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RURAL
APPRAISAL AND ACCOUNTING Section |
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Research
The research activity of the Rural Appraisal and Accounting Section includes
four main areas.
a)
Rural appraisal and environmental assessment
This area of research covers evaluation issues such as the appraisal of real
estate, the estimation of production costs and farm profitability, fiscal
issues in agriculture, the structural adjustment of agriculture and the
analysis of real estate markets. The latter became systematic in 1970, with the
establishment of the “Price Bank”, aimed at improving the transparency of the
land market through the continuous monitoring of transactions. Growing
attention to environmental and local development issues over the years has
stimulated the broadening and innovation of research activities. New topics
have been added such as: landscape and environmental evaluation, environmental
impact assessment and environmental accounting, as well as the evaluation and
management of agriculture-related resources.
b)
The marketing of agricultural products
This area of research is devoted to the marketing of agricultural products, to
the analysis of commercial structures and forms of economic organisation by
market operators, as well as the analysis of food chains and food processing.
In particular, studies are under way concerning the competitiveness and
exchange of horticultural products, the integration of food production and
processing chains and networks, e-commerce, the optimum use of high quality and
regionally characteristic products, as well as the use of trademarks for
horticultural products, the economics of organic farming and farm tourism.
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c)
Farm management
The research activity in this field concerns the study of models of economic
optimisation in relation to decision-making on farmlands and the promotion of
innovation in fruit farms, the analysis of information in agriculture, the
testing of optimisation in the field and the production of PC tools for farm
management. Other research concerns new company forms in agriculture,
organisation and the analysis of production chains, farm planning methods and
farm management services. A traditional and always busy research field is
economic and financial analysis as well as the analysis of the production costs
of enterprises operating in the food production and processing sector. Finally,
in relation to administration, studies are under way concerning methods of farm
accounting, the production and analysis of balance sheets, as well as the
evaluation of the results of farm management. These activities are particularly
closely related to the work of the Farm Accounting Office. At present, ongoing
research is being carried out for the construction of accounting models for
agricultural co-operatives and for the re-definition of accounting methods based
on cost centres.
d)
Rural development
In recent years, rural development and agricultural/environmental policies have
become increasingly important in research. Specifically ongoing studies include
the impact of structural policies and agricultural/environmental schemes, as
well as the analysis of organisational structures and contract formulation for
the implementation of rural development measures. Some research projects are
also dedicated to the study of rural development in countries under transition
in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, in particular Romania and Albania. The issue
of research needs is also looked into.
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English
Version