Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Tomasz Siudek Author-Workplace-Name: Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland Author-Name: Aldona Zawojska Author-Workplace-Name: Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland Title: How does general economy and agriculture sector performance influence farm producer support in the OECD countries? Abstract: This paper assesses the effects of the performance of the OECD national economies and agricultural sectors on the farm producer support for the years 1986 to 2009. The study is complementary to the large amount of microeconomic research that highlights the importance of support to agricultural industry. Data for the analysis are taken from the OECD Producer and Consumer Support Estimates database and the World Bank World Development Indicators 2010 database. The Producer Support Estimate - PSE (expressed in absolute value, in percent of the total farm revenues and per 1 hectare of agricultural land) was taken as the dependent variable, whereas the selected indicators describing the performance of the economies (e.g. GDP per capita, unemployment, fiscal balance, government debt, government expense and tax revenue, exchange rate, agriculture share in GDP and employment, agricultural raw materials exports and imports) were the independent variables. Utilizing these variables, a simple linear regression analysis was conducted and resulted in many significant associations. In the period analyzed, there was a wide gap between the most and least farm supporting countries in terms of the annual average percentage PSE and the PSE per hectare. Substantial differences between the countries in the variability of the PSE over the time occurred. The empirical results obtained from the regression models reveal, among other, that when the countries were becoming richer, the percentage PSE was generally decreasing. Mixed results were obtained for the relationship between the percentage PSE and unemployment, as in some countries it was negative, while in the others positive. Expansionary fiscal policy exerted opposite effects on the PSE in different countries. Labour productivity in agriculture was inversely correlated with the percentage PSE. Keywords: agricultural policy, producer support estimate, developed countries, macroeconomics Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 101-118 Volume: 58 Issue: 3 Year: 2012 DOI: 10.17221/57/2011-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/57/2011-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201203-0001.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:58:y:2012:i:3:id:57-2011-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Šárka Grófová Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Tropics and Subtropics, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic Author-Name: Karel Srnec Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Tropics and Subtropics, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic Title: Food crisis, food production and poverty Abstract: There is a sufficient global potential to produce the food required to feed the world population on the global level. Despite this, the number of hungry people worldwide was 925 million in 2010. Developing countries account for 98% of the world undernourished people and have a prevalence of undernourishment of 16%. Food security increasingly depends on non-agricultural factors like energy, trade and finance. The negative economic and social impacts of food, energy and the global economic and financial crises showed the vulnerability to poverty. High and rising food prices further undermined the food security and threatened the livelihoods of the most vulnerable by decreasing their already limited purchasing power. The main step in reducing poverty and hunger in developing countries is to invest in agriculture and rural development. Scaled-up investments in social protection that focus on nutrition and health are also crucial for improving the lives of the poorest people. Keywords: agriculture, food prices, food production, population growth, poverty, undernourishment Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 119-126 Volume: 58 Issue: 3 Year: 2012 DOI: 10.17221/91/2011-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/91/2011-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201203-0002.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:58:y:2012:i:3:id:91-2011-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Vladimír Jeníček Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of International Relations, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic Title: Globalisation - content, dynamics Abstract: The notion of international relationships is supplemented by other phenomena during the last time. One of them is globalisation, called on by technological, social and cultural changes, which have shortened the economic distance among countries. The improvement of transport and communication technologies has decreased transport costs of goods, people and information. Traditional governmental policies limiting the cross-border transactions were liberalised or removed what in consequence brought about the growth of international trade and foreign direct investments (FDI). Globalisation changes the properties of the world economy and influences the core of the successful economic approaches to development, what increases the need to secure the sustainability of economic development. Keywords: globalisation, theoretical issues, economic growth, dimension of globalisation Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 127-134 Volume: 58 Issue: 3 Year: 2012 DOI: 10.17221/136/2011-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/136/2011-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201203-0003.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:58:y:2012:i:3:id:136-2011-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Dan Yang Author-Workplace-Name: The Research Centre of Rural Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing, China Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing, China Author-Name: Zimin Liu Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing, China Author-Workplace-Name: Graduate School, The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China Title: Study on Chinese farmer cooperative economy organization and agricultural specialization Abstract: Under the background of the Chinese Household Contract Responsibility System (HCRS), farmers have to pay higher transaction costs and encounter a huge trading risk if they engage in agricultural production only through the market transaction. Since the special properties of agricultural production limit the formation and development of agricultural enterprises, farmer cooperative economy organizations with the main functional characteristics of transaction coordination begin to flourish. By building a new classical economics model, this paper demonstrates the theoretical assertion that the generation of a farmer cooperative economy organization is accompanied by the evolution of the division of labour, the improvement of farmers' effectiveness and the development of agricultural specialization. Furthermore, this paper does an empirical analysis with the micro-survey data to verify this theoretical assertion. Therefore, this article effectively explains the generation condition of a farmer cooperative economy organization and the internal mechanism of how it promotes the development of agricultural specialization. So this paper provides a strong theoretical and practical evidence for the development of a farmer cooperative economy organization and agricultural specialization. Keywords: farmer cooperative economy organization, division of labour, agricultural specialization, inframarginal analysis Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 135-146 Volume: 58 Issue: 3 Year: 2012 DOI: 10.17221/17/2011-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/17/2011-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201203-0004.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:58:y:2012:i:3:id:17-2011-AGRICECON