Due to the increasing priority orientated towards more integrated policy concepts, such as rural development policy, there is a growing need to address the concept of multifunctionality for policy assessment. In particular, the dependence of the various tasks and services provided by agriculture...

The phrase ‘rural areas’ mean not only the place for agricultural production and the living place of rural population, but also refer to all the traditions, landscape, environment and residents of these areas. Rural development is highly supported at the EU level and it helps to enhance the...

This is a draft paper, submitted in advance of presentation at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association.

Currently an industrial perspective dominates the EU policy framework for a European bio-economy. The Commission’s proposal on the bio-economy emphasises greater resource-efficiency, largely within an industrial perspective on global economic competitiveness, benefiting capital-intensive...

This paper aims at analyzing business services in bioenergy investments and innovations on farms in the Northern Ostrobothnia region in Finland. Finance into research of bioenergy has strongly increased during the last years both in Finland and Europe. Primary focus of this research has been so...

Compared to urban regions, rural areas can be seen as historicaly marginal space. They, as a rule, leve behind in the process of participation in general developmental trends, mainly due to lack of local capital stock and personalities. Marginality, however, is a context dependet phenomenon and...

Rural development is of great significance for the future of both the EU and Hungary. We must reduce migration, create new jobs and focus on sustainability and the principles and goals of environmental protection and nature conservation. For this reason, it is necessary to apply for EU project...

The term “social innovation” gained popularity within scholars, however its definitions differ to a large extent; the most promising one says about a change in attitudes and behaviour of a group of people that in relation to the group’s horizon leads to new and improved ways of...

The availability of education, including lifelong learning, is one of the value measures of quality of life in advanced countries. However, there are still significant differences between a township and a rural region. Centres of education are mainly situated in big cities; smaller...

The impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on the poor in developing countries is still the subject of controversy. While previous studies have examined direct productivity effects of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton and other GM crops, little is known about wider socioeconomic outcomes. We...