Search

New spatial analysis methods and an increasing amount of remote sensing data are the necessary tools for scaling from ground-based phenological measurements to larger ecosystem, continental, and global processes. However, since remote sensing data and tools are not straightforward to master, training at the higher education level is often necessary. Curricula and training programs linking these integral components of phenological research are sorely needed because the number of people with requisite skills in the use of a growing array of sophisticated analytical tools and collected remote sensing data is still quite small. In this chapter we provide a series of examples of field-based approaches to college- and university-level phenological education. We then guide the reader through the resources that are available for the integration of remote sensing with land-based phenological monitoring and suggest potential ways of using these resources.

Socialist cooperative farming has thrown a new light on traditional farm organization. The United Nations’ publication [62, p. 80] previously cited states: “The term ‘cooperative farm’ covers several different kinds of farm organization, in which the principles of individual and joint ownership and operation are combined in differing degrees.”

It would take a separate study to show the similarities and dissimilarities among cooperative theories developed so far and the cooperative models presented in this paper. In Hungary, Erdei [22] wrote the most comprehensive survey of the history of cooperative concepts. This book, published more than a decade ago, analyzed the role and capacities of cooperative organizations in social progress and in economic development. In Erdei’s study there may be revealed both the cognizance of the dual character of cooperative organizations and the conception of cooperatives as business enterprises. These concepts were canonized by the new Hungarian Cooperative Laws in 1967 and 1971.

The transformation of Hungary’s agriculture was definitely associated with radical changes in the number and size of farms. For this reason, it is worthwhile to deal with some aspects of scale and size relationships in this chapter.1 After brief theoretical qualifications, the scale-size implications of both the land reform and the socialist transformation will be discussed. Finally the farm size and organizational units of the Hungarian agriculture will be described.

Several models with alternative objective functions may serve the optimization purposes of the large-scale collective portion of a farmers’ cooperative.

It would be possible to set up a unified economic welfare function for the cooperative farm as an organizational unit. The large collective enterprise would be depicted as allocating its profits among investments, members’ shares (dividends), cooperative welfare funds, cooperative public goods, and provisions to homeplot farming.1 At the same time each cooperative member’s objective (welfare) function would be amalgamated with each other member’s objective (utility) function by means of voting and bargaining processes. The unified economic welfare function, to be maximized, would imply some configuration of the above named variables. It is not the purpose of this study to inquire deeply into the nature of a unified cooperative welfare function but rather to derive an objective function for both portions of the cooperative farm that might have long-run appli-cability.

A quarter of a century ago the socio-economic map of agriculture was redrawn in Eastern Europe. The land of enormous latifundia was distributed among a large number of destitute peasants and owners of small holdings. As one of the United Nations’ publications [62, p. 72] states: “The change has been most complete in Hungary, affecting nearly half the land.”

In this chapter simple models are presented in order to quantify the objectives and constraints which might implicitly have existed at the time of the land reform and during the socialist transformation.

In order to construct mathematical models of farmers’ cooperatives one finds algebraic expressions for relationships and interdependencies as analyzed in the last chapter and partially depicted by Figures 5.1 and 5.2. At first the model-builder may formulate a general behavioral model of cooperative farming. Then as the central construction, a linear programming model of farmers’ cooperatives can be set up which is followed by a simple cooperative model placing emphasis on investment and technology. Finally, a separate section provides a relatively large set of equalities that specify the real content of economic categories prevailing in socialist cooperative farming.1

During the past twenty-five years two radical changes shaped the structure of Hungarian agriculture: the land reform in 1945 and the socialist transformation between 1948 and 1961, largely completed in 1960–1961. In 1945, large estates were liquidated and the agricultural structure changed over to small-scale farming. As a result of the socialist transformation in 1961, about three thousand cooperative and state farms were in existence to carry on large-scale agricultural production; almost a million household plots remained or were brought into being.