Sociology and Space, No. 149-150, 2000.
Conference paper
The Role of the Human Factor in the Revitalisation of Slavonian Villages and Agriculture
Antun Šundalić
Abstract
In this paper, which was presented at the 2nd scientific convention of the Croatian Society
of Agricultural Economists "Challenges to the Croatian Agriculture at the Verge of the 21st
Century" (Poreč, Croatia, 8-11 November 2000), the author discusses about the chance of
Slavonian villages to get higheducated specialists for agriculture and economy in circumstances
of post-socialistic transition and globalisation. Although the region of Slavonia is
rural rather than urban, agriculture plays a secondary role in the overall economy. The village
population is less and less orientated towards farming as their basic livelihood, and
the country life can hardly be called a village culture any more. This state could be the
result of transitional changes in the agriculture, the consequence of the agression in
1991/92 when a major part of Slavonia and the whole of Baranya were occupied, and the
result of modernisation which decreases the necessary number of people active in agriculture
(farmers).
Through their key activity, i.e. agriculture, villages used to be orientated towards, and
directly dependent on the nature. Nowadays, this primary connection is overshadowed by
the dependency of village and agriculture on the economic policy in which those two take
a back seat. The current policy is expected to reposition the villages and agriculture in the
general development of society, to conduct a constructive demographic policy aimed at
keeping the young people in the villages, to display new development initiatives through
using scientific and technological advances. However, of major importance in all this is the
human factor - educated specialists for agriculture and economy. The question whether
Slavonian villages will get a sufficient number of those is partly answered by the survey
research conducted on quota-sample of students (150 respondents) of the Faculties of
Agriculture and Economics of the University of Josip Juraj Strossmayer in Osijek. Because
the villages are attractive only for a quarter of the future agronomists and economists,
because one third of respondents see their professional perspective in the village, and
because not until the quarter of respondents own perspective connect with revitalisation 1/1
of agriculture and farming, the author considers that agriculture and farms will not get educated specialists and puts the question about the sense of their high-education.
Keywords
revitalisation; human factor; deagrarisation; deruralisation
Hrčak ID:
120117
URI
Publication date:
8.12.2000.
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