in rural areas - a Romanian Case Study

In our paper we tried to investigate the organisation and functioning of the Agricultural Knowledge System in Romania. On the basis of system analysis approaches, we critically examined the set of public and private organisations dedicated to research, education and extension, and their interaction with knowledge users (traditional farmers) and the main system failures and strengths in the innovation process in agriculture were identified. The empirical research in this study had a heuristic value

Competitiveness and innovation in rural Romania

In the recent period, public actions and policies have been increasingly oriented towards the improvement of economic competitiveness on account of numerous studies that signal the problems generated by the loss of performance from this perspective. This study attempts to identify the main factors that make the regional economies in Romania vulnerable in the face of competitors, mainly for the regions with strong and medium rurality features, i.e. the Predominantly rural (PR) counties and the Intermediate counties – classified according to the OECD methodology. The results of the study showed that the factors that largely contribute to widening the regional disparities with regard to rural competitiveness, making the PR counties more vulnerable are the following: (i) access to innovation and (2) the value of exports, in both the non-agricultural and agrifood economy