rss_2.0Sciendo RSS Feed for Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Developmenthttps://sciendo.com/journal/VJBSDhttps://www.sciendo.comhttps://sciendo-parsed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/64739b1e4e662f30ba543c41/cover-image.jpghttps://sciendo.com/journal/VJBSD140216https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-0005<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The article examines the trends in the development of trade relations between Ukraine and the EU. The positive changes that have taken place in European-Ukrainian relations in recent years are outlined. The dynamics and structure of exports and imports of goods and services are analysed, and the trends that have occurred over the past five years are identified. The place of Ukraine in the structure of EU foreign trade is considered. It is revealed that the foreign trade turnover between Ukraine and the EU is affected by the war. The main problems that hinder Ukraine‘s integration into the EU trade system are summarised and recommendations for their solution are provided.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-00052023-06-12T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-0004<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Climate change, periods of droughts or, conversely, increased rainfall significantly affect agronomic patterns and biomass production. In addition, if agriculture and food industry compete with other industries for land and biomass, the priority is given to agro-food use and ensuring food security. This is the main reason why food waste is a promising alternative source of biomass for the industrial segment of the bioeconomy. Moreover, the reuse of food waste leads to circular and sustainable value chains. The aim of this paper is to explore the situation of food waste utilization in Slovakia. We assess the current level of food waste produced by households and its potential as a biomass source. However, to convert food waste into a valid industrial input, it has to be collected separately. The study shows the practice of food waste collection in two Slovak cities, where food waste is used to produce soil substrate and bioelectricity, respectively.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-00042023-06-12T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-0003<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>In the Visegrad countries, online sales increased generally by double-digit growth in the last 5 years. The research examines how the changing processes affected by the pandemic and consequently the macroeconomic environments and the distributors were confined because of the restrictions and lockdown of borders. It is observed that many traders moved toward the direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategy, so one of the research questions is how consumers could use the Internet for satysfing their needs. The pandemic has accelerated the changes in the value chains, and distribution channels, so the paper analyses how companies transformed their commercial models to omnichannel form. One of the other research questions is to determine the strength of the relationship between e-commerce’s gaining ground and the pandemic restriction in Visegrad countries. The role of innovation in the commercial branch, which have resulted in a more effective way, particularly disruptive technologies is stressed.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-00032023-06-12T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-0001<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Road traffic is a sub-sector, which has implications for almost all economic activity through transportation, and directly affects the economy and social processes of a region or country. The conscious and sustainable accessibility of the capital and county seats is particularly important in terms of goods distribution, labour mobility and access to services. Necessary research was conducted using Google Maps’ 2022 summer data and Hansen‘s gravity model. The study identifies county seats that require development and facilitates the mapping of regional relationships between the capital and the county seats.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-00012023-06-12T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-0002<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>In the presented paper, we evaluated the quality of work and the economics of use of irrigation system consisting of micro-sprinklers. The experiment took place on the football field in countryside of southwest Slovakia. The original irrigation system was replaced with a modern one, using a control unit, rainfall sensor, in-ground distribution pipes and micro-sprinklers. The irrigation system consisted of components forming the main and detailed irrigation equipment for irrigating an area of 4,272 m². The water source was a drilled well with a depth of 80 m. Detailed irrigation equipment consisted of sector micro sprinklers of two types. We monitored 13 rotary micro-sprinklers on the given playground in total. During the measurements, we proceeded according to the international standard ISO 7749-2, while the rain measuring containers were distributed into eight beams. The value of the quality of the work of individual sprinklers, expressed by the coefficient of uniformity of spraying, reached a maximum of 78.18%, but with total coverage it was higher than 90%. Anova statistical analysis did not show a significant dependence of the quality of work on the type of micro-sprinkler (for micro-sprinklers A1, A2 A3: <italic>F</italic> = 2.95, <italic>P</italic> &gt;0.05; for micro-sprinklers B, C: <italic>F</italic> = 0.35, <italic>P</italic> &gt;0.05). From the viewpoint of evaluating the economic return, the investment proved to return within the period of 4.2 years.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-00022023-06-12T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-0006<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>In the article, a theoretical study of the legislative framework, and various strategic directions in the field of agricultural policy, based on bioeconomics, is carried out. The world crises of recent years, the negative consequences of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine in terms of the state of food markets have clearly demonstrated the importance of state support for the agricultural sector. The negative impact on the agricultural sector was manifested in price dynamics. