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The article analyzes the current situation in the agricultural complex of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the necessity of combining small farms in the cooperative structure, evaluation of existing forms of cooperatives in agriculture are substantiated (production cooperatives, rural consumer cooperatives, rural consumer cooperatives of water users), a map of their location in the context of regions of the country is shown, problems hindering their development are revealed, particularly the formation and development trends of each of them, the economic indicators of production of products are given, together with their organizational structure, etc. On the basis of the conducted analysis of the production conditions, rural consumers and rural consumer cooperatives of water users, problems hindering their development are revealed, the positive and negative trends in the development of various forms of agricultural cooperation are assessed, and proposals has been substantiated in order to improve the regulatory framework, mechanisms of state support, credit and financial mechanisms, etc.

This article analyses past and current state of plastic bags usage and reviews the major challenges in addressing the issue of its reduction with emphasis on failure and success of the chosen policy. Given the heterogeneous impacts of government policies, it is important to understand the consumer behaviour and motivation for purchasing plastic bags. This can help to make a fundamental shift in reduction of plastic bags usage by the demand side, which supplement government’s efforts to address the issue from the supply side.

Wider use of alternative energy sources is a real requirement of sustainable economy – not only from the point of view of limited natural resources –, and there is a question what is the knowledge, the attitude of young generation. As there is a strong connection between the use of renewable energy and sustainability, the issues must be examined together. On the other hand it can be observed that there is a tendency that people are becoming more open and inquiring towards renewable energy sources, and environment protection is considered as a very important task. The main goals of the research were to examine the knowledge of the young generation taking part in higher education on sustainability and alternative energy, and to find out their attitudes to the use of different alternative energy sources. Also, our hypotheses said that the level of knowledge of sustainability and their attitudes to the environment issues are connected. We compared the results of two surveys carried out in 2014 among the students of a Hungarian and a Slovak higher educational institute. According to the primary results it can be stated that the increasing environmental awareness of young generation is visible, although as for the concepts of sustainability and their knowledge on alternative energy sources, as well as their expectations for the future, there was no significant correlation between their opinions in the Hungarian sample. It was proved that they have open minds towards environmental consciousness, and follow the renewable energy sources with attention. A bit more than a half of the sample has real knowledge on sustainability – we mean the three-pillars model here –, more the mail interview has higher knowledge and for the future they thought the question as a very important one. Considerable majority of the respondents, compared to their capabilities, try to live environmentally-sound life, will do more than one thing to save their environment, although also some negative responses slightly appeared in the received results. Primary results of the Slovak sample are similar; respondents do similar measures for environment at their households as their Hungarian colleagues, but with different priority. Concerning the knowledge of concept of “green economy”, “blue economy” and the “non-growth”, it can be summarized that the awareness is evident but in many cases, there is just few information and weak knowledge connected with the terminology and practical consequences. We think it is an important task of education to increase the awareness of young people on sustainable energy use and to let them accustomed to the thought of green economy and non-growth theories, since the expansion of knowledge may help in the development of a more positive attitude, which will then, hopefully, encourage their actions in the future.

Within the frame of the North Hungarian region's eco-energy program, we examined the change of residents’ attitudes to alternative energy sources during a multi-stage primary research. The level of familiarity and knowledge of the population, the examination of the source of knowledge and the analysis of renewable energy sources’ judgment were the main areas of the standard interviews. According to our hypothesis, all of the information supply and attitudes related to the subject changed in a positive direction. The use of renewable energy sources is mainly dependent on the consumers’ and residents’ attitude in the given region. Consequently, we consider the knowledge of residents’ attitude particularly important and that the multi-stage research was needed. Primary research was performed in form of standard interviews in households during 2006. Our research in 2009 and 2014 indicated the next phase, where we studied, how the relationship of the parties concerned to renewable energy sources has changed during the past three years.