Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: H. Holly WANG Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA Author-Name: Jong Won PARK Author-Workplace-Name: National Agricultural Cooperative, Seoul, Korea Author-Name: Timothy BAKER Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA Title: Contracting, negotiation, and the policy change: The conflict between Korean farmers and their agricultural coo Abstract: Farmers- owned agricultural cooperatives should have the same interests with their farmer owners. However, the operating team of the cooperatives may have different interests. Under this situation, the terms of contract between farmers and cooperatives are important to both sides. Farmers' share of the cooperatives' profits specified in the contracts is an important issue in the long- term sustainability of rice processing and marketing in Korea. This paper discusses the behavior of farmers and their cooperatives in determining the optimal share of profits in their contracts. It also illustrates the impacts of the policy changes due to the Korea's accession to the WTO on the relative negotiation power between farmers and cooperatives. The results show that the Korean rice cooperatives have more negotiation power than farmers. They set the profit share to farmers based on their own profit maximization criteria, while taking farmers supply decision into consideration. Farmers only choose how much to supply. This relationship was seen changing after 2005, when the Korean government reduced and removed the price subsidy it provided to rice cooperatives before. As the cooperatives' margin goes down without the subsidy, farmers are pushed to bargain hard for their share of the margin to maintain their revenue. Keywords: contracts, principal-agent, cooperatives, market risk Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 467-473 Volume: 57 Issue: 10 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/173/2010-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/173/2010-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201110-0001.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:10:id:173-2010-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Alessandro BANTERLE Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Economics, University of Milan, Milan, Italy Author-Name: Alessia CAVALIERE Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Economics, University of Milan, Milan, Italy Author-Name: Laura CARRARESI Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Economics, University of Milan, Milan, Italy Author-Name: Stefanella STRANIERI Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Economics, University of Milan, Milan, Italy Title: Innovativeness in food small business: What is its relationship with marketing? Abstract: Small businesses often do not have a sufficient capacity to put the appropriate R&D activities into action. Nevertheless, they are able to be innovative towards their products, processes, distribution channels, and geographical markets. Therefore, even for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the level of innovativeness can be high. The literature shows that the firm marketing capabilities are very important for innovation in the food industry, to guarantee that innovation reflects the market needs. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the level of firm innovativeness and different steps of the marketing management process, to understand if good marketing capabilities can affect the firm innovativeness. An interactive questionnaire available on the web was used for the data collection. The survey was conducted on 468 European SMEs. Linear Regression was run to assess the link between marketing activities and the level of firm innovativeness. Our empirical analysis reveals that the SME marketing capabilities show significant and positive relationships with firm innovativeness. Keywords: traditional food products, innovation, marketing management capabilities, linear regression model Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 474-483 Volume: 57 Issue: 10 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/185/2010-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/185/2010-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201110-0002.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:10:id:185-2010-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Štefan BOJNEC Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Management, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia Author-Name: Drago PAPLER Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Management, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia Title: Efficient energy use and renewable sources of energy in Slovenia: a survey of public perception Abstract: This paper presents unique survey results with opinions on the competitive supply and efficient energy use, sources of energy and renewable sources of energy. The multivariate factor analysis with three common factors confirms the significance of the price competitive supply of energy, energy costs for the economy, and the sustainable energy supply development and ecological perception in the energy use. Among renewable sources of energy, significance is given to the solar, hydro, biogas, and biomass energy, where the energy use and the renewable energy production in agriculture can play a greater role. Education and promotion activities are expressed as important for strengthening the knowledge, awareness, and social responsibility of the sustainable energy development and the use of renewable sources of energy. Keywords: energy efficiency, renewable sources of energy, operation management, sustainability, social responsibility Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 484-492 Volume: 57 Issue: 10 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/83/2010-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/83/2010-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201110-0003.