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The purpose of this study is to analyze the stages through which Romanian agriculture and the land of ownership had passed, namely the evolution of the Agricultural Land Fund, the dynamics of land use by categories of use, starting with the post-communist period, during which the agricultural land division was a notable process for this period for Romania, as for all former communist countries. The research showed that the degree of land fragmentation is high in our country, the greatest division being found in the category of areas below 0.5 ha, with 1.06 million owners (farms with or without legal entity, natural persons, individuals, companies etc.), summing up an area under exploitation of 261.92 thousand ha. On average, a number of 500.68 thousand owners work small areas of land in the size category of 0.5 - 1 ha, 1 - 2 ha and 2 - 5 ha. To examine this situation, there were used and processed a wide range of socio-economic statistical data (land use mode, agricultural land structure and utilised agricultural area by size classes), provided by different official databases. Although Romania is located in a geographical area with high quality of land and a favorable climate for agriculture, our country is still struggling to recover the competitiveness gap compared to countries with a similar communist period from Europe, considering the fact that the large number of land owners (approximately 2.84 million), do not support the stimulation of competitiveness in agriculture, land fragmentation being manifestly pronounced and obvious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romania is an important agricultural producer in the Black Sea basin, which benefits from pedoclimatic conditions favourable for the cultivation of oil plants. In this context, the paper aims to identify the position occupied by Romania in the global trade of rapeseed and sunflower seeds, for the period 2018-2022. To this end, quantitative and value imports and exports were analysed for these product categories, based on the statistical data available on specialized websites such as ITC. The results of the study show that Romania was the most important exporter worldwide, both in terms of value and quantity, of sunflower seeds in the period 2018-2021. In 2022, it lost the 1st place to Ukraine. Rapeseed ranked 5th in terms of exported quantity and 6th in terms of export values, among the world's top exporters. Also, Romania registered an increasing trend in the imports of sunflower and rapeseed for the studied period, especially in 2022. Imports of sunflower seeds placed Romania on the 4th place, and those of rapeseed on the 11th place in terms of quantity and respectively 12th for value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collection and recycling of plastics, in which crop protection products are stored, has become a priority both in the European Union and at the national level. Therefore, a whole series of projects have been initiated to collect packaging from farmers. This paper aims to analyze the quantities placed on the market by the plant protection industry, as well as the collection and recycling of packaging, meanwhile identifying a correlation between the quantities of pesticides used in Romania, the quantities placed on the market, and those collected. The quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis, the analysis of statistical indicators (mean and standard deviation), as well as the Pearson correlation coefficient was used. The results indicate a strong link between the number of pesticides used and the amount of packaging resulting from the use of plant protection products. Fluctuations in the amount of packaging collected are driven by the involvement of farmers in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paperwork a x-ray regarding the main aspects related to the activity of agro-food cooperatives in Germany was accomplished. A series of indicators related to cooperatives in Germany were analyzed and presented. Forms of associations, producer groups and horizontal and vertical cooperation have proven to be opportunities for small business development. This is underlined by agricultural cooperatives in Germany, a major EU grower, farmer and producer, at the forefront of agricultural excellence. Agricultural cooperatives are associations of farmers and family farms working together on the land. They are established by law to increase efficiency and strengthen market positions. At the same time, they take responsibility for all aspects of the environment, thereby preserving the landscape and preserving the biodiversity of plant and animal species. On the one hand, many cooperatives use the latest technologies in fields such as farming, fertilization, plant protection, and the introduction of digitalization in the production process promotes the development of environmentally friendly management. After German reunification, existing economic units were dissolved or converted. Those who continued their activities took the legal form of agricultural producers' cooperatives, sponsored and represented by the Cooperative Audit Association and the German Association of Raiffeisen. Statistical data used in this research was mainly taken from the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) website, the rest being obtained from other sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, the Romanian agronomic engineering universities focused on the promotion of entrepreneurship among the students, by including entrepreneurial competences in curricula or by promoting entrepreneurial support activities. To develop more educational instruments in this field, we considered that the main challenge is to assess the entrepreneurship interest and needs of the students. In this context, the present paper aims to reveal the attitude of agricultural engineering students toward the implication in the development of their own business and to emphasize the role of formal education in their necessary skills development. The research is based on a survey conducted among students in final years of studies from a Romanian agronomic higher education institution and consisted in 215 questionnaires. Our approach has taken into consideration the differences among the students linked to their age, gender, place of residence, the potential employment and family environment. The main findings of our study have indicated that the students from agronomic engineering field have basically a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship and meanwhile they are very aware of the challenges related to the development of new businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addressed an approach on the economic efficiency of farms among ten Central and East European Countries by means of the technical and allocative efficiency, through the DEA-COST method. For the analyze we used two years from the FADN dataset (2013 and 2016): inputs - labor (AWU), land (UAA) and average capital; outputs - total output and farm net income; input prices - rent, wages and depreciation. The main results of our research showed that the average technical efficiencies for the farms sample over the analyzed period are relatively high (around or more than 0.90) and allocative and economic efficiencies are moderate (0.60-0.70) stressing that the farms have similar management practices and technologies but they are not fully cost efficient. In 2016, only farms from Romania and Latvia are completely efficient with respect to all three analyzed efficiency measures, while the most inefficient are the farms from Slovenia. Also, we observed that in the CEE analyzed countries the main cause for cost inefficiency is allocative (inefficient mix of inputs relatively to optimal level). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to emphasize the changes in concentration of Romanian agricultural holdings and their utilized agricultural area, during 2002-2016 periods. Our research was based on census data at county level (40 counties) and utilized concentration indicators, like Herfindahl - Hirschman Index, Gini-Struck Coefficient, Gini Coefficient and Concentration Index. The results showed, in general, a low concentration, respectively an equitable distribution between counties of land and farms. However, we observed in the 2002-2016 periods a slightly increase in inequality (a higher concentration) when we analysed the number of individual agricultural holdings, the UAA of non-individual agricultural farms, the UAA of farms with under 10 ha and over 100 ha and the leased land. Also, the process of concentration had a higher growth in counties with hill and mountain landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we have analysed the determinants of the students' leisure time, based on 198 respondents of an questionnaire. The students are at the bachelor level in the Faculty MIEADR, USAMV Bucharest. The questions have reffered to the conditions in which students used to spend their leisure time. The performed analysis consisted in several steps. First, we made a descriptive analysis of the variables, by doing the frequences tables; then, there were performed correlation tables and the crosstabulation between pairs of variables. In order to verify the level of the statistical significance among the variables, it was also performed a chi-square statistical test. As general requirement, we have chosen to emphasise the results by pointing out the influence of the gender and place of residence variables for the respondents. From the findings of this paper, we have concluded that students of our faculty have different approaches, divided by place of residence regarding the holidays spend abroad. Meanwhile, by taking into consideration the gender, we got significant results regarding the responses on level of disponible revenus (a), the average spending amount by stay (b) and on the persons that accompanies the respondent student during the holidays (c). There were other results reflected on the level of Pearson coefficient on correlations between variable regarding the average lenght of the stays, the averge amount spend on accommodation and food etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper goal was to analyze the technical endowment in terms of machinery in Romania's agriculture in the period 2007-2015 and to identify the main trends and problems which affect performance and competitiveness. In the analyzed period, the park of tractors and machinery increased as follows: tractors by 14.5%, ploughs by 13.9%, cultivators by 11.3%, seeders by 14.6%, combines for cereals by 11.4 and for fodder by 17%, machines for potatoes harvesting by 43.5%, presses for hay and straw by 121.7%, only windrowers and sprayers and dusters declined by 1.2%, respectively, by 2.6%. Despite this slight increase, the structure of agricultural machinery is still an uncorresponding one for keeping pace with new technologies. The utilized agricultural area (UAA) increased and as a result the UAA per tractor declined from 44.5 ha to 41.3, which is also a good aspect. Despite that agricultural production increase, its performance is not supported by mechanization mainly in the small sized holdings. The replacement of the existing old machinery with a high usage degree, whose repairs are costing, is obviously needed and requires substantial financial resources. the continuous growth of farm inputs price and the low price at farm gate for agricultural products do not assure farmers enough income to modernize mechanization. The Romanian Government should allocate a higher percentage from budget to agriculture for improving the park of tractors and agricultural machinery. Also, the financial aid per ha coming from the EU should be equitably divided among member states. Farmers need a better endowment in their farms to apply modern technologies and increase production, quality of agricultural products, economic efficiency and competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper was focused on the sector of trade and meat consumption in Romania. Data are presented at national level and covers a period of 10 years; they come from the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Institute of Statistics of Romania. We presented an analysis of the trade in live animals, according to Romania's main trading partners, the dynamics of household consumption of three types of meat and we present a detailed analysis of the three most important sectors in the trade with live animals. The methodology has also included the study of seasonality of total import and export of live animals and separate of Live cattle trade sector. The findings were that, although the trade in live animals in Romania shows a positive balance, looked in detail, the sector has a significant imbalance between the different categories of animals. So, we could appreciate the fact that the positive balance of the entire trade in live animals is, in fact, supported only by exports of cattle, the other directions having a slight contribution. In terms of seasonality, we identified for imports, positive seasonal deviations in the 2nd quarter and for exports in the 3rd and the 4th quarter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work is a study on indicators that define tourism in Romania. Analysis focused on indicators of the number of tourists and tourist arrivals in accommodation establishments in Romania, in total and in agro-touristic boarding houses on four macro-administrative units and by category of comfort in our country. The methodology used to track the preferences of foreign tourists in accommodation establishments in Romania was to analyse the dynamics of the mentioned indicators, the seasonality of arrivals and forecasting the arrivals of foreign tourists. The data used are from the Statistical Yearbook of Romania, covering the period 2010-2013; some of them are quarterly data. The results have indicated a preference of the arrivals especially in Q3 of each year, in macro-regions M3 and M1, for foreigners and in the macro-regions M1 and M2 for the Romanian tourists. Another results designed the preferences of tourists related to the degree of comfort, which has decreased in time with the increasing levels of comfort; over time, the tourist's number increases on the total from year to year; in particular, in the agro hostels this number is growing slowly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]