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to fluctuations in food prices. However, after the first shock, prices jumped sharply between May 2020 and May 2021 as restrictions on the supply of food products were introduced. The market fundamentals of supply and demand, as well as the dynamics of the exchange rate, determine the evolution of world prices. In 2022, the increase in prices for agricultural products reflects several problems that have arisen at the current stage of world development in connection with the war in Ukraine. Violation of export deliveries from Ukraine led to a fluctuation of prices, and the rise in the cost of fuel and fertilizers serves as additional factors for rising food prices. The rebalancing of the markets continues throughout 2023 and possibly will continue in 2024. To overcome the negative phenomena in the agricultural sector, it is necessary to strengthen state support and revise approaches to financing the “green economy“ as part of the agrarian policy reform. The article aims to analyse the plans for state financial support for the green direction of the development of the agrarian sphere in the EU countries and Slovakia.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2023-00062023-06-12T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0011<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Energy is a fundamental factor in cooperation between Kazakhstan and the European Union; both sides strive for energy security but understand it differently. For Kazakhstan, the European Union is the primary export market for energy resources, a source of investment and technology. For the European Union, Kazakhstani oil and gas are the most valuable energy resources of the Central Asian region. The relevance of the chosen topic is that oil and gas are of crucial importance for the economy of Kazakhstan. In the future, Kazakhstan is going to increase production with the European Union. Kazakhstan’s oil and gas industry can be attributed to one of the leading sectors of the country’s economy. The purpose of the scientific paper is to analyse the oil and gas trade between Kazakhstan and the European Union using a time series model to examine Kazakhstan’s oil and gas trade flow, in order to describe its top 5 trade partners in the European Union, also providing objective information on the results and prospects of development of cooperation between Kazakhstan and the European Union in the field of oil and gas trade.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00112020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0013<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The paper provides development status in the EU biofuel market by giving a comprehensive picture of production, consumption and production capacity of the first generation biofuels – biodiesel and bioethanol, while giving also insights into issues related to biofuel feedstocks such as crop production and harvested area. Development of crop production and harvested area for the crop products, used as a feedstock in the production of biofuels, have shown the changes in agriculture due to the growing trend of the biofuel sector. Additionally, the increasing production and consumption of biofuels may also affect the prices of agricultural commodities used as a feedstock for bioenergy production.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00132020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0012<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Purpose: The broad over-arching goals of this work were to study the existing constituents of green human resource management (HRM), to understand the green HRM practices being followed by different companies in India (belonging to certain sectors) and to compare the different sectors in terms of adoption of green HRM. Methodology: A questionnaire was meticulously prepared by the authors to collect the data for this study and was sent to various Indian companies belonging to four sectors: IT/IT services, banking/finance, consultancy and engineering/technology. The questionnaire included a carefully selected collection of questions to gain rich insights into different aspects of green HRM implementation. Findings: most of the companies included in this study are following green HRM (though to varying extents). Green recruitment, green training and development &amp; green safety and health management are the most prominent green HRM functions while green performance appraisal is the least popular green HRM function among these organizations. The IT/IT services sector is most actively using green HRM practices while the banking/finance sector is the most reluctant to adopt green HRM. Practical Implications: a rigorous structure for companies to implement green HRM is provided.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00122020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0014<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The article proves the need to intensify investment activities in agricultural enterprises, which is the main condition for the implementation of the principles of sustainable development. Factors that hinder investment processes and the reasons for their manifestation have been identified. The tendencies in realization of capital investments in the fixed capital of agriculture which have positive dynamics are defined, however, their insignificant reduction in 2019 was observed. The structure of sources of financing the activities of agricultural enterprises in 2019 is determined: own funds – 71.1%, loans – 14.1%, foreign investments – 14.4%, state budget funds – only 0.4% and highlights the obstacles to the formation of external and internal sources of investment. According to the results of the survey, the directions of investment activity of agricultural enterprises, restraining factors, and financial opportunities in the implementation of investment projects are determined. It is established that today, 52.7% of enterprises did not make investments that would be environmentally friendly, and only 28.2% invested in the development of social infrastructure and human capital. The main measures to intensify investment activities of agricultural enterprises are substantiated, which include: formation of elements of investment infrastructure in the region, improvement of depreciation policy at enterprises, development of public-private partnership, introduction of state programs for rural development, improvement of agricultural land lease and others.