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Food loss and waste occur along the whole food supply chain and need to be addressed by dedicated strategies. Among all the stages of the food supply chain, food loss in primary production has been the least studied to date. In order to address this gap, this paper focuses on on-farm food loss, using Lithuania as a case study. The research comprises eleven crop products and five livestock products prevailing in Lithuanian agricultural production. A survey-based method is utilized to collect primary data from farmers. The final data set consists of 408 completely answered questionnaires. The survey-based data are merged with those from the Farm Accountancy Data Network in order to devise an effective framework for estimating self-reported on-farm food loss. The results show that there exists substantial variation in on-farm food loss rates ranging from less than 1% for milk to slightly more than 20% for beets. Environmental factors and those related to consumer and buyer requirements are the main reasons for losses of crop products, while diseases appear as the main causes of death for animals. The food loss and waste reduction measures are derived based on the results of the survey.

In this paper, we model the effects of electricity generation on multiple environmental pressures. Given the environmental considerations, we assume a decrease in the carbon footprint and adjust the energy-mix by increasing the use of renewables. We combined a footprint approach and pinch analysis to devise the optimal energy-mixes and quantify the resulting environmental impacts. The analysis focuses on the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), which not only need to ensure sustainability of their electricity generation but also reduce the use of imported fossil fuels. The results indicate that biomass might be an appealing option for reduction of the carbon footprint in Estonia’s and Latvia’s electricity generation, whereas wind energy might be preferred in Lithuania. However, the analysis of land and water footprints suggests that further considerations are needed to treat biomass as a sustainable means for electricity generation.

This study presents an innovative approach to measuring the impact of EU CAP direct payments on the economic resilience of agriculture at a sectoral level. The construct of resilience is approached from the perspective of the resilience of the main functions of the sector. The overall level of direct payments impact on sectoral economic resilience is seen as a weighted sum of the payments’ impact on the resilience of the main economic functions of the sector. Such an approach, allowing for a comprehensive estimate of subsidy impact on the most essential areas of agriculture, is universal and can be adapted to measure economic resilience of other economic sectors. For the empirical application we used panel data from 27 EU countries over the period 2005–2019. The results revealed that the overall impact of direct payments on the economic resilience of agriculture across EU-27 was positive. However, the influence of the payments on different key functions of the sector diverged. The most evident and alarming negative changes in the economic resilience levels were observed in terms of efficiency of farms. Negative impact on separate indicators may pose a risk that the influence of direct payments on economic resilience of agriculture may not be sustainable in the longer run.

China has experienced an uninterrupted growth of grain output during the past decade. However, a long-term analysis indicates fluctuations in productivity and output levels, as well as dramatic shifts in grain crop mix and regional distribution. This paper, therefore, re-examines the major factors behind the dynamics in China’s grain production over the period of 1978–2013. The Index Decomposition Analysis technique, facilitated by means of Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index, is employed to factorize the changes in China’s grain output into four effects, i.e., yield effect, area effect, crop-mix effect and spatial distribution effect. The results show that yield effect, having been the major driver behind the growth, is experiencing a declining trend over time, with crop-mix effect gaining increasing importance. The results also indicate that changes in crop-mix caused an increase in the total grain output during 2003–2013, however this was due to abandonment of soybean farming, which is not sustainable in terms of self-sufficiency. The effect of spatial distribution has been diminishing ever since 1984. Therefore, re-allocation of areas sown is not likely to damper the sustainability of grain farming.

Dinamiška žemės ūkio aplinka ir dėl klimato kaitos bei rinkų nestabilumo kylantys nauji iššūkiai reikalauja iš ūkininkų žinių ir gebėjimų lanksčiai taikyti vadybos metodus ūkių veiklos tobulinimui. Straipsnyje pristatomas tyrimas, skirtas įvertinti vadybos žinių taikymo lygį Lietuvos ūkininkų ūkiuose bei parodyti taikomų vadybos metodų skirtumus atsižvelgiant į ūkyje vykdomos veiklos pobūdį: ar ūkis vykdo tik pirminę žemės ūkio gamybą ir tiekia žaliavą perdirbamajai pramonei, ar prisitaikant prie naujai teikiamų rinkos galimybių imasi žaliavos perdirbimo, parduoda produkciją vartotojams, teikia paslaugas ir kitaip įvairina ūkio veiklą. Tyrimas buvo atliktas remiantis evoliuciniu požiūriu į vadybos žinių taikymo raidą taikant sisteminės analizės ir anketavimo metodus. Tyrimo rezultatai patvirtino, kad vadybos žinių įsisavinimas vyksta evoliuciniu būdu, pradedant nuo paprastesnių ir palaipsniui pereinant prie vis sudėtingesnių metodų. Dynamic agricultural environment and new challenges due to climate change and lack of stability in the markets require farmers to increase their knowledge and flexibility in applying management methods. This paper presents research results on the assessment of management methods applied by Lithuanian farmers with the aim to demonstrate the differences in practices of applying management methods depending on the type of the farm: comparing practices in the farms that produce only primary agricultural production and supply raw materials to the processing industry and in the farms that are willing to exploit new market opportunities and perform primary processing, sell production to the customers, offer other services and use various ways to diversify economic activities in the farm. The research was based on the evolutionary approach for the practices of applying management methods by using systemic analysis and questionnaire methods. The survey results indicate that Lithuanian farmers are acquiring management knowledge from the simplest to the more sophisticated management methods and support the evolutionary approach to learning and teaching processes.

In the course of the overall privatization of the housing stock in Lithuania it was necessary to abandon the mechanism of massive provision of population with the living space from the public funds. The state ownership dominating the housing stock in the period of planned economy backed functioning of such mechanism, and provision of population with the housing stock was one of state’s principle functions. State assistance in providing the population with living space must be adjusted to the needs of market economy, simultaneously integrating this assistance in the country’s overall economic and social policy. One of the methodological alternatives for the design of the system of state assistance in providing the population with housing could be the object-oriented - subject-oriented - subjectivitybased method.The method relies on the analysis of the chosen system in terms of three aspects: 1) Object-oriented; 2) subject-oriented; 3) subjectivist. All the three aspects are considered the most significant parameters, revealing the three-dimensional nature of any socio-economic system. On the basis of the said three aspects, the article proposes the parameters of the system applied in Lithuania by distinguishing them at the levels of self-sufficient, commodity, and financial and credit sections of economy, and treating the subjectivist aspect as preferential.