No 4/2018, December | Agris on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics

New Rural Development and Hierarchical Governance in Vietnam: Impacts of government support on rural households’ income using a Hierarchical Linear Modelling

Manh Hung Do Sang Chul Park DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100401
No 4/2018, December
pp. 3 - 15

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS

Hierarchical Governance, Multilevel Analysis, Hierarchical Linear Modelling, New Rural Development, Vietnam.

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ICT Intervention in the Socio-Economic Development of Udupi Jasmine

Darryl Jeethesh D’souza Harisha G. Joshi DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100402
No 4/2018, December
pp. 17 - 25

ABSTRACT

Jasmine growing community in coastal Karnataka of India is a successful viable community-based enterprise. For this community despite having other sources of income, jasmine cultivation has provided them with a sustained regular income. It safeguards them against poverty even if their other sources of income diminish. This study explores the areas in this community-based enterprise where information and communication technology (ICT) can be integrated. Thus, focus of the study was to visualize how this community-based enterprise works, understand the challenges faced and to provide possible ICT solution to overcome these challenges. ICT awareness among the growers and agents involved in the supply chain was also captured. Willingness of accepting ICT among the agents was analyzed using logistic regression and K-NN classifier machine learning models. Study showed a significant socio-economic impact of jasmine production on growers. To overcome the challenges faced, ICT solutions are proposed in place of current crude system.

KEYWORDS

Udupi jasmine, ICT, community-based enterprise, socio-economic, policy making, agriculture.

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Food-Biofuels Interactions: The Case of the U.S. Biofuels Market

Zuzana Kapustová Jaroslav Kapusta Peter Bielik DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100403
No 4/2018, December
pp. 27 - 38

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS

Biodiesel, biofuel, co-integration, ethanol, price.

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Global Agri-food Trade Competitiveness: Gross Versus Value Added Exports

Imre Fertő DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100404
No 4/2018, December
pp. 39 - 47

ABSTRACT

One of the most important features in the international trade over the recent decades has been the increased fragmentation of the production process. This has been facilitated, in part, by the development and maturation of global value chains (GVCs).The improved availability of value-added trade data allows us to identify more clearly what fragment in the production chain is internationally competitive in a particular country. The paper examines global agri-food export performance in the light of these changes with special emphasis on the impacts of economic crisis using the concept of normalised revealed comparative advantage (NRCA) in terms of both gross exports and value-added for 61 countries over period 1995 and 2011. Systematically comparing these distributions reveals significant differences for NRCA based on gross exports versus valueadded data.

KEYWORDS

Global agri-food trade, revealed comparative advantage, gross and value added exports.

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Shopping Via Mobile Phones in the Central European Czech Republic Market

Lenka Lustigová Daniela Šálková DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100405
No 4/2018, December
pp. 49 - 58

ABSTRACT

Information and, in particular, mobile technologies play an increasingly important role in the economic environment. The article surveys attitudes of Central European Czech customers to mobile phone usage for purchasing products and payments. Based on the results that were gained by the survey the paper suggests opportunities for further business development in the stated areas. The data was obtained by a combination of quantitative and qualitative research using a standardised questionnaire survey among respondents of all age groups. Data was collected throughout the year 2017. By random and targeted selection, 1335 respondents were selected for the survey. Based on the survey data analysis it was observed that Internet shopping via mobile phones has not been widespread up to now. Entrance tickets and fare tickets, electronics, clothing, and cosmetics are the most frequently purchased products via mobile phones. Despite an enormous potential of smartphones current users have not deployed their functions entirely so far.

KEYWORDS

Customer, ICT, mobile device, mobile payment, retail consumers' goods, retail store, shopping.

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Determinants of Willingness to Adopt M-Commerce among Fisher Women Retailers in Karnataka, India

Raghavendra Prabhu Harisha G. Joshi DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100406
No 4/2018, December
pp. 59 - 64

ABSTRACT

The study assesses the potential for an intervention of m-commerce in the fisher women retailer community of coastal Karnataka region of India. The study was conducted using primary data with a sample size of 383 fisher women across 26 markets in Udupi, Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka, who are engaged in fishing practices. This study analyses m-commerce adoption and digital literacy among fisher woman retailers. Study identifies an insight into the degree of acceptance, zeal to learn and willingness to experiment technology change and shift in the trade practices with a digital platform. The result, using binary logistic regression also identifies variation of significant variable and behaviour of the population across 3 districts. The present study provides the basis for further research to build m-commerce model for the fish retailers in coastal Karnataka.

