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Can Croatia Have Competitive Family Farming? A Contribution to the Research of Agrarian Structure
Stipe RADINOVIĆ
Đurđica ŽUTINIĆ
Sažetak
Supported by data taken from the agricultural censuses of
the years 1960 and 2003, the authors analyse in this paper
the fundamental structural changes in the agricultural
homesteads of Croatia, especially changes in the number
and size of the farm land and work force. A special part of
the analysis refers to the special / regional distribution of
agricultural homesteads according to land size. The results
indicate that in the last forty years unfavourable processes
have accumulated in Croatian family farming, such as a
continuing decrease of the number of farms and the farms'
average size, a substantial subdivision of farm land, great
loss of the once cultivated agricultural land and growth of
uncultivated farm land. Furthermore, there has been a
considerable change of socio-professional structure of the
population living in these agricultural households. Farm land
has become more of a supplemental economy of the
population living on it and farmers are becoming a marginal
group. In order to create a vital, economically sustainable
and competitive family farming sector, it is essential to improve the agrarian structure, which implies an increase of
the average size of the agricultural homestead. In terms of
development, there are two possible approaches within the
process of restructuring family farming: the first is to increase
the number of homesteads striving towards an economically
effective size of the farm land. Such commercial farms could
influence the overall growth of Croatian agriculture most.
The second approach is the survival of the small family farm
with mixed financial resources.
Ključne riječi
agricultural homestead; agrarian structure; expansion of farm land
Hrčak ID:
18926
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.4.2007.
Posjeta: 2.104 *