Agricultural Risk Management in the European Union and in the USA

Risk management has become increasingly important in virtually all aspects of the economy, including agriculture. Every country that considers agriculture a strategically important economic sector strives for effective risk management in agriculture. In our study American and European Union farmers’ risk management practices were, based on various surveys, compared. In terms of agricultural risk management, major differences between the USA and the EU were evident, and these derive from different farming cultures, differences in historical evolution, and economic philosophy. This study provides an overview regarding the important similarities and dissimilarities.agriculture, risk management, risk perception, EU, USA, surveys., Farm Management, Risk and Uncertainty,

FARMERS’ RISK PERCEPTION AND RISK MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON

The local, regional and global economic and natural phenomena of previous decades collectively emphasize the growing importance of risk factors affecting agricultural production both directly and indirectly. Agricultural producers should not restrict their risk management strategies to offset and relieve the problems caused by climatic and natural phenomena, but the knowledge of up-to-date professional, market, and agricultural policy developments is more and more an indispensable condition of successful farming. Besides what mentioned above, it is at least equally important to answer the question of how farmers perceive the importance of risk factors surrounding their activities, as it strongly influences the shaping of their risk management strategies. The responsibility of professional organizations and policy makers is easily shapeable in this sense because they may play an important role in the orientation and education of farmers, thus making it possible that farmers judge the importance of risk factors properly so they may work out adequate risk management strategies. The European Union has long been aware of the importance of the topic and makes great efforts to investigate the possibilities of an EU level risk management system. The “Design and economic impact of risk management tools for European agriculture” research project1 conducted under the aegis of the Sixth Framework Programme fits that objective. Within the project the authors of this paper explored the risk perception and applied risk management strategies of farmers in selected EU Member States.risk perception, risk management, international comparison, Farm Management, Risk and Uncertainty,

Az Agrárgazdasági Tanács állásfoglalása az agrárgazdaság 2009. évi helyzetérÅ‘l készült jelentéshez

A 2005. évi XXVIII. törvénnyel módosított 1997. évi CXIV. törvény 2.§-a kötelezÅ‘en írja elÅ‘, hogy a Kormány évente számoljon be az Országgyűlésnek az agrárgazdaság helyzetérÅ‘l, a mezÅ‘gazdasági termelÅ‘k jövedelemviszonyairól, a fÅ‘bb agrárpolitikai célok megvalósulásáról, a végrehajtott intézkedésekrÅ‘l, valamint a költségvetési támogatások felhasználásáról. Ahivatkozott törvény 9.§-a az Agrárgazdasági Tanácsot (Tanács) véleményezÅ‘ és javaslattevÅ‘ szereppel ruházza fel. EbbÅ‘l a felhatalmazásból adódóan a Tanács 2010. október 22-én megvitatta a Vidékfejlesztési Minisztérium által készített Jelentést, és ajánlásaival kiegészítve támogatja, hogy azt a VMminisztere az Országgyűlés elé terjessze. Az Agrárgazdasági Tanács hangsúlyozza a magyar élelmiszer-gazdaság vidékfejlesztésben betöltött többfunkciós szerepét és a nemzetgazdaság teljesítményéhez való hozzájárulását. Az Ãllásfoglalás a Tanács véleményét tükrözi és azt ennek elÅ‘rebocsátásával értékelte. ---------------------------------------------------- Article 2 of Act CXIV of 1997, as amended by Act XXVIII of 2005 requires the Government to report to the Parliament on an annual basis on the situation of the agricultural economy, the revenues of agricultural producers, the achievement of the principal goals of agricultural policy, on the measures taken, and on using governmental aid. Article 9 of the same Act grants the Agricultural Economy Council (the Council) the power to comment and to submit proposals. In line with the powers granted by the Act, the Council discussed the Report prepared by the Ministry of Rural Development on 22 October 2010 and proposes that the Minister of Rural Development submit it to the Parliament along with the proposals added by the Council. The Agricultural Economy Council emphasizes the multifunctional role of the Hungarian food economy in rural development and its contribution to the performance of the national economy. The Position reflects the opinion of the Council and the evaluation took this fact into account.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Analysis of a Resonant AC‐AC LED Driver

The study analyses the performance of different LED circuit configurations feed from a low power resonant driver under pulse quasi‐triangular currents. The considered LED driver topology is based on a bridgeless single‐stage AC‐AC converter with bidirectional switches and a parallel LC resonant tank. The converter performances are simultaneously analyzed in correlation with the most important features, such as the electric efficiency, luminous efficacy, power factor correction capabilities, and flickering implications