KEYWORDS

Common Agricultural Policy, enter barriers, motivation, young farmers.

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Proposing of Single Entity Design Pattern in Big Agricultural Positioned Data Sets (ADS)

Jan Rajtr Pavel Šimek Jan Pavlík DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100407
No 4/2018, December
pp. 65 - 69

ABSTRACT

With emerging usage of positioned devices such as drones, cell phones or IoT, the amount of data that can be collected expands drastically. At any given time, there is usually at least one nearby device that has positioning capabilities. Smart phones, smart TVs, personal computers, or even cars contain localization features. These vast amounts of data require a lot of effort in analysis and understanding in order to be properly utilized, which is especially true for the field of agriculture, where proper analysis can yield tremendous improvements in terms of production. Current computer technologies offer plenty options for such analysis. However, not every agricultural subject has access to a mainframe with performance in petaflops to perform complicated analyses of such big data in a timely manner. The defined design patterns for creation of data offers potential for speeding up the analysis of ADS on personal computers. This article describes known and used creational patterns and compares their benefits regarding ADS and offers possible usage and improvements.

KEYWORDS

Big data, agricultural, designing patterns, software engineering.

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Digital Technology and Rural Livelihood - A Study of Peasant Communities in Pru District

Abdul-Fatawu Shaibu Zakaria Hudu Mahunu Israel DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100408
No 4/2018, December
pp. 71 - 78

ABSTRACT

There are a number of ways by which access to ICT can help boost economic activities of communities in a country with the mobile phone being the most common ICT tool especially in Sub Saharan Africa. To examine the impact of digital technology on rural livelihoods in the Pru district of the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana, a survey of 212 peasant farmers was conducted. The probit regression results indicate that, digital technology adoption is significantly influenced by age, cost and availability of the technology. Furthermore, digital technologies contribute to the improvement of rural livelihoods by expanding and strengthening social capital, increase people’s ability to deal with emergencies and enhanced efficiency.

KEYWORDS

Adoption, digital technology, livelihood, ICT, rural communities, peasant farmers, social capital.

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What Are the Motivation and Barriers of Young Farmers to Enter the Sector?

Marie Šimpachová Pechrová Ondřej Šimpach Tomáš Medonos Daniela Spěšná Miloslav Delín DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100409
No 4/2018, December
pp. 79 - 87

ABSTRACT

Ensuring the generation renewal in the agriculture is crucial. There are policy incentives to attract young people, but the motivation to enter the sector depend on many factors and there are also barriers. The aim of the paper is to assess the motivation and barriers of the young farmers, newcomers to the agrarian sector in the Czech Republic and to draft the conclusions for policy and incentives creation. Based on answers of 510 young farmers, the main motive to enter was the wish to continue with farming on the farm of the parents or other relatives and to work in nature and with animals. The hardest was to purchase the agricultural land, administrative burden and ensuring the finances for the development and for start-up. Hence, to facilitate the start-up it is useful to support the land purchase and provide investment subsidies. The research was financed from internal research project 1113/2018.

KEYWORDS

Common Agricultural Policy, enter barriers, motivation, young farmers.

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Sector-Wide and Country-Specific Drivers of Firm Performance in the Visegrad Group Dairy Industry

Ivo Zdráhal Gabriela Chmelíková Ivana Blažková DOI: 10.7160/aol.2018.100410
No 4/2018, December
pp. 89 - 100

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the effects of sector-wide and country-specific determinants on profitability of the dairy industry in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary over the period of years 2006- 2014. Using an econometric approach, a hypothesis about the impact of various drivers of firm performance on both sector and country level was tested. The findings confirm that these factors have a significant impact on the dairy firms’ performance in the V4 countries. It was found out that foreign competition measured by the import penetration ratio had significant negative impact on dairy firm performance. The positive development of GDP and market concentration affected profitability positively. The results could help in designing common agricultural and industrial policy in the European Union as well as in managing the mutual trade of milk products in V4 countries.

KEYWORDS

Industry performance, return on assets (ROA), dairy industry, Visegrad group countries.

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