A Quantile Regression Analysis of the Effect of Farmers’ Attitudes and Perceptions on Market Participation

The objective of this study is to investigate the subjective determinants of farmers’ participation in output markets in five EU New Member States (NMS) characterised by large semi-subsistence sectors. It employs quantile regression to model market participation reflecting the heterogeneity amongst farmers. The study also uses the Bayesian adaptive lasso to simultaneously select important covariates and estimate the corresponding quantile regression models. The empirical results show that only two variables affect all quantiles, while their effect varies across quantiles. Some of the remaining variables affect the share of output sold at the lower quantiles (i.e. for subsistence- and semi-subsistence-oriented farmers) only, whereas other variables are only significant at the upper quantiles (i.e. for more commercially oriented farms). Advisory services, and particularly agricultural business advice, and information and advice on markets and prices can facilitate the market participation of subsistence-oriented farms

CAP Direct Payments and Distributional Conflicts Over Rented Land within Corporate Farms in the New Member States

This paper aims to investigate whether distributional issues within corporate farms in the New Member States will be exacerbated by the introduction of the CAP direct payments. The paper focuses on the specific impact of the payments on the land rented to the corporate farms by private landowners. If the latter are not satisfied with the level of rent they receive, they have the option to end their rental contract and withdraw their land from the farm. Before the accession to the EU the landowners did not have strong incentives to withdraw, as the other available opportunities were not associated with higher returns on land ownership. However, this situation might change as the landowners can now cash the direct payments themselves, providing they keep their land in good agricultural and environmental condition. Propositions generated by a simple game, representing the negotiations between a corporate farm manager and an individual landowner about the level of the rent, suggests that the CAP direct payments might induce more rent renegotiations but that overall withdrawals will be infrequent. The results from a survey of landowners in corporate farms in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic seemed to corroborate these a priori expectations. The investigation of the determinants of landowners' intended behaviour showed that what seems to be important in the decision-making is the relationship between landowners and managers. Landowners who have frequent contacts and close relations with the farm are less likely to withdraw.CAP direct payments, corporate farms, distributional conflicts, game theory, landowners, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Roles of Small and Semi-subsistence Farms in the EU

Small and semi-subsistence farms (SSFs) in the EU play a number of socio-economic roles. They maintain rural welfare, keep rural areas populated, contribute to the rural non-farm economy, and provide environmental public goods such as attractive landscapes. Particularly in the New Member States and in the poorer regions of the Southern EU-15, one of the most important roles of small and SSFs is supporting social and economic welfare, by acting as a ‘safety net’ for poor families. The disappearance of small and SSFs would often mean increased poverty, losses to the rural non-farm economy, and depopulation, especially in remote areas, and might result in environmental loss. Variation in the importance of small and SSFs across the rural areas in Europe and the complex reality in which small and SSFs are not the only suppliers of ‘joint products’, explain some of the difficulties of designing EU policy for small and SSFs. What appears to be clear is that small farms and SSFs do produce a range of public goods for which, arguably, compensation is justified, and the case for support on welfare grounds is strong. However, the ability of the Common Agricultural Policy budget and its mechanisms to provide effective compensation for the provision of public goods is a matter of some debate

THE PECULIARITIES OF MANAGEMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL-METHODOLOGICAL ACTIVITY IN SPORT SCHOOL

The paper is concerned with the characterization and analysis of organizational-methodological activity and the structure of management in sport schools of Latvia. The components of the structure of management of training young sportsmen are identified. The characterization of the educational process in sport schools and its structural blocks is provided. Though the Ministry of Education and Science in Latvia implements programs aimed at promoting physical activities among children and youth, the proportion of learners, whose level of physical activities would be satisfactory, decreases every year. The analysis of scientific-methodological literature and sport school activities in Latvia has provided a sound basis for the scientific substantiation of the new model of contemporary sport school, whose components form a mutually interacting complex. KEY WORDS: sport school, activity, management structure. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/atee.v1i0.1319

Subsistence and Semi-subsistence Farming in Selected EU New Member States

Factor and cluster analysis are used to analyse the attitudes and perceptions of agricultural households in five EU New Member States towards farming, commercialisation, and barriers to and drivers for an increased integration in agricultural markets. The contribution of unsold output to the total household income is valued. A stepwise linear regression is employed to detect important variables explaining the degree of agricultural market integration of farm households. The analysis indicates that subsistence farming is of utmost importance for the rural poor, and particularly in Bulgaria and Romania. The proportion of consumption from own production, manual cultivation techniques and distance to an urban centre negatively affect output sales. Rural development policies targeted at rural physical and market infrastructure might relieve some of these constraints.agricultural households, subsistence, commercialisation, incomes, cluster analysis, stepwise regression, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries, Q12,

Impediments to Employment and Enterprise Diversification: Evidence from Small-Scale Farms in Poland

In an environment of low returns to agricultural activities and slow structural change, both employment and enterprise diversification have been presented as possible strategies for raising the incomes of farm households. This paper focuses on the barriers to taking up off-farm employment and establishing new non-agricultural enterprises. Factor and cluster analysis are applied to a data-set of individual farms in Poland in order to identify groups of households facing similar constraints and profile policy measures that are most likely to assist diversification. The majority of non-diversifiers are unlikely to become pluriactive in the near future due to a combination of age, a desire to concentrate on farming and remoteness. Farm households that are willing to diversify are characterised by the lowest agricultural incomes. For these households, a poor endowment of human and physical capital is a major constraint.Poland, diversification, off-farm employment, non-agricultural enterprises, cluster analysis, Industrial Organization, Labor and Human Capital, R0, Q12,

Non-Agricultural Diversification of Farm Households and Corporate Farms in Central Europe

Consumer/Household Economics, Farm Management,

Leaving land fallow: The case of subsistence farming in the Western Balkans

The key question of this paper is why farmers in Kosovo leave land fallow when the total land of their farms is rather small and households are rather large. In order to elicit some barriers to land utilisation in Kosovo, the paper is based on a comprehensive survey investigating agricultural households’ perceptions of production and market conditions, and employs several households and farm characteristics to empirically approximate the significance of different factors for leaving land fallow and not using it for production purposes. Three different models have been estimated. All estimated model specifications show a statistical significance at a satisfactory level and no severe signs of misspecification. One of the main factors farmers stated for their decision to leave land fallow was the low profitability of farming. The increase in incentives to farmers by improving market institutions up- and downstream is one measure which could alleviate the barriers to land use. Larger arable areas decrease the probability for fallow land. This emphasises the need for land consolidation.fallow land decision, Kosovo, Tobit regression, Fractional response regression, Zero-inflated binomial regression, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Risk and Uncertainty,