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Hub4Everybody is a one-of-a-kind solution for publishing, sharing and cooperative management of geographical datasets, such as professional data and measuring, results of research projects or student papers, educational materials, emotional maps, visualization of in-field research and other maps, tables, or databases. You can easily upload or update your data as well as adjust the parameters of sharing among different audiences. Hub4Everybody is an alternative tool combining online office software with an editorial system for spatial data. It is also an Open-Source alternative to already existing commercial solutions, while offering additional extending options. Hub4Everybody offers all usual functions of geoportals (working with a map, linking of external data and services) but on top of that it offers a possibility to link desktop and mobile solutions for geographical data processing, data visualisation in form of storyboard and communication components via social networks. The solution is scalable and fully adaptable to the end-user needs. You can store your data directly on Hub4Everybody cloud or in your own infrastructure. All technologies used for Hub4Everybody are open source, which enables you to communicate with all kinds of users all over the world while no costs are necessary. The paper describes not only the current system, but also the history of development and potential utilization. An intensive testing and development using a series of INSPIRE Hackathons are an important part of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Agris On-Line Papers in Economics & Informatics is the property of Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Consulting Center of the Faculty of Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The use of modern technology is becoming part of both industry and agriculture. These technologies can also be used in beekeeping, where they can help to monitor the operation of the hive remotely. Beekeepers can remotely monitor the weight of their hives, their temperature, humidity, and other parameters. The aim of this paper is to map the beekeepers in the use of products with monitoring system for remote bee detection in beekeeping in Czechia. To map the issue, qualitative research using semi-structured interviews was conducted with beekeepers, manufacturers/providers of smart devices in beekeeping, and other entities involved in beekeeping. The findings showed that the interest of manufacturers and sellers to offer these smart devices is significant, but the interest of beekeepers is rather less, due to e.g., the purchase price, weaker IT knowledge, traditional beekeeping practices, higher age of beekeepers and the joy of being personally with bees. The novelty of the paper is not to look at the provision of ICT in beekeeping from a technical perspective, but from the perspective of users (beekeepers) and manufacturers of these technologies. Through interviews with beekeepers as well as others in the apiculture sphere, a comprehensive view of the issue is developed. Moreover, this is the first piece of research on this area in Czechia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents selected aspects of a data platform to store agricultural data. It analyses the key user and system requirements for the data platform. The presented aspects were identified through a literature review, interviews and discussions with selected data experts and researchers and future users of the platform. The following issues of the data platform are discussed in the paper: architecture, data types, data source types, metadata, disciplinary interfaces, data sharing, data reusability, Open Science, FAIR data principles, and further data processing options. Part of the knowledge from this article was used in the design and implementation of the Institutional Data Repository called Data Management Platform (DaMP.) CZU (Czech University of Life Sciences Prague) (OPENAI, 2023). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient use of production resources in enterprises is necessary for increasing their competitiveness and the potential for their future development. In today's global world, companies are forced to invest in new technologies that are both more energy-efficient and more environmentally friendly, including in the food industry. The paper focusses on the efficiency of production factors in relation to their economic success. The aim is to find possible variants of the development of the links between capital labour ratio and labour productivity in relation to the development of profitability of returns. Empirical analysis coved 2,526 enterprises in food industry in four examined European countries (Visegrad group -V4) - Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic. The contribution of the paper is the generalization of the links between the indicators of the efficiency of production factors in the form of recommended inequalities that can be used by enterprises for economically successful development.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are interesting debates on the influence of foreign aid to agriculture on economic growth in Africa. Some scholars have argued that, despite the inflows, majority of rural smallholder farmers in the continent are extremely poor. The precise channels through which foreign aid is to promote sectoral growth has been inadequately understood from the literature. This paper is a systematic literature review on the empirical evidence of the relationship between agricultural aid and growth in Sub Saharan African countries. The Generalized Methods of Moments and the Granger causality test are the main methodological approaches of papers reviewed and the relationship between agricultural aid and productivity growth is positive and quite significant. However, the results demonstrate a weak synergy between the various forms of agricultural aid and growth. The main recommendation is to have a broader conceptual, theoretical or analytical frameworks that clearly define how agricultural aid influences productivity when measured against other influencing factors. Aid is only a catalyst to growth so, governments must invest and provide the necessary infrastructure and a conducive policy environment for increased productivity and growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the vast popularity of the deep learning models in the engineering and mathematical fields, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have recently attracted significant research applications in agriculture, economics, informatics and finance. In this paper, we use a deep learning method to capture and predict the unknown complex nonlinear characteristics of agricultural output based on autoregressive artificial neural network, using Nigeria as a case study. Using the proposed model, shocks in agricultural output is analyzed and modeled using data obtained for a period of forty years (1980-2019), and compared with analyses obtained from the autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA). This result is significant because it justifies the superiority of the hybrid ANN model over the traditional Box-Jenkins methodology for forecasting non-stationary time series. The empirical results show that the proposed autoregressive ANN model achieves an improved forecasting accuracy over the traditional Box-Jenkins ARIMA method. It is further proposed that various types of artificial neural networks would be useful in forecasting and solving relevant tasks and problems widely defined in global agricultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern European integration entails the common foreign and security policy. In February 2022, the Russian aggression against Ukraine moved the deplorable situation from 2014 to another level calling for an EU reaction via legal instruments. Based on them, ten sanctions packages have emerged with significant consequences. The aim of this paper is to analyze it, in particular the connection of these ten sanctions packages and foreign trade between the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation. This aim is achieved by addressing three sets of goals: (i) the legal analysis of EU trade policy instruments, (ii) an advanced statistical and critical analysis of the trade between Czech Republic and Russian Federation and (iii) a creation of a timeline of the application and its ramifications. This reveals interesting propositions about the impact of these sanctions packages on the Czech foreign trade and about the effectiveness of the EU's trade policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The OECD-FAO's Agricultural Outlook and the European Commission DG AGRI's Medium-term agricultural outlook report provide price forecasts. Users of these forecasts may be interested in their accuracy. This paper measures the accuracy for values forecast for the following year. These are very accurate as regards the AO EU price of poultry, the EC outlook price of common wheat and feed barley, but not so accurate as regards the EC outlookon beef prices. In some cases, discrepancies between the forecasts follow a systematic pattern. The paper also discovers how the OECD-FAO's outlook projections for a common wheat world representative price are changing from year to year. Usually they are positively correlated, but there are certain exceptions where their correlation is significantly negative. This means that the price projections of some commodities may vary dramatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the presented paper was the analysis of the current state of food security in the world, segmentation of 100 selected countries and determination of its main driving factors. The analysis used 27 indicators covering 5 basic areas: agricultural production, poverty, demography, economic development, and environmental indicators. The analysis was based on data from the FAO and World Bank for the most recent available period, which was year 2020. The data dimension was reduced with the application of factor analysis, and the main driving factors of food sufficiency were determined. The result was 6 factors: technological development, economic development, agricultural production, environmental factor, and physical quality of life and environment. To group similar countries in terms of selected indicators, a cluster analysis was performed, whereby countries were grouped by similarity into three clusters. The 1st cluster consisted of the most economically developed countries, where only 2.54% of the population suffers from malnutrition. The countries in this cluster were characterized by high levels of economic development, high caloric intake of the population, and high, life expectancy. On the other hand, they recorded negative development in demographic indicators such as fertility and birth rates. The 2nd cluster included the poorest areas of the African continent, which were most endangered by direct food insufficiency (23.74% of the population). In contrast to the first cluster, these countries were characterized by low levels of economic development, high prices, and low-calorie intakes of the population, as well as low life expectancy, while on the other hand, these countries had high fertility and birth rates. The third largest cluster consisted of countries with a medium threat of food insufficiency, where 6.37% of the population suffers from malnutrition. The countries in the third cluster excelled in terms of crop and livestock production volumes, but in contrast to this, they achieved lower levels of fat, protein, and calorie intake of population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between ICT, the financial sector, and output growth has been extensively studied, however, macro-economic studies with an emphasis on the role of rural ICT on agricultural performance are few and yield mixed findings. Additionally, past research has not given sufficient attention to how bank credit affects agricultural performance. This paper highlighted the dynamic effect of rural ICT penetration and bank credit on agricultural performance in Eastern Indonesia. We used secondary data taken from the Central Bureau of Statistics and the Financial Services Authority. The panel data covered 16 provinces of eastern Indonesia from the first semester of 2010 to the second semester of 2022 (2010S1-2022S2). Using the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach, the results showed that in the long run, rural ICT penetration and bank credit played a significant role in boosting agricultural performance. However, in the short run, the impact of rural ICT penetration and bank credit on agricultural performance was statistically insignificant. Finally, we recommended several important policies that can practically impact and contribute to improving agricultural performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to assess the differences in opinions on relation of agricultural holdings (agri-holdings) and the municipalities. Whether the relationship rating depended on the intensity of cooperation in particular area (social life, public benefit activities, ecological activities and strategic planning) was tested. The relationship was rated positively in majority of cases which helped to create social capital in the locality. Strong influence on it had sponsorship of the fire brigade (from point of view of agri-holdings). From the standpoint of municipalities, almost all activities were important. Better promotion of agri-holdings' activities in all areas can be suggested as not all actions of agri-holdings were known to the representants of the municipality. Negative relationship was mainly due to the agri-holding damaging the environment. Hence, responsible behaviour is an important for the agri-holding reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the technical efficiency of conventional and organic dairy farms in Estonia in the period 2006-2015 using Farm Accountancy Data Network. We analyse self-selection into organic farming using the propensity-score-matching approach and explicitly test the hypothesis that organic and conventional farms apply homogeneous technology. We find that organic farms are less efficient. However, the difference in technical efficiency between organic and conventional farms decreases substantially when the technical efficiency assessment incorporates the use of the appropriate technology. The lack of growth of technical efficiency over time indicates that there might be a lack of knowledge in organic milk production that hinders its development. Since technical efficiency increases with farm size, it is important that organic dairy farms increase their scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a steady increase in research on livestock monitoring systems that offer new ways to remotely track the health of the livestock, early predict the diseases that may affect them and intervene in the early stages to save the situation by monitoring the various vital biodata of the livestock, as well as monitoring their feeding and tracking their location to prevent any damage or rustling. In this context, this paper comes in order to highlight and discuss the most recently published articles that study the topic of cattle