: (2002-2003)

Alajos Fehér Ph.D.

Research hypothesis: Unfavourable spatial processes are likely to continue in Northern Hungary, leading to even greater tensions between regional or agricultural crisis districts and areas where the actors in regional economies have adapted well to new challenges. The tensions are caused by underdeveloped, contradictory agricultural structures.

The previously delimited agricultural regions have been changed to a certain extent in recent years, but the adaptational crisis with structural problems is still extant and exerts a negative effect on the whole or part of the agricultural structure of regions previously designated as districts stricken by regional and agricultural crisis.

Research aims: To investigate the spatial processes taking place in the second half of the nineties and the external factors and internal correlation decisive for the agriculture and forestry of the macroregion. Analysis of how these factors influence the agricultural structure of the individual regions.

There are still numerous obstacles hindering the desired level of development of various elements in the agricultural structure, and the steps which need to be taken are likely to provoke conflicts. (These structural elements include the structure of land use and sub-sectors of agriculture, cooperational and coordinational structures, the structure of human resources, and structure of the farms and agricultural holdings .) The aim is to classify these structures, to reveal regional specialities and to elaborate recommendations based on the analysis of realistic solutions.

Major tasks: Studies on the spatial processes characteristic of agriculture in Northern Hungary between 1995 and 2000, in the districts previously delineated on the basis of the successfulness of economic adaptation. (Explorative data analysis using principal component analysis and cluster analysis, and comparative analysis with earlier research data.)

The analysis of agricultural structures, including the investigation of factors responsible for the differences in the level of development of various structural elements and for regional differences.

Verification, and if necessary correction, of the spatial classification; identification and quantification of the microregional differences and tensions caused by spatial processes, predictions and estimations of the effects expected over the next few years.

Recommendations on structural developments in comparison with the SAPARD programme previously prepared for this macroregion.

Expected benefits: Reliable databases for use in further research, and up-to-date analytical methods.

Generation of new regional knowledge for the area investigated; the publication of this information and its use in higher education, the extension service and regional planning.