Contemporary Challenges to the Organic Farming: A Polish and Hungarian Case Study

From year to year, there is an increasing demand for agricultural produce from certified organic farms. However, Poland and Hungary’s demand for this product is almost twenty times smaller than in Western European countries. The greater the demand by consumers for organic farming products, the more agricultural producers decide to switch from conventional farming to organic farming, and this farming is more environmentally friendly because it uses energy and natural resources responsibly, maintains biodiversity, maintains regional ecological balance, improves soil food, and maintains good water quality. This research aimed to compare the motives and barriers to running organic farms in Poland and Hungary, and the challenges farmers must face to undertake the trouble of running an organic farm. The research was carried out among 400 Polish and 400 Hungarian farmers running organic farms. For statistical calculations, discriminant analysis, as well as single-base and chain indices, were used. The main barriers for establishing organic farms: the necessity to adapt one’s farm to the EU requirements, using only natural fertilizers, low yields, the lack of proper advice, and a high degree of bureaucracy. Therefore, for organic farming to develop, further education is needed, both for farmers and consumers. An important aspect is improving the quality of the regulations and simplifying the administrative burden related to organic farming.

Wellbeing index avoiding scaling and weights

Objective: Existing well-being measures differ in terms of number and format of items, factors being measured, aggregation methods, and are not comparable. A well-being measure involves combining n- number of indicators and quality of the measure depends on properties of combining procedures adopted. The paper proposes two assumption-free aggregation methods to satisfy the desired properties of an index Methods: The paper proposes two indices of well-being in terms of cosine similarity and Geometric mean (GM) avoiding problems associated with scaling of raw data and choosing of weights. Empirical illustration is provided on application of the proposed measures. Results: The proposed indices give better admissibility of operations and satisfy properties like time-reversal test, formation of chain indices, computation of group mean and statistical tests for comparison across time and space. The preferred index can be constructed even for skewed longitudinal data and helps to reflect path of improvement registered by a country/region over time. Conclusions: The index based on GM is preferred due to wider application areas. The index can further be used for classification of countries, sub-groups and even individuals with morbidity in terms of overall wellbeing values. Future studies suggested.

On the Statistical Reflection of Long-Term Growth in Agricultural Production

The article presents the results of a study aimed at proving the existence of systematic error in traditional calculations of long-term growth rates of agricultural production based on chain indices of agricultural production. According to the authors, the article also introduces a more accurate assessment of its dynamics with the account to the structure of the relationship between prices and the volume of agricultural production. The paper describes a theoretical model that is a methodological basis for the study and explains the discrepancy in assessing the dynamics of agricultural production using chain indices and indexes at constant prices. It allows establishing differences in the ratios of the Laspeyres, Paasche, and Lowe indices for crop and livestock production, due to factors in the formation of demand and the complex structure of the relationship between the price level and the volume of production. The adequacy of the constructed theoretical model is proved based on aggregated data that eliminated the influence of incompleteness of the initial information. As a result, it was established that livestock production is characterized by time-distributed changes in prices and quantity of products, which makes it possible to assess its dynamics using both chain indices and symmetric indices. It is proved that the dynamics of crop production cannot be adequately described using chain indices, since a positive correlation of prices of the previous period and production volumes of the current period causes an overstatement of the index in comparable prices of the previous year. Based on calculations within the proposed aggregated model, it is proved that the use of constant prices as the Lowe index weights, updated every five years, is an acceptable approximation of the Fisher symmetric index. Application of the indicated methodology for calculating the index to the data on Russian agricultural production by main types of products in 1990-2018 allowed to establish an overstatement of dynamics by 11.9%. The main difference falls on crop production (+ 19.6%), while for livestock - the differences are insignificant (-0.7%).