health monitoring and location tracking systems using advanced IoT sensors. In addition, the research provides a review of the most important software and dashboards available in the market that can be used for this purpose. The research constitutes a reference for researchers in this field and for those who wish to develop similar monitoring systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainability of agriculture became one of the key priorities for policy frameworks at global and European levels. The global initiative of the United Nations that defined the Sustainable Development Goals and the European Green Deal. Use of remote sensing to achieve sustainable practices in the entire agriculture value chain can significantly contribute to fulfil the set goals by the policy frameworks. This paper analyses the stakeholders involved in agriculture including the agri-food, public, financial and food security sectors, and their needs. In situ and virtual workshops with relevant stakeholders including an online survey served as a primary source of input for the user require ments analysis and as a platform for feedback and discussion. As a result, a set of key documents including a white paper, a policy roadmap and a strategic research agenda were published. Recommendations for future utilisation of remote sensing in agriculture are described in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A well-developed financial system plays an important role in financing individual sectors in the country. In this paper, we analyse credit development in the agricultural sector in the Slovak Republic from various perspectives. We examine the relationship between the agricultural sector's characteristics and the volume of funding at the regional level. The paper's methodology is based on a k-means algorithm for clustering the Slovak regions with four criteria. Then we examine the relationship between financial development and agricultural growth by employing the Cobb-Douglas production function. This study uses annual data covering the period from 2008 to 2019. The results reveal that financial development has a significant and positive effect on agricultural production and agricultural growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given its role in landscape sustainability and health benefits, beekeeping is supported in all EU countries. The paper focuses on the assessment of the impact of beekeeping subsidies on the number of bee colonies in the Czech Republic. Subsidies in the Czech Republic are provided from national sources (state budget), from the budgets of individual regions and from EU sources. The paper presents the development of the number of bee colonies in the Czech Republic from 1990 to 2018. Until 2008, the number of bee colonies in the Czech Republic was decreasing. A significant increase occurred only in 2013. The influence of the amount of subsidy on the number of bee colonies was analysed using a panel data model and the Pearson correlation coefficient. The results show that subsidies have a significant positive influence on the number of bee colonies in Czech Republic and also in the individual regions of the Czech Republic. In terms of the specific focus of subsidies, we can observe a significant positive dependence between the number of bee colonies per beekeeper and technical support. Subsidies for the fight against varroosis are also very important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main tasks of controlling is to identify the deviations of actually achieved results compared to the planned and to find out reasons for their occurrence. Lack of attention to this activity can have negative impact on the company's performance. The paper focuses on identification of selected research results that was conducted in Slovak agricultural enterprises. The main goal of the paper is to evaluate and analyse the approach of agricultural enterprises in Slovakia to the implementation of deviations analysis. The basic technique applied for data collection was a questionnaire survey, which was supplemented by a direct interview with managers of selected agricultural entities. The implementation of the questionnaire survey was preceded by a pre-research (pilot study) carried out in the Czech Republic. Obtained data were statistically examined applying the XLStat statistical program. Based on achieved research results we confirmed presumptions from the theoretical background elaborated in the paper, stating that the analysis of deviations is an integral part of controlling. Furthermore, we identify problematic areas for deviations analysis and also controlling implementation in agricultural enterprises in Slovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is focused on dairy sector with the emphasis on the development of consumption of milk and dairy products, including cheese, curd and other dairy products, in the last 15 years in the Slovak Republic and in the Czech Republic. The aim of the paper is to identify the level of milk and dairy products consumption, as well as to identify the main determinants affecting the consumption. Paper is also aimed at milk production with emphasis on the main problems that may affect future development on the dairy market. The primary data are obtained by consumer survey and survey aimed focused on producers of milk and dairy products. Based on the results we have identified that the milk and dairy products consumption by Slovak consumers is lower compared to the Czech Republic and the quality and price are considered as the main determinants influencing the consumption. We also found out that milk and dairy products producers are adapting their production to demand, but it is important to point out the barriers related in particular to the introduction of new technologies into production, rising input prices or growing consumer disinterest in the consumption of milk and dairy products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores farmers' perceptions of climate change and their preferred adaptive and mitigatory strategies within Slovakia's Nitra region, aiming to devise recommendations for climate change-oriented agricultural policies. Our methodology incorporates an analysis of perspectives gathered from a regional survey using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and SuperDecisions software, complemented by a risk-attitude assessment using the modified Multiple Price Lists (MPL) method. A subsequent heterogeneity analysis correlates these preferences with respondents' socio-economic status and risk attitudes. Our findings underscore the use of improved, resilient seeds as a favored adaptation measure and reveal a correlation between farmers' socio-economic attributes and their climate change strategy preferences. Based on this, we propose inclusive, micro-level agricultural policies that prioritize the unique climatic needs of the Nitra region and strongly consider the priority viewpoints of farmers within this region, aiming to promote sustainable agriculture under changing climatic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a risk-hedging strategy for coffee markets including climate impact in the context of Colombian Coffee producers, companies, regulators, and policymakers. From the intermediaries' perspective, we present a hedging price and quantity risks using financial instruments based on price and weather variables (El Niño and La Niña phenomena). The coffee price and quantities produced are mitigated by the inclusion of climatic variables in two ways: first, through analysing the changes observed in the forward curve against spot price measuring the deterministic effect, known in this market as the forward risk premium. Second, including the weather index in the hedge structure on price and quantity in the coffee market improves the agent's result; this latter aims to improve the hedging claim's performance due to the link between demanded volume and weather-linked index. An experiment shows the strategy profit over the best-performing claim price derived only and without hedging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural activities produce the significant amounts of greenhouse gas emission. The importance of an ever-changing climate means that digital technologies and their environmental impact are more frequently discussed in the context of the 5th Industrial Revolution. It is important to minimize environmental threats and reduce production waste on the way to a sustainable path. The main scientific aim of the paper is to examine, based on correlation analysis and ANOVA method, the relationship between two variables, digital performance of individual EU countries expressed by the indicator Digital Economy and Society Index and production of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, specifically how digital technologies affect the environment and how to transform digital technologies to supporting the European Green Deal and accelerate sustainable growth. The reasons are that digital technologies can play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to the results, it has been proven that exists a positive correlation between two variables regarding as a weak correlation between DESI and GHG emissions. Analysis of variance indicates the highly significant differences between variables. Countries with the higher DESI index produce more Greenhouse gas emissions as well but in a weak manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the sources of competitiveness of Czech cereal production by considering precision farming technology and employing micro-level data collected in the FADN database for the period 2005-2018. The analysis is based on the stochastic frontier modelling of an input distance function in the specification of the four-component model, which currently represents the most advanced approach to technical efficiency analysis. To provide a robust estimate of the model, the paper employs methods which control for the potential endogeneity of netputs in the four-step estimation procedure. Furthermore, the total factor productivity change is calculated using the Törnqvist-Theil index. The results reveal that Czech cereal producers took great advantage of their production possibilities and experienced technological progress, which contributed considerably to productivity dynamics and consequently to an increase in their competitiveness. Precision farming, which is associated with a large number of innovations reflected in technological change and optimal resource use, contributed to higher technical efficiency connected with cost savings in Czech cereal production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explored sustainability transparency and SDGs 2 and 12 disclosure and its influence on their overall efficiency, using data from Ukrainian agricultural companies. To do this Sustainability Transparency Index (STI) methodology is developed and used. The following hypothesis is tested: the higher the STI score is, the better position of the company is among its peers. For these purposes, STI index is calculated for the top100 Ukrainian agriculture companies. Correlation analysis, Granger causality tests and regression analysis provide evidences in favour of high dependence of position in top100 from the STI score: the more efforts companies invest into Sustainability Transparency, the higher the position in ranking is. This is direct evidence that companies' sustainability transparency is an important element of its activity nowadays. Recommendations to improve sustainability transparency based on suitable reporting practices are provided in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the position and financing needs of agri-food industry in Slovakia. There is a growth of agri-food sector which is reflected in growing demand for finance. Despite current favourable conditions on the financial market in Slovakia, some viable firms still face a credit constraint. Financing gap exists due to relatively high interest rates for some firms and due to their lack of sufficient collateral. Based on the survey results and focus group meetings we estimate the financing gap. Results show that there is potential for a further expansion of the financing market, with a financing gap estimated at EUR 36.8 mil. Small firms suffer the most from the financing gap and they consti tute 77.4% of the gap. Financing gap and financing needs will be growing in the future. Firms need to increase investment to stay competitive on the market and need to adopt to changes in consumer preferences. This requires further investment into new technology and equipment. Tougher environmental requirements make firms invest into more environmentally friendly production processes. Furthermore, the sector is expected to be growing in the future. Financial instruments in the form of loan guarantees and interest rate subsidies would partly eliminate the existing financing gap. Small firms would benefit from simple and flexible financial instruments serving as guarantees for loans. Large firms would benefit from long-term loans supported by financial instruments. Policy-makers should place special attention on the use of financial instruments in agri-food sub-sectors with potential high value added and high employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitization is becoming part of agriculture. Winemakers can use monitoring technologies to map land or control the quality of grapes, and telematics, e.g., in tractors, or use entire autonomous machines. The aim of this paper is to find out the barriers to and benefits of the use of smart farming technologies by small and medium winemakers, specifically sensors and weather stations, which allow the collection of site-specific data for subsequent application in viticulture. Therefore, the pilot study analyses how winemakers in traditional industry are able to employ smart farming technologies (SFT) to gain some benefits and also describe possible barriers. The primary method of data collection was through 27 semistructured interviews with relevant wine industry actors, accessing documents created by SFT providers and an academic literature review. Three groups of actors were researched: 1) 22 winemakers including the Ekovin Association, 2) three SFT providers and, 3) one supplier of hardware for soil and temperature sensors. According to the information of winemakers, it is clear that SFT are used by some of them and they are clearly aware of their benefits, which is also confirmed by SFT providers. The findings revealed that the main STF benefits are adjustment of the product portfolio, savings, consulting and organization of activities. However, respondents also mentioned barriers to SFT implementation, such as low need for information, another source of information, conservative approaches, ignorance of SFT, financial demands, low state support and age of winemakers. The novelty of this paper is in providing an analysis of the issue of SFT, specifically sensors and weather stations, for winemakers from three different perspectives, that of winemakers, suppliers of SFT and HW manufacturer for SFT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bengkulu is one of the provinces in Indonesia where household protein consumption is still below the national protein recommended allowance. This paper examines the effect of price, income and socio-demographic factors on household demand using the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) model and data from the Indonesian National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) in March 2021, which includes 5,079 households. The QUADS parameters were estimated using the Iterated Nonlinear Seemingly Unrelated Regression technique with theoretical restrictions imposed. The estimated parameters from the model were utilized to derive price and income elasticities for animal-derived foods. Empirically, it was found that fish is the most elastic animal-sourced food with a demand elasticity of 4.44%, followed by beef (2.78%), milk (1.94%), poultry (1.54%), and eggs (0.82%). Fish substitutes for beef, chicken, and eggs when prices increase but is complementary to milk. Four animal-sourced food groups, namely fish, beef, milk, and poultry, are luxury items, with income elasticities of 2.57%, 2.39%, 2.22%, and 1.36%, respectively. In contrast, eggs were found to be a normal good with an income elasticity of 0.53%. Fish and beef are very elastic; thus, the government can use pricing strategies and implement policy to increase poultry and eggs production so that daily protein requirements of 57 grams per capita per d ay are reached in Bengkulu province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the detection of creative accounting of enterprises in the agricultural sector to verify whether creative accounting is used to an increased extent by those farming enterprises that have been granted a bank loan; and then whether there is an effort to manipulate financial statements mainly in microsmall or medium and large enterprises. Four mathematical-financial models were applied to 150 accounting units with primarily agricultural activity to verify the hypotheses. Beneish M-score, Jones model, Altman Z-score and IN05 model were used. An increased risk of using creative accounting methods was identified in 28% of the investigated companies on average during the monitored period. Still, the assumption that the size of the accounting unit has a significant effect on the use of creative accounting methods was not proven. However, a higher motivation to manipulate financial statements can be expected in smaller accounting units due to their less stable financial position confirmed Altman Z-score and IN05 models. At the same time, a higher probability of using and a tendency to use creative accounting techniques were found among units that were granted a bank loan, which stems from the need to secure and maintain sufficient financing for business activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental regulation is an effective tool to control environmental problems caused by foreign trade. Research conclusions are inconsistent on the relationship between environmental regulations and exports. Based on the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek model, this paper provides an empirical analysis for examination the effect of environmental regulations on manufacturing exports, adopting panel data of 16 sectors from China's manufacturing during 2005-2015. Material capital, human capital, technology input and foreign direct investment are simultaneously selected as independent variables to explore the export impact of corresponding changes in these endowments. The pollution intensity index was introduced to categorise different manufacturing sectors. Results indicated that China's environmental regulations intensity play different roles in the manufacturing sectors with different pollution levels. Stricter environmental regulation improves the export of intensive pollution manufacturing sectors but hinders exports in light pollution sectors. Meanwhile, other endowment factors also exert varying effects in the light, moderate and intensive pollution manufacturing sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the impact of different sources of income on farm household income inequality in Hungary using Farm Accountancy Data Network dataset for the period 2007-2015. The decomposition of the Gini coefficients by income sources is applied to focus on the impact of the policy shift from market to government support on farm household income inequality. Off-farm income are rather stable with a slight increase impact on farm household income inequality. Pillar 1 for direct income support subsidies have remained more important than Pillar 2 for rural development subsidies for farm income due to the importance of direct payments or single area payments for crop production. A slight increase in the importance of subsidies from Pillar 2 can be linked to a policy shift towards targeting farms in less favoured areas, and a greater role of agri-environmental and other rural development payments. The most striking finding is regarding instabilities, declining pattern, and for a large majority of farms negative market income. Subsidies from Pillar 1 reduced, while market income increased farm household income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geoprocessing is a set of tools that can be used to efficiently address several pressing challenges for the global economy ranging from agricultural productivity, the design of transport networks, to the prediction of climate change and natural disasters. This paper describes an Open Source Framework developed, within three European projects, for Ena-bling High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Cloud geoprocessing services applied to agricultural challenges. The main goals of the European Union projects EUXDAT (EUro-pean e-infrastructure for eXtreme Data Analytics in sustainable developmenT), CYBELE (fostering precision agriculture and livestock farming through secure access to large-scale HPC-enabled virtual industrial experimentation environment empowering scalable big data analytics), and EOPEN (opEn interOperable Platform for unified access and analysis of Earth observatioN data) are to enable the use of large HPC systems, as well as big data management, user-friendly access and visualization of results. In addition, these projects focus on the development of software frameworks, and fuse Earth-observation data, such as Copernicus data, with non-Earth-observation data, such as weather, environmental and social media information. In this paper, we describe the agroclimatic-zones pilot used to validate the framework. Finally, performance metrics collected during the execution (up to 182 times speedup with 256 MPI processes) of the pilot are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to determine the effect of demographic and socio-economic factors and household responses to household changes in prices and income against the demand for household animal-sourced food in West Java Province. The study used cross-section data sourced from the National Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS) of West Java Province in 2017 analyzed through the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS). The results showed that the demand for household animal-sourced food in West Java was influenced by price, income, and social demographic factors. All groups of animal-sourced food were categorized as normal goods, as characterized by an income elasticity value of more than zero. The income elasticity established meat commodities as the highest with eggs being the lowest. The nature of the commodity determined that all animal-sourced food groups except eggs are luxury goods. Luxury goods are categorized as such due to their above one value of the demand response against changes in income- which in this paper refers to the commodities of fish, meat, poultry, and milk. The own-price elasticity also showed meat as the most responsive commodity to price increases compared to fish, poultry milk, and eggs. The five groups of commodities achieved a negative elasticity value, as reflected by the reduced share when the decreasing demand responds to the commodity price increase. The cross-price elasticity of most animal-sourced food commodity groups achieved negative elasticity values, which indicated that the related animal-sourced food commodity groups were complementary, whereas positive elasticity values indicate the related food commodities group as a substitute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with using commercial WiFi solutions that provide wireless connection to computer networks to monitor the movement of devices within that network. Current technologies, in particular in the IoT area, make it possible to place a battery sensory device on individual objects used on the farm. These sensors, in addition to their primary ability to provide connectivity, can also be used to monitor the movement of the devices they are attached to. Indirectly, it is therefore possible to monitor the movement of objects, people and animals that are associated with this WiFi or Bluetooth device. An example could be the monitoring of the feed wagon's movement on the farm, while obtaining information about the actual amount of cargo. This allows for optimizing logistics operations or track the movement of employees with fitness bracelets. The aim of the paper is to verify the possibilities of currently available commercial wifi systems and their use for monitoring movement on the farm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is focused on the modelling of volatility in the agricultural commodity market, specifically on wheat. The aim of this study is to develop an applicable and relevant model of conditional heteroscedasticity from the GARCH family for wheat futures prices. The GARCH (1,1) model has the ability to capture the main characteristics of the commodity market, specifically leptokurtic distribution and volatility clustering. The results show that the forecasted volatility of wheat has a tendency towards standard error reversion in the long-run and the position of price distribution is closed to the normal distribution. The wheat production can be hedged against the price variability with long-term contracts. The price of wheat was influenced during the years of 2005 to 2015 by different events, in particular; financial crisis, increasing grain demand and cross-sectional price variability. The results suggest that agricultural producers should focus on short-term structural events the wheat market, rather than long-term variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to interrogate comparative advantage of agrarian and food processing sectors in the context of the agri-food global value chains in particular countries in the Central and Eastern Europe using gross trade and value-added trade data from TiVA database. The Normalized revealed comparative advantage index (NRCA) was applied to analyze comparative (dis)advantage of agrarian and food processing sectors from 1995 to 2020. The article contributes twofold: First, NRCA pairs of indices calculated using gross trade and value-added trade data are mostly consistent. The analysis identifies for what areas and countries there is a discrepancy; second, it reveals comparative advantage of agrarian and food processing sectors in each country separately. It indicates different trajectories of development among countries in the Central and Eastern Europe. These results are complementary to the results of studies that evaluated comparative advantages on the product basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates product differentiation, both in vertical and horizontal dimensions, in the instant noodles industry. It first presents theoretical models that predict firms' product differentiation behaviour before testing the theories using the case of instant noodles industries in three Asian countries: Indonesia, India, and Japan. The vertical differentiation behaviour is examined using the ANOVA test followed by the Bonferroni correction to investigate which brands exhibit the most evident vertical differentiation behaviour. The horizontal differentiation strategy is explored using a descriptive analysis method. Using information on the selling prices and product variants of instant noodles leading brands in each country, the empirical findings confirm the models' predictions. The study claims that companies apply the principles of 'minimum differentiation' as their vertical differentiation strategy and 'maximum differentiation' when differentiating horizontally. These strategies are implemented by choosing prices close to each other and producing distinguishable variants from competitors. These findings bring the theories of product differentiation into a real-life application and provide insights into how firms in the food products industry behave in differentiating their products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The IoT is becoming a widely known technology for the gathering of telemetry data, while mostly the concept of Smart cities is usually seen as the most challenging area for implementation. The different situations can be found in the smart agriculture concept, where different requirements and especially conditions exist. The purpose of this paper is to make an overview of IoT frequency bands available, with special focus on the situation in the EU, their theoretical usability and, using experimental measurements of typical background noise in different bands and calculations of transmission reliability on expected distance, estimate the practical usability of those technologies in the smart agriculture, compared to the smart city's requirements. Most of the IoT installations outside 5G systems are in the 900 MHz band, but is this wellsuitable for smart agriculture? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the analysis of Czech wheat production and its determinants. We use the Just and Pope (1979) stochastic production function to estimate the effects of economic and weather variables, together with technological progress and climate change, on wheat yield in the Czech regions in the period 1961-2018. The results suggest that both economic and environmental factors play important roles in the wheat yield function. The output/input price ratio has a positive effect on the wheat yield. The effects of temperature and precipitation are month-specific and highly non-linear. Technological change also has a positive effect on yield, whereas climate change has a rather negative effect on wheat yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhanced Quality of Service (QoS) and satisfaction of mobile phone user are major concerns of a service provider. In order to manage network efficiently and to provide enhanced end - to - end Quality of Experience (QoE), operator is expected to measure and analyze QoS from various perspectives and at different relevant points of network. The scope of this paper is measurement and statistically analysis of QoS of mobile networks from end user perspective in Afghanistan. The study is based on primary data collected on random basis from 1,515 mobile phone users of five cellular operators. The paper furthermore proposes adequate technical solutions to mobile operators in order to address existing challenges in the area of QoS and to remain competitive in the market. Based on the result of processed data, considering geographical