Overinvestment in selected Central and Eastern European countries: Production and economic effects.

Farms need to invest in order to earn incomes and maintain their competitive edge. However, the scale and extent of investments must be aligned with resources of other productive inputs, primarily including land, because otherwise there is risk of overinvestment. Since 2004, Central and Eastern European countries have been provided with access to investment support programs; these are non-repayable aid funds which can potentially lead to overinvestment issues. Therefore, this paper attempts to answer the question on the scale of overinvestment in the countries covered. This is all the more important since that problem has rarely been addressed in economic and agricultural research. The study presented in this paper is unique in that the research tasks are based on unpublished Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) microdata for 5839 selected Central and Eastern European farms provided by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI). Based on variables relating to the amount of productive inputs and production volumes, the authors developed their own typology of farms which includes the following categories: optimum investment levels (the growth rate of labor productivity is greater than growth in the assets-to-land ratio); relative overinvestment (while labor productivity grows, it does so at a slower rate than the assets-to-land ratio); absolute overinvestment (labor productivity declines while the assets-to-land ratio grows); underinvestment (decline in both labor productivity and the assets-to-land ratio). The authors demonstrated that members of the 'absolute overinvestment' group made flagrant mistakes in investment planning and implementation, whereas members of the 'relative overinvestment' group did record an improvement in labor productivity which ultimately can be considered a positive outcome. Underinvested farms were a very small minority in each country. In addition to filling a gap in the methodology for determining agricultural overinvestment, this paper also indicates the scale of that issue in Central and Eastern European countries. This study may be of importance both to farms (as guidelines for investment planning) and to agricultural policymakers who develop investment support programs.

Spatial determinants of farmers' interest in European Union's pro-investment programs in Poland.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate spatial determinants of farmers' interest in pro-investment programs co-financed by the EU, by identifying and describing the territorial clusters of rural areas in Poland where the applications rates for these programs were above or below the national average. We tested for spatial autocorrelation using Moran's global spatial autocorrelation index, while the search for clusters was done using a local version of Moran's statistics. The results show significant regional variation in the farmers' interest in these programs in Poland. This interest was higher in regions with a greater level of agricultural development and better agrarian structure. In Poland, both of these factors are related not only to natural conditions, but also to strong historical context. We conclude that the pro-investment programs contribute to the deepening of development differences in Polish agriculture in the territorial dimension, which is not in line with the basic assumptions of cohesion policy.

Geographic differentiation of agritourism activities in Poland vs. cultural and natural attractiveness of destinations at district level.

One of the trends in today's tourism sector is the development of environmentally-friendly tourism activities which rely on natural resources of cultural heritage and on biodiversity. This is definitely the case for agritourism, a form of rural tourism. The purpose of this paper is to identify the development aspects of Polish agritourism with particular emphasis on natural and cultural attractiveness. To demonstrate the relationship between agritourism activities of Polish farms and the cultural and natural attractiveness, the Hellwig's synthetic development indicator was used. As shown by research, the cultural and natural attractiveness of a destination is an important exogenous development factor. Another finding was that the intensified efforts undertaken by the farmers to access EU funds were not focused on areas with valuable natural or cultural resources and an untapped agritourism potential; instead, they were oriented at regions dominated by semi-subsistence or family farms. For a large part of farmers, the new form of support is about to become a source of additional incomes.

Food security and food self-sufficiency around the world: A typology of countries.

The particularities of agriculture, as a sector which ensures food supply, result from many factors, including the multilateral interaction between the environment and human activity. The extent of human intervention in the food production process is usually measured with the amount of capital expenditure. Therefore, the food production potential and the resulting food security depend on both natural and economic factors. This paper identifies the current status of food security in different countries around the world, considering both aspects (physical and economic availability) combined together. The variables published by FAO were used together with a variable estimated based on the author's own methodology to identify 8 groups of countries characterized by economic development level, net trade in agricultural products, and selected variables related to agriculture and food situation. As shown by this study, the degree to which food security is ensured with domestic supply varies strongly across the globe. Domestic production provides a foundation for food security in wealthy countries, usually located in areas with favorable conditions for agriculture (including North America, Australia, New Zealand, Kazakhstan) and in countries which, though characterized by a relatively small area of arable land per capita, demonstrate high production intensity (mainly European countries). International trade largely contributes to food security in Middle East and North African countries as well as in selected South American countries which are net importers of food products. The most problematic food situation continues to affect Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia.