Problems and Prospects of Balkan Agriculture in a Restructuring Environment

Preface by Konstadinos Mattas
Balkan consist a geographical region with countries from different economic origin, but a very common future. After the restructuring of the ex-socially planned economies in the region, agriculture remains a very important sector in all Balkan countries, while it is at large a sector in transition.
Within this context, the 70th EAAE Seminar entitled “Problems and Prospects of Balkan Agriculture in a Restructuring Environment” has been a rather unique Seminar, as it was the first time that a European region constituted the main focus of an EAAE Seminar. This clearly demonstrates that we, agricultural economists, are aware both of the importance of the region and the significance of the agricultural sector as well as of the fact that the prosperity of this region influences, if not determines the successful enlargement of the European Union.
During the Seminar’s proceedings, agricultural economists and other scientists working in closely related research areas, met in order to discuss the problems and the prospects of Balkan agriculture, with respect to a wide a range of issues such as efficiency and productivity of farms, food demand and trade analysis, environmental aspects of farm production, rural development. Their goal has been to evaluate the present situation and to contribute in determining new strategies for future cooperation in the light of a restructuring environment and the ongoing globalisation. In this volume, thirty-three contributions have been selected and are presented.
The organisation and hosting of the 70th EAAE Seminar, as well as the completion of this book have only been possible because of the support of a great number of people. I would personally wish to express my gratitude to the Hellenic Agricultural Economics Association, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Greek Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace, the Agricultural University of Athens, the National Agricultural Research Foundation, ELGA and Tsantali Distillers for their financial support.

Contents:

• Rural Development and Competition Between Territories: Marche and the Balkans. The case of Albania
  Roberto Esposti, Franco Sotte, Matteo Taffi
  
• The European Union Enlargement: The Case of the Agricultural Sector in Romania
  C. Clapan, C. Stoforos, and G. Mergos
  
• Main Sectoral & Macroeconomic Impacts of the Adaptation of Eu’s Commonagricultural Policy
  Laszlo Velikovszky, Péter Halmai
  
• An Evaluation on the Socio-Cultural, Economic and Environmental Effects of rural Tourism in the Development of Rural Areasin in Turkey
  Hasan Akca, Murat Sayili, Kemal Esengun, Metin Akay
  
• Innovative Mechanisms for local development: The special case of mountainous areas
  Alex Koutsouris
  
• Tthe Competitiveness of Bulgarian Agriculture on the World and EU Markets
  Matthew Gorton and Sofia Davidova
  
• The Logic and Future of Subsistence Farming in Transition Economies: The Case of Bulgaria
  Volker Beckmann and Ferdinand Pavel
  
• Liberalisation of international Agricultural Trade in the WTO Millenium Round. Possibilities, Limits and the way ahead for the transitory economies
  Péter Halmai, Laszlo Velikovszky
  
• Co-operatives, Environmental Protection and Sustainability
  Murat Sayili, Kemal Esengun, Metin Akay, Hasan Akca
  
• Institutional and Organizational Development of Agricultural Co-operatives in Bulgaria
  Ivan Kanchev, Julia Doichinova, Albena Kraeva-Miteva
  
• Agricultural Producer’s Co-operatives in Bulgaria: How they look like, behave and perform
  Krassimira Kaneva, Volker Beckmann
  
• Food Consumption Tendencies and Sources of Consumer Food Supply in Yugoslavia
  Dusica Svilanovic, Natalija Bogdanov
  
• Canned peaches in syrup: Consumers’ behavior and preferences
  Irene Kamenidou, I. Tzimitra – Kalogianni , Y. Zotos and K. Mattas
  
• Possibilities of Agricultural Production Development at the Family Farms in Yugoslavia
  Nebojsa Novkovic, Slobodan Ceranic, Natalija Bogdanov, Vesna Rodic
  
• Search for a new set of Agricultural Policies in Turkey
  Erol H. Cakmak
  
• Entrepreneurial Characteristics and Motivation as Determinants of Small Firm’s Growth: the Case of Olive Oil SMEs in Chania, Crete
  Krystallis, A. Garivaldis, D. and Ness, M.
  
• Factors affecting competition in Greek food industries
  A. Vlachvei and K. Oustapassidis
  
• Rural Entrepreneurship in Mountainous Areas of Southern Europe: An Analysis of Trends and Relationships
  Dimitris Skuras, Panagiotis Fousekis, Christos Pantzios and Dimitris Psaltopoulos
  
• A Retrospective View of Romania’s Dairy Sector & Future Perspectives of the Cheese Industry
  Claudia Ciobanu, Konstadinos Mattas
  
• Efficiency in Greek Food Industries
  K. Oustapassidis, A. Vlachvei and O. Notta
  
• A Policy Framework for Developing Agricultural Extension in Albania
  Lefter Daku, George W. Norton, and George McDowell
  
• Sustainable Rural Development and the Role of Extension
  George C. Siardos
  
• An Examination of agricultural product5ivity in Turkey
  Alper Güzel
  
• Evaluation of environmental hazards created by wastes and pollutants of agricultural origin in Northern Poland
  Teresa Kucharska, Malgorzata Zajdel
  
• A Research on the Sensitivity of Rural People to Environmental Problems (A Case Study of Tokat – Turkey)
  Metin Akay, Hasan Akca, Murat Sayili, Kemal Esengun
  
• Farm Production under Uncertainty in the form of Environmental and Food Safety Regulation
  Tihomir Ancev
  
• Agricultural Externalities in Greece in a Balkan Context: The Case of Nitrate Pollution
  Katerina Melfou & Evaggelos Papanagiotou
  
• Consumer Behaviour for Fruits and Vegetables in Greece: Bayesian Estimation of an Almost Ideal Demand System
  Stathis Klonaris
  
• A Mixed input demand system of Greek Agriculture
  Panagiotis Fousekis
  
• Assessing Rates of Return to Public Agricultural Research in Greece: A Two-stage Decomposition Approach
  Karagiannis, G., Kiriakopoulos, N. and C. Thirtle
  
• Farm Structures Development in Bulgaria
  Julia Doichinova
  
• Possibilities for development of Agricultural Financial Credit Market in Bulgaria
  Dimitre Nikolov, Prof. George Michnev
  
• Supply Chain Management of Greek Organic Agricultural Products
  Tzouramani Irene, Fotopoulos Christos and Mattas Konstantinos