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:10:id:83-2010-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Elena HORSKÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Johana ÜRGEOVÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Renata PROKEINOVÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Statistics and Operation Research Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Title: Consumers' food choice and quality perception: Comparative analysis of selected Central European countries Abstract: Food quality and safety belong to the most important factors of building the image of the product, brand, or country of origin at the local, regional or global markets. The main aim of the paper is to compare the food products quality perception in the selected countries of Central Europe: Poland, the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic. Different aspects of the food products quality perception were considered during our research as food hygiene, product safety, taste, brand, quality mark and safety processes in food manufacturing. The methodical approaches of the paper are based on the questionnaire survey, and, consequently, the cluster analysis defining the consumer's perception typology. The computations were processed by using the statistical program SAS. The research results point at the food hygiene as the most important qualitative factor for the respondents in all three countries. On the other hand, the packing as a factor is considered as of either a less importance or an irrelevant one in terms of the product quality perception. Keywords: food product, quality factor, perception, cluster analysis, dendogram Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 493-499 Volume: 57 Issue: 10 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/103/2011-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/103/2011-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201110-0004.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:10:id:103-2011-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Jiří PAPOUŠEK Author-Workplace-Name: Agroprojekt PSO, Brno, Czech Republic Title: Evaluation of efficiency of the Common Measures - measures for land accessibility, implemented within land consolidation Abstract: By the means of Land Consolidation is understood, in accord with law No. 139/2002 Coll., spending of funds on land consolidations and land offices, provided the accessibility of grounds in public interest. Land consolidations also ensure the conditions for improvement of the ecosystem, protection and reclamation of land resources, waterway management and the increase of the ecological stability of landscape. All mentioned measures are collectively called the Common Measures, rural roads being one of the most significant of these measures as far as the ground accessibility is concerned. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Land Office (MZe, ÚPÚ) statistics, for instance in 2008, over 707.4 million CZK was spent on the common measures projects from the public funds. Of this sum, 82 per cent was spent on financing of the land accessibility projects - rural roads and objects on them. The Cost & Benefit Analysis (CBA) method was applied. The analysis explains step by step what benefits the investment projects bring and to whom, as well as what and from whom it takes something away. Thus defined effects and impacts are aggregated, converted into financial flows and included in the calculation of criteria indicators. These calculations enable to make decision whether the concerned project is in its consequences generally contributive. There is a difficulty in the method - it is applied ex-ante, which usually leads to the exaggerated input parameters, which may be significantly affected by a number of variable effects (time factor, socio-economic impacts, inflation rate, etc.). The ex-post application of the method cannot be objectively used due to the absence of the statistically processed input data for the analysis. Such data must be collected during the operational period of the realized investments. This is caused by the fact that these analyses consider lifetime of these investments in terms of 25-30 years. The ÚPÚ statistics, however, say that the operational period of most of realized common measures has not reached one half of their lifetime yet. The ex-ante analysis enables to evaluate the possible difficulty and the general benefit of projects, including their impact on the broad spectrum of subjects. Keywords: land consolidation, common measures, ground accessibility, efficiency Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 500-505 Volume: 57 Issue: 10 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/26/2010-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/26/2010-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201110-0005.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:10:id:26-2010-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Zdeněk TRÁVNÍČEK Author-Workplace-Name: Consultant, Prague, Czech Republic Author-Name: Jaromír ŠTOLCPART Author-Workplace-Name: Czech Technical University, Prague, Czech Republic Author-Name: Václav Alexandr MAZÍN Author-Workplace-Name: Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic Title: Optimization of the Land Offices organisation in the Czech Republic Abstract: The land consolidation is a significant instrument for the ownership relations issue and for ensuring the maintenance of land functions and the increase of the ecological stability. Despite of the demonstrable arguments, this activity is not fully valued by the society, which is retroactively reflected from the long term point of view into the processes and structures of land consolidation in countryside. The analysis of the current organisation and management of the Land Offices pointed at substantial regional differences in the process management effectiveness, the utilisation of expert capacities during the land consolidation realisation and further administration actions. There is proposed an optimisation of the institutional structure that will be sufficiently flexible towards the changes of the demanded actions. The need for change of organisation and activities requires also the agro-environmental policies of the European Union. Keywords: land consolidation, Land Offices, organisational structures, management structures, countryside Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 506-515 Volume: 57 Issue: 10 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/92/2010-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/92/2010-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201110-0006.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:10:id:92-2010-AGRICECON