locations, population and telecom regulations of the government, authors recommend deployment of small cells (SCs), increasing number of regular performance tests, optimal placement of base stations, increasing number of carriers, and high order sectorization as proposed technical solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Price volatility has serious implications for economic welfare of various agents in the grain supply chain. The paper examines asymmetric price transmission along the wheat producer-processor supply chain in Russia using log-transformed monthly prices during the period of 2000-2019. Having specified linear asymmetric vector error correction model, we exposed the long-term cumulative asymmetry in price transmission, however, the hypothesis of short-term symmetry presence failed to reject. The analysis revealed dominant position for wheat producers and wholesalers over the wheat processors. Imperfect competition and their resulting market power, as well as the existence of a huge number of illegal processors are the main causes for asymmetric price transmission on the Russian wheat market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the use of social networks in agricultural enterprises and focuses mainly on their role and share in increasing the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises in the market. Primary data were obtained from an extensive survey of the development of information and communication technologies in agricultural enterprises, which was conducted in the first quarter of 2021 throughout the Czech Republic ("Survey 2021"). The research was primarily focused on capturing current trends in the use of ICT with emphasis on selected key areas (broadband, social networks, communication tools, regional Internet portals, used hardware categories, used software, mobile communications, Internet of Things, data storage and security, social networks, etc.). This survey builds on previous extensive surveys conducted by the Department of Information Technologies, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, CULS in Prague in several phases since 1999, with the last stage being conducted in 2017. Some surveys were conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture of Czech Republic. Compared to recent years, the survey includes new domains, such as the use of the Internet of Things in plant and animal production, data storage and security, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the company's core operations, etc. The survey was prepared, conducted and administered by the Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Life Sciences Prague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People are getting more and more used to consume a digital, online content. Many outlets switched to online publication or at least increased their online presence. Besides, online publication is not the only domain of publishing houses. Many different organisations and companies - including those from area of agriculture and rural development - provide online content in form of articles. Importance of semantic web is growing constantly. Together with metadata descriptions, it is necessary for all the current search engines, smart assistants and AI technologies. Public standards and open source software can significantly speed up development and reduce costs when it comes to the Internet and World Wide Web. The paper provides overview of an updated methodology for creation, storage and presentation of online information content in World Wide Web environment. The latest research was focused mainly on presentation and semantics. The whole research process is established as well as the final f ormulation of the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Rural Development (NRD) program is one of the most important policies in agriculture and rural development of Vietnam by 2020. In the period of 2010 - 2015, the government mobilized about 851,380 billion Vietnam Dong (VND) (approximately US$38.7 billion) for investments in rural development projects across the country. Among the top priorities, solving a broadening income and poverty gap between urban and rural areas, between leading and lagging regions, and among ethnic groups are one of the most essential issues. This research paper is targeted to provide an empirical evidence for answering the question whether the government assistance could effectively and positively impact on rural households' income through the NRD program by using a hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). The results of the mixed effect model could firmly reveal that the financial assistance could positively influence on rural households' income through investments in roads, income generation models, and technical trainings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corn refers to the main feedstock for U.S. biofuels production and together with soybean oil, as typical biofuel food commodity that can be converted into biodiesel, accounts for over 90 percent of biofuels production in the United States. The paper focuses on the nexus of agri-food and energy markets in U.S. and investigates the interrelationships between the biofuel prices and prices of soybean oil, corn and wheat. Co-integration analysis and vector error correction model are carried out in order to investigate the relationship between the price series. The results show that biofuels and food price levels are co-integrated in the long run. These links show that food prices increment with a rise in biofuels prices. Additionally, not only food prices are determined by biofuels prices, but also vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is recognized that viticulture and wine sector in general successfully combines traditions and innovations. The Internet of Things technology has already found its way to the vineyards as a prospective innovation. The innovations in wine industry are discussed in the publications, however, IoT not so often falls within the focus. In order to show the production and consumption trends in viticulture we rely mostly on the data accumulated by the International Organization of Vine and Wine. Some analytical materials of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations were also relevant for this study. The information about implementation of Internet of Things is quite fragmentated by now and was collected from different sources. At least two drivers of Internet of Things in viticulture could be mentioned. The first is the climate change and the need to respond to its challenges by wine growers. Technology helps to detect the changes and suggest the best and timely solutions. The second reason why the IoT has prospective in wine sector follows from the characteristics of wine and its consumption trends. There are quite a few strategic decisions to be taken by wine producer and consumers related to wine. These strategic decisions need to be based on a precise data accumulation and processing. The Internet of things is relevant for the decisions of storage, sales, ratings, and collectibles. The range of end-users of the data processing is wide enough in the wine sector. The Internet of Things is already reality of viticulture and it has prospective to develop further. This paper argues that viticulture is a readily open for the IoT and there is a field for IoT implementation in there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through some empirical studies, the flow of FDI and trade openness have proven to support economic growth in developing countries. This paper examines the significance of FDI and trade openness in five African countries (Ghana, Morocco, Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia). The study employed the panel data analysis method using data from the World Bank for the period 1994-2019 for the five selected countries. The result from the Random effect model indicated that FDI positively supports growth, whereas trade openness harms economic growth in these countries. The outcome further revealed that Uganda enjoys more significance than the other countries using the countries' dummies through the pooled model estimation. We recommend that various governments focus more on exports, reduce imports, attract more FDI through incentives, and create a regulatory environment that is friendly to FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to meet the world's demand for food production, farmers and producers have improved and increased their agricultural production capabilities, leading to a profit acceleration in the field. However, this growth has also caused significant environmental damage due to the widespread use of herbicides. Weeds competing with crops result in lower crop yields and a 30% increase in losses. To rationalize the use of these herbicides, it would be more effective to detect the presence of weeds before application, allowing for the selection of the appropriate herbicide and application only in areas where weeds are present. The focus of this paper is to define a pipeline for detecting weeds in images through the use of a Mask R-CNN-based weed classification and segmentation module. The model was initially trained locally on our machine, but limitations and issues with training time prompted the team to switch to cloud solutions for training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, many financial and academic practitioners explore the area of high-frequency forecasting in new dimensions. Research on agricultural commodities is an important issue for food policy and security. This paper is focused on the causality between the spot prices and futures prices of the main traded agricultural commodities. Thus, the Granger causality was used to identify the relationship between spot and futures prices of commodities. Our results show the Granger causality between cash prices and futures prices of wheat and cocoa. However, there is also causality in the opposite direction in the case of wheat. Causality could be related, among other things, to a specific market position of the commodity, food policy, historical aspects, the sensitivity of the market, speculation activity, tax policy, and particular interconnection of the market with the energy commodities market. In the price process of cash and futures wheat prices, inventories and storage play an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African region represents the weak point of the world economy. Many African countries have still not finished the process of transforming their economy. Agriculture represents only a minor portion of their economies' performance - however it is still a key sector of the economy (especially considering the number of people working in agriculture or people representing the agricultural population). The agricultural sector in many sub-Saharan countries is extremely sensitive and its stability affects the stability of the whole region. A very good example representing sub-Saharan Africa is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is a country with a lot of potential, but it is classified among the poorest countries in the world. Its economy is extremely weak (despite its significant share in total GDP formation value), and underdeveloped. The share of agriculture in total GDP formation is over 42.5%. The number of people living in rural areas represents over 45 million out of a total of 75 million. The number of people working in agriculture is over 60% of the total economically active population. The economy of the country is extremely poor and fragile, mainly because of political instability. The aim of this paper is firstly to specify the position of agriculture in the DRC economy, and also to specify the production and trade commodity structure in relation to other African countries. The paper's ambition is to identify the most perspective commodities (groups of commodities), both for production and also for trade, and to recommend such a production and trade profile which would allow the DRC the possibility of improving its competitiveness - not only in relation to other African countries, but also in relation to the global market. The production and trade commodity structures are analysed through the application of the BCG method and competitiveness analysis. In relation to these objectives, the paper provides the following conclusions. The position of agriculture in the DRC economy is stable one. Furthermore, agriculture probably represents the most stable part of the DRC economy. According to the portfolio and competitiveness analyses, the most important commodity items for the DRC are the following: Rice paddy, Maize, and Cassava. The most competitive trade items are particularly Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa, and Sugar Raw centrifugal. The most notable weakness of DRC agriculture is the production of Wheat, Beverages, Poultry Meat, and Fixed Vegetable Oils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-Saharan Africa lost its status as a net exporter of agricultural products in the early 1980s when prices for raw commodities fell and local production stagnated. Since then, agricultural imports have grown faster than agricultural exports. In order to get to the bottom of this critical issue, UNIDO in partnership with the AU, IFAD, AfDB, FAO, and UNECA, developed the African Agribusiness and Agro-Industries Development Initiative (3ADI). The major objective of the 3ADI is to increase private sector investment flows going into the agriculture sector in Africa by mobilizing resources for agribusiness and agro-industrial development from the domestic, regional or international financial systems. This formed the basis of research with the objective of assessing the value addition chain for so me vital agricultural commodities in the 3ADI focus countries. UNIDO is developing several action plans in a few African countries -- one of them is Tanzania. In the case of Tanzania, the findings show the potential in cashew nuts. The paper's main goal is to propose a plan or set of steps leading to the improvement of added value generation in the area of agricultural trade in Tanzania. The paper is focused on one commodity Cashew-nuts. Tanzania boosts high volumes of local supply of this commodity, which is the key prerequisite for the value addition chain through local processing. The results from the analysis prove significant economic losses related to the current structure of Tanzanian trade in cashew nuts. The main problem of the current cashew nut trade activities is the very low added value of exported cashew nuts. The paper analyses the structure of value added activities related to the cashew nut trade and proposes a plan for increasing the share of processed cashew nuts at a much higher unit price in comparison to raw cashew nuts. The simulated development in the cashew sector in Tanzania to the year 2030 is based on two expectations a 5% increase of evaluation of particular steps and a 5% growth of processed cashew nuts export volume resulting in significant growth of export incomes and provides an important material stimulating discussion related to the importance of the transformation of the export structure from unprocessed raw products to processed -- finalized products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]