In October 2011 the European Commission presented a set of legal proposals designed to make the Common Agricultural Policy more effective. Pending a debate in the European Parliament and the Council, approval is expected by the end of 2013. This Forum aims to identify the proposals' shortcomings...

Rural areas in Central and Eastern Europe are very often associated with a backwardness in terms of income and employment opportunities, a high dependency on agriculture, the outmigration of young, skilled people, a low population density and an insufficient infrastructure. In this paper 3...

Seit Beginn der Transformation haben in den Ländern Mittel- und Osteuropas (MOEL) die interregionalen Disparitäten zugenommen. Insbesondere die Stadt-Land-Gegensätze haben sich verstärkt. Dieser Beitrag zeigt die Entwicklung der Disparitäten auf und diskutiert auf der Basis theoretischer...

Der steile Anstieg der Nahrungsmittelpreise hat zu einer allgemeinen Verunsicherung geführt. Nach Ansicht von Joachim von Braun, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, können die Lebensmittelpreise langfristig nur durch eine Steigerung der Produktion stabilisiert werden. Vor...

This paper examines and compares institutional arrangements addressing market failures endemic to rural areas. It argues that rural market failures cannot be satisfactorily addressed by for-profit firms and thus require the operation of third sector organizations, such as NGOs, cooperatives, and...

Based on a case study of two Moldovan regions, the paper challenges the favourable assessment of recently established peasant farms in a World Bank study by LERMAN et al. (1998). The main arguments in favour of a more critical view of the results of land privatisation and farm restructuring are...