Saving energy and the environment in agriculture and rural areas

Some results of analyses and forecast studies conducted by IBMER on development of sustainable agricultural production integrated with multifunctional development and protection of rural areas were presented in the paper. Good quality plant and animal production must be intensified on decreasing arable lands (AL) with changing structure of material, energy and production service outlays to make possible leaving the agricultural and rural development to the next generation in a better condition than now. Quantitative and substitute changes in man power expenditure, material and investment outlays and in direct energy carrier expenditure in agriculture and its infrastructure influence not only the level of unit production costs of agricultural raw materials for foodstuff manufacturing, but also affect the progress of rural multifunctionality and the rate of implementation of agro-environmental programmes. Using the methodology of research, updated by the IBMER, on the current state and forecasts concerning cumulated material and energy expenditure computed by the rolling costs method we find that: – unit energy consumption in agricultural production calculated by the number of energy units (EU) per assumed corn unit (CU) decreases systematically and will further decline owing to rationalization of employment and the use of agrochemicals, utilization of durable means and reducing ...

Methodical bases of family farm modernization

Described were IBMER (Institute for Buildings Mechanization and Electrificationof Agriculture (IBMER)) activities aimed at the development and verificationof research procedures used for the assessment of commercial family farmactivities and for evaluation of progress in their technological and ecological modernization.Current assessment of agricultural farm activities has been conducted usingan appropriate IBMER procedure [Wójcicki 2008], which comprises tables forparametric (numerical) description of commercial farm equipment and activitiesin 2008.Development family farm is modernized on the basis of the project of itsorganization and mechanization in the nearest 5-7 years (e.g. until 2015). Suchproject may be developed using new IBMER technological and balance sheet procedure(methods), which has been currently (2009) elaborated and verified.A comparison of the recent activities with the accepted organizational projectallows to determine the level of progress in the sphere of technical and ecologicalmodernization of the analysed farm and its infrastructure.Both research procedures contain a number of common methodical bases,the part of which was synthetically compiled in tables concerning the assessmentof modernization of a sample farm with farm area 40 ha AL, specializing in potato,milk and beef cattle production. ...

Selected methods pertaining to the assessment of agricultural tourism attractive-ness of rural regions

Agricultural tourism may be treated not simply as leisure activity in rural environment, but also as a form of acquiring additional sources for farmers' in-come. It can also be regarded as a subject of teaching and agricultural consulting. Agricultural tourism often employs methodology that is derived from other scien-tific fields such as: statistics, geography, economy, and agronomy. This elabora-tion constitutes an attempt to adapt selected methods from the aforementioned dis-ciplines. The selected methods include the following: typology of attractions and diagnostic features of rural space, determinants of development, SWOT analysis, product map, semantic profile, Delpphy's method, discrete method, model method, interchanging of stimulants to distimulants, standardization of features and tech-niques of survey studies for the purpose of assessing the diversity of agrotourism space as well as perception of attractions carried out by scholars. ...

Needs and investment possibilities of family farms

The paper presents the results of analyses of economic and investment activities conducted on 53 selected family farms in 2009 and 2010. Obtained results were compared with the respective data assumed in the projects of these farms modernization until 2015.The analyses were conducted to determine the needs and investment possibilities of the studied farms and seek the method of an assessment of investment activity pursued by individual family farms.Farms with an area of between 8 and 150 ha AL (arable lands) were investigated in 2009-2011. Average area of the researched objects was 44.23ha AL in 2009, 45.88ha AL in 2010,whereas in 2015 it will be 49.49ha AL, i.e. it will increase by 11.9%.It was found that with growing farm area the reconstruction needs decrease (depreciation), whereas possibilities of investment activity for development grow. Also potential investment possibilities of farms were estimated and the difference between the real family incomes and the incomes comparable with non-farmer families were added to the incurred investment expenditure.In 2009 average unit reconstruction investment needs were 1140 zł ∙ha-1AL, incurred investment expenditure was 1930 zł ∙ha-1AL , whereas potential investment possibilities were estimated at 3391 zł ∙ha-1AL.Respectively, in 2010 average unit investment needs were 1106 ...