Книги

Using a partial equilibrium model of world agriculture, we investigate the multilateral removal of all border taxes and farm programs and their distortion of world agricultural markets. These distortions have significant terms-of-trade effects. World trade is also significantly impacted by both types of distortions. Trade expansion is substantial for most commodities, especially dairy, meats, and vegetable oils. Net agricultural and food exporters (Brazil, Australia, and Argentina) emerge with expanded exports; whereas net importing countries with limited distortions before liberalization are penalized by higher world markets prices and reduced imports. The US gains significant export shares in livestock products and imports more dairy products. Without protection and domestic subsidies, the EU loses many of its livestock and dairy export markets.

Based on the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) approach this paper provides an assessment of the competitive position of the Hungarian agro-food industry in view of EU integration. The situation in the food processing sector is assessed with the use of actual cost data from representative Hungarian companies. The paper presents an assessment of the current situation prior to EU integration as well as a future outlook under various scenarios with regard to the expected policy environment and the rate of technological change. The actual measurement of competitiveness in this study focuses mainly on Private Resource Cost (PRC) which indicates competitiveness under real market conditions and Domestic Resource Cost (DRC) which gives an assessment on the social or economic efficiency of an activity, i.e. whether domestic resources are really used efficiently in current production. In the food processing sector 21 different food products have been investigated which fall into four industries: meat, poultry, dairy, and fruits and vegetables. Under current conditions only some products are competitive in private terms. The situation would improve after EU integration especially for poultry, fruits and vegetables, because agricultural policy conditions are more favourable under the CAP. If additional FDI(Foreign Direct Investments) would flow into the country after EU membership, this would boost profitability. As far as DRC values are concerned, it must be stated that only some of the production activities are clearly efficient. Dairy, fruits and vegetables, and roast goose production show relatively weak social competitiveness, while other poultry and fruit and vegetables products are more favourable from the economic point of view. As EU policies provide on average higher protection levels, the competitiveness of Hungarian food processing on world markets would deteriorate for most products after EU accession. However, these effects can be offset by additional technological change due to FDI inflows or otherwise induced technological progress.

The present study attempts to offer more insights into the Greek wine market with emphasis on wines produced from organically grown grapes by relating wine choice to consumers’ personal value structure. With the use of a qualitative sample and applying the Means-end Chains methodology and the corresponding “laddering” interviewing technique, it attempts first to reveal the way basic motives are linked to wine shopping behaviour of consumers and the way wine purchase-relevant knowledge is stored and organised in their memory in relation to their personal values. Then, by discriminating between organic food buyers and non-buyers, the study identifies motivational and cognitive discriminating differences between the two consumer types, which can offer a solid explanation as to their distinctive purchasing behaviour in respect of the organic products.

Most of the large-scale millers in Ghana provide a loan to the farmers under the agreement that the farmers will bring their paddy to them.

This paper examines the effect of this interlinkage on the efficiency of rice milling. A quadratic cost function was estimated, and capacity utilization was calculated in relation to money lending. The results show that if the millers provide a loan to the farmers, the operating rate will increase by 24%.