No direct effect of the -521 C/T polymorphism in the human dopamine D4 receptor gene promoter on transcriptional activity

BACKGROUND: The human dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene has been studied extensively as a candidate gene for certain psychological traits and several behavioural and psychiatric disorders. Both the 5' regulatory region and the coding sequence contain a number of polymorphisms. The promoter variants have received particular attention in the past few years due to their possible role in the regulation of gene transcription. Previously, the -521C/T SNP was shown to influence promoter activity. The aim of this study is to perform an in-depth analysis of this effect in the context of various neural cell lines. RESULTS: Endogenous mRNA expression of the DRD4 gene was demonstrated in two neuroblastoma (SK-N-F1, IMR32) and one retinoblastoma cell line (Y79) by RT-PCR. In addition, very low DRD4 mRNA levels were also detected in HeLa cells. The transcriptional activity of a series of 5' promoter deletion mutants was determined by transient transfection of luciferase reporter constructs. The activity profile of these promoter fragments was similar in each of the cell lines tested. The highest luciferase reporter activity was obtained with a construct containing promoter sequences between nucleotides -668 to -389, while a putative silencer region was localised spanning from nucleotide -1571 to -800. Surprisingly, the -521 C/T polymorphism had no significant effect on transcriptional activity of the reporter construct with the highest activity (-668 to -389) in any of the three cell lines tested. CONCLUSION: Our results do not confirm previous data assigning different transcriptional activities to the -521 C/T alleles of the human DRD4 promoter. Furthermore, these findings highlight the need for further characterization of the 5' regulatory region of the DRD4 gene and identification of additional functional promoter polymorphic sites, especially in the context of haplotype

The Szemeredi-Trotter Theorem in the Complex Plane

It is shown that $n$ points and $e$ lines in the complex Euclidean plane ${\mathbb C}^2$ determine $O(n^{2/3}e^{2/3}+n+e)$ point-line incidences. This bound is the best possible, and it generalizes the celebrated theorem by Szemer\'edi and Trotter about point-line incidences in the real Euclidean plane ${\mathbb R}^2$.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Combinatoric

Multivariate Analysis of Dopaminergic Gene Variants as Risk Factors of Heroin Dependence

BACKGROUND: Heroin dependence is a debilitating psychiatric disorder with complex inheritance. Since the dopaminergic system has a key role in rewarding mechanism of the brain, which is directly or indirectly targeted by most drugs of abuse, we focus on the effects and interactions among dopaminergic gene variants. OBJECTIVE: To study the potential association between allelic variants of dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2), ANKK1 (ankyrin repeat and kinase domain containing 1), dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4), catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) and dopamine transporter (SLC6A3) genes and heroin dependence in Hungarian patients. METHODS: 303 heroin dependent subjects and 555 healthy controls were genotyped for 7 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs4680 of the COMT gene; rs1079597 and rs1800498 of the DRD2 gene; rs1800497 of the ANKK1 gene; rs1800955, rs936462 and rs747302 of the DRD4 gene. Four variable number of tandem repeats (VNTRs) were also genotyped: 120 bp duplication and 48 bp VNTR in exon 3 of DRD4 and 40 bp VNTR and intron 8 VNTR of SLC6A3. We also perform a multivariate analysis of associations using Bayesian networks in Bayesian multilevel analysis (BN-BMLA). FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS: In single marker analysis the TaqIA (rs1800497) and TaqIB (rs1079597) variants were associated with heroin dependence. Moreover, -521 C/T SNP (rs1800955) of the DRD4 gene showed nominal association with a possible protective effect of the C allele. After applying the Bonferroni correction TaqIB was still significant suggesting that the minor (A) allele of the TaqIB SNP is a risk component in the genetic background of heroin dependence. The findings of the additional multiple marker analysis are consistent with the results of the single marker analysis, but this method was able to reveal an indirect effect of a promoter polymorphism (rs936462) of the DRD4 gene and this effect is mediated through the -521 C/T (rs1800955) polymorphism in the promoter

Az Agrárgazdasági Tanács állásfoglalása az agrárgazdaság 2009. évi helyzetéről készült jelentéshez