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00142020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0010<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The 28 countries of the European Union represent a rather heterogeneous group regarding their geography, history, and national cultures. Their response to the current global challenges depends on their way of viewing the world, and that is largely influenced by their national values and beliefs. The research compares the environmental awareness in distinct country groups and identifies the components of national culture, which, by their different approaches to the environmental sustainability, influence the most. The time span of the analysis is seven years from 2012 to 2018. National culture is defined by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, and the environmental awareness data were collected from the Eurobarometer surveys of the EU. The main findings show that the environmental awareness in the EU increases with time and is higher in indulgent, more individualistic, and more long-term oriented countries, while the level of masculinity and uncertainty avoidance or power distance did not matter. The Scandinavian countries are remarkably environmentally aware, while the other groups of countries do not differ in this respect.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00102020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0008<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Nowadays, problems related to waste tires are increasing. The worn-out vehicle tires are abundant, together with worthless waste. Besides, it causes environmental pollution and it harms human health. Nowadays, too many car tires are being produced and the old tires are beginning to become a problem. The old tires can be decomposed or burned to get energy or heat. One of the most effective ways to get rid of these problems is to recycle the waste tires and use them in a different area. In this paper, the study was based on basic information about the waste tires and its recycling technologies. Based on this study, the canvas model has been created to show how to run a business with recycling the worn-out tires.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00082020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0009<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The economic theory distinguishes mainly three production factors, namely labour, soil, and capital. Soil, as a product of nature, is not a free good – its amount is not unlimited. It can be used for agricultural purposes, as energy and non-energy source, and for minerals. Soil is one of the factors of production and at the same time the most important natural resource. We have used three indicators, namely the degree of plowing, the degree of agricultural use and area of agricultural and arable land per capita. The result of the work was the finding that in the observed period (10 years), the area of agricultural and arable land in Slovakia is decreasing. To improve the situation in agriculture, the following could be done: merging fragmented land into larger units, changes in the system of inheritance or a change in allocation of subsidies. Especially the inhabitants of the territory should support the state buy buying on the domestic market and supporting domestic production.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00092020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0007<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The agricultural sector is one of the most important sectors of the countries’ economies and agricultural production has a huge socio-economic importance. In the current conditions of globalization and diversification of production, agriculture tries to achieve continuous development, realization of the potential, growth of the quantity and quality of the agricultural production, ensuring food security of the country. The quantitative and qualitative development of the agricultural sector takes place within a certain system, which is created under the influence of economic, social, and environmental factors based on innovations associated with transformation. These components of the current development of the agricultural sector are undergoing constant transformations, leading to the imbalances and the emergence of destructive processes within the complex system of the agricultural sector. Exploring regional disparities in terms of environmental and economic context indicators of CAP is strategically important for the stable rural and regional development of countries, increasing the competitiveness of agriculture, and sustainable and integrated development of regions. Based on the results of the calculations, we confirmed the effect of catching up between poorer and richer EU countries and identified the future trends in the occurrence and reduction of regional disparities.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00072020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0015<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The risk management tools in agriculture enable farmers to anticipate, avoid and react to shocks and agricultural risks. The Common agricultural policy includes mechanisms to support risk management of the European farmers and respond to crises. An ambition of the recent CAP proposal is to increase the focus on risk management and stabilisation of farmers′ income. Under Pillar 2, the CAP offers the support for less favoured farms, which have experienced the production or income loss in the way of insurance premium, mutual funds, and Income stabilisation tool. However, only few European countries have been using these tools operationally. The risk management tools were subjected to criticism, mainly because of many obstacles in their implementation; therefore, since 2018, the risk management toolbox has been further extended. In the paper, we focus on one of the CAP tools from Pillar 2, the Income Stabilisation tool, and examine the potential effect on farmers′ indemnification in Slovak agriculture.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00152020-12-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0006<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>This paper aims to analyze the regional cooperation which ensures stability and good relations to neighbours and other V4 countries and helps to enforce collaborations across Europe in many fields such as education, tourism and economic development. Another field of activity of the Visegrad Group is a joint positioning in international tourism which will be addressed in this article on the background of the current coronavirus crisis. The empirical part consists of a SWOT analysis for Visegrad group challenges and a PASTA Analysis with which the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the tourism industry in the V4 countries are researched. Lastly, recommendations for possible further actions in times of the coronavirus will be given, and potential future collaborations with the WB6 and EaP countries, also with regard to tourism, will be dealt with briefly. This article summarizes aspects related to tourism market, transport, cultural offer, economy, industry, and environment. The particular focus is also paid to political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and environmental factors of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia and how the current coronavirus and the resulting measures against the spread of it affects the tourism industry in the Visegrad Group countries.