Socio-econmic system stability researches in the MathCad enviroment

The article is devoted to the study of the dynamics of the stability of the socio-economic system in the environment of MathCad on the example of a specific company. Issues of making strategic decisions in the face of uncertainty have always been relevant at all levels of the national economy. So, for business entities, strategic issues are the development of a project, product, or functional (business) unit. Here are based on the categories of profitability, break-even, turnover, liquidity and other groups of criteria. In addition to traditional planning and forecasting tools, alternative techniques can be applied. For example, if we consider the main goal of the business entity’s activity not to maximize its own profit (economic interpretation), but to satisfy the needs of the population in goods and services with consumer properties that are necessary for the market (marketing interpretation), then when making decisions, the integrated assessment of social efficiency should be used. A set of chain indices is used that determine the level of satisfaction at transformation points created by the company’s products.There is no conflict of interests.

ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT INCOMES OF THE STATE SEA PORTS OF UKRAINE

The article analyzes the results of stevedoring activities of state seaports of Ukraine during 2013-2019, identifies the reasons for the decline in transshipment and loss of revenue from cargo handling, examines the development of these indicators in the dynamics. Factors that have reduced the revenue of state stevedoring ports are quite diverse: reduction of cargo flows and cargo handling, reorientation and reduction of transit, changes in tariff policy, instability of the dollar, rising energy prices, rising utility rates, labor costs and increased taxes on land. Chain indices of cargo handling volumes in ports, their revenues and income rate are calculated and compared. According to the index method, the graph shows a decline in revenues in general in state ports since 2016 with a decline in cargo handling - the line of revenue indices repeats the trajectory of the line of indices of cargo handling, which can not be said about the line of income rate indices. The results of researches of quantitative influence of factor factors on the effective indicator of work - incomes from cargo handling in the port are analyzed and substantiated. The application of statistical tools for the study of causal relationships of dependencies, which take place in the economic evaluation of the results of state seaports - stevedores, is considered and scientifically substantiated. The author analyzes two single-factor models separately: revenues from variation in the volume of cargo handling and revenues under the influence of the income rate. The study showed that during this period, 84% of the variation in revenues from cargo handling in state ports was formed depending on the volume of transshipment of these goods. Thus, the conclusions of the index analysis of revenue dynamics, income rate and cargo handling volumes by their weighted average values in general on stevedoring activities of state ports and correlation-regression analysis of individual values by individual ports on the determining influence of transshipment volumes on changes in cargo handling revenues ports. Also in the work the estimation of intensity of structural shifts of volume of transshipment of cargoes in ports of the country and their incomes during the investigated period is defined.

Analysis of Total Factor Productivity of Chickpea in Major Producing States in India

Present study was taken up with the aim of analyzing the impact of inputs on productivity performance in chickpea crop. By adopting Divisia chain Indices methodology, TFP indices were calculated along with growth rates and determinants of TFP. The findings of the study revealed that the visible positive TFP growth rates in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra are due to area expansion under chickpea crop than technological intervention. Whereas, in undivided Andhra Pradesh, technology and managerial inputs have contributed to meaningful TFP growths. Apart from traditional inputs, road density was found to be an important source of growth in TFP in the study area. The increased inputs cost and quantity used in chickpea crop has resulted in increase in the cost of production in the selected states during the study period 2005-13.

The Development of the Sports Careers of the Best Decathletes in the World and in Poland in the Years 1985–2015

Introduction. The main goal of the study was to examine the changes in the scores achieved by a group of the best decathletes in Poland and in the world over the duration of their entire sports careers. Material and methods. The study examined the careers of 25 top decathletes in Poland and 25 top decathletes in the world who achieved their best scores in the decathlon in the years 1985-2015. Changes in their performance were analysed using three research protocols, which explored the relationships between the decathletes’ performance and their age, the number of years of training completed, and the number of years elapsed before and after the decathletes achieved their personal best scores. In order to analyse the data, some basic descriptive statistics, performed segmented regression, and computed fixed-base and chain indices were calculated. Conclusions. The findings of the current study indicate that decathletes achieve the best outcomes between the ages of 25 and 30. Furthermore, it was found that the time when the personal best scores were attained was preceded by the greatest increases in the level of performance and followed by the largest decreases in performance. Determining the way performance outcomes change in particular years of the career of a decathlete can help manage their training in different phases of their career more effectively.