A 2005. évi XXVIII. törvénnyel módosított 1997. évi CXIV. törvény 2.§-a kötelezően írja elő, hogy a Kormány évente számoljon be az Országgyűlésnek az agrárgazdaság helyzetéről, a mezőgazdasági termelők jövedelemviszonyairól, a főbb agrárpolitikai célok megvalósulásáról, a végrehajtott intézkedésekről, valamint a költségvetési támogatások felhasználásáról. Ahivatkozott törvény 9.§-a az Agrárgazdasági Tanácsot (Tanács) véleményező és javaslattevő szereppel ruházza fel. Ebből a felhatalmazásból adódóan a Tanács 2010. október 22-én megvitatta a Vidékfejlesztési Minisztérium által készített Jelentést, és ajánlásaival kiegészítve támogatja, hogy azt a VMminisztere az Országgyűlés elé terjessze. Az Agrárgazdasági Tanács hangsúlyozza a magyar élelmiszer-gazdaság vidékfejlesztésben betöltött többfunkciós szerepét és a nemzetgazdaság teljesítményéhez való hozzájárulását. Az Állásfoglalás a Tanács véleményét tükrözi és azt ennek előrebocsátásával értékelte. ---------------------------------------------------- Article 2 of Act CXIV of 1997, as amended by Act XXVIII of 2005 requires the Government to report to the Parliament on an annual basis on the situation of the agricultural economy, the revenues of agricultural producers, the achievement of the principal goals of agricultural policy, on the measures taken, and on using governmental aid. Article 9 of the same Act grants the Agricultural Economy Council (the Council) the power to comment and to submit proposals. In line with the powers granted by the Act, the Council discussed the Report prepared by the Ministry of Rural Development on 22 October 2010 and proposes that the Minister of Rural Development submit it to the Parliament along with the proposals added by the Council. The Agricultural Economy Council emphasizes the multifunctional role of the Hungarian food economy in rural development and its contribution to the performance of the national economy. The Position reflects the opinion of the Council and the evaluation took this fact into account

A MEZŐGAZDASÁGI VÁLLALATI GAZDASÁGTAN FEJLŐDÉSE ÉS A MAI GYAKORLAT

élvonalnak megfelelő irányultságú és színvonalú volt. Ugyanakkor Magyarországon az utóbbi két évtizedben az a paradox helyzet alakult ki, hogy a nem kielégítő tudástranszfer, illetőleg a jelentős mértékben átalakult agrárstruktúra következtében ezeket az ismereteket csak korlátozottan alkalmazzák a gyakorlatban. Egy EU-6-os kutatási program keretében lehetővé vált néhány európai ország – többek között Magyarország – mezőgazdasági kockázat menedzsment gyakorlatának vizsgálata. E tanulmány azokat a kérdéseket emeli ki, amelyek az informáltság, a menedzsment, a marketing és a finanszírozás színvonala szempontjából legjellemzőbbek. Összefoglalóan megállapítható, hogy a magyarországi mezőgazdasági üzemek gazdálkodási és menedzsment tevékenységének színvonala lényegesen elmarad az európai gyakorlattól, és a tudomány által biztosított lehetőségektől. Ennek okai a nem megfelelő képzési rendszerre, a gazdálkodók kényelmességére, a következetlen agrárpolitikára, és az EU-csatlakozás nem megfelelő előkészítésére, és a hiányos mezőgazdasági intézményrendszerre vezethetők vissza

A MEZŐGAZDASÁGI VÁLLALATI GAZDASÁGTAN FEJLŐDÉSE ÉS A MAI GYAKORLAT

The development of Hungarian agricultural business economics and management used to evolve in accordance with international leaders of the sector. On the other hand, a paradox situation has emerged in Hungary in the last two decades, in which such knowledge is only partially applied as a consequence of insufficient knowledge transfer and highly restructured agriculture. In the framework of an EU-6 research project, reviewing the agricultural risk management practices of some EU Member States, including Hungary, became possible. The study highlights those issues that are the most characteristic in terms of the level of information, management, marketing and finance. As a conclusion, it can be stated that the level of management of Hungarian agricultural holdings is lagging behind the practice in the European Union and the possibilities offered by science. The main reasons for that can be derived from the inadequate education system, leisureliness of farmers, inconsistency of agricultural policy, the inadequate preparation of the EU accession, and the imperfect institutional background of agriculture.tudástranszfer, kockázat menedzsment, felmérés, szaktanácsadás, knowledge transfer, risk management, survey, extension, Agribusiness, Risk and Uncertainty, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,