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00062020-06-25T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0005<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>The economic feasibility of the use of agricultural biomass in the energy supply system of Ukraine is investigated in the article. It has been determined that biomass of agricultural origin (cereal straw and rapeseed, by-products of corn for grain and sunflower, sunflower husk) remains the main component of biomass energy potential in Ukraine. It is established that the bioenergy potential of agricultural biomass is an efficient and affordable additional source of energy supply for Ukraine. According to the research, the potential of the bioenergy market was attributed to the great potential of biomass, the large stock of unused land that could be used for growing energy crops from the marketing side, it is also important to note the low competition in the industry. However, imperfect state policy on bioenergy development, outdated equipment, uncoordinated rules for selling electricity from biomass in the electricity market – all this suggests that the industry needs increased investment, borrowing experience from European countries for further development. It is proved that the political and economic situation in the country remains very difficult and unpredictable not only for the bioenergy industry, but for the country as a whole.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00052020-06-25T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0004<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>Within Hungary, the Koppányvölgye rural area was chosen due to its unique natural circumstances with its broad green nature, concerning the inhabitants’ habit for the usage and knowledge of renewable energy for residential heating. Through quota-based sampling method we collected the demographic, social and economic variables to examine their level of influence on wood for residential heating usage. We received the Likert scale values through the questionnaire, which had to be recoded for the binomial logistic regression model that we chose to use because of the indicator variable’s trait, and in aim to examine the explanatory variables’ significance. As a result, for the wood indicator variable, the age of the respondent turned out to be a significant variable, the higher age compared to lower age is a chance decreasing category for wood usage, employed compared to unemployed increased the likelihood, thereby rejected the energy ladder phenomenon, as well as more people in one household increased the chance for wood usage. The higher education, environmental awareness and insulation level of a house turned out to be non-significant for wood usage. Therefore, we strengthened those statements from the earlier studies, that in this rural region, the change of the residential heating technology is more likely to be supply driven than demand driven.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00042020-06-25T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0002<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>There are several reasons for the economic and social necessity in forming and developing the biofuels market of Ukraine, starting with energy security considerations, diversification of national production, support of innovations and ending with economic and social efficiency of biofuels market development on the basis of high motivation for the agrarian sector growth, positive social bias towards rural population growth and environmental security through renewable energy. The immediate prospect of energy autonomy for agro-industrial production should be based on efficient production and use of biomass. At present, biomass is the fourth largest fuel in the world, producing about 2 billion tonnes of conventional fuels per year, which is about 14% of the world’s total primary energy consumption. In some countries, this figure is even higher, but in Ukraine it still does not exceed 3%. This will help Ukraine reduce its dependence on energy imports, halt its transformation into a raw material appendage, and enable processing of such a large-scale resource while obtaining hundreds of thousands of jobs, income for the citizens and for the state budget. At this stage of state development, biofuel production is one of the determining catalysts for new global trends in Ukraine’s agro-industrial complex that will contribute to its sustainable development.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00022020-06-25T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-0003<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>The contribution aims to identify the influence of income on Slovak household expenditures. Analyses are querying from the household income and expenditures data in the Slovak Republic during the period 2004–2018. The data source is the Statistical Office of The Slovak Republic. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis are used. The analysis of the goods and services expenditures reveals the major share of the expenditures is expended for the non-durable goods. The non-durable goods expenditures of the pensioners are 72% of their total consumption expenditures. Expenditures of employees, self-employees and other households for the non-durable goods present more than a half of their total expenditures. The share of services expenditures is also considerable. It is varying above 30% for all households kinds. The income influence on the household expenditures is analyzed using Engel’s expenditures functions which are used as the basis for the income elasticities of household expenditures. The analysis results are pointing to the fact that the less elastic on the income change is the reaction of the Slovak household expenditures on non-durable goods. A significant reaction on the income change is observed in household durable goods expenditures.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/vjbsd-2020-00032020-06-25T00:00:00.000+00:00en-us-1