Agris

The article presents the results of a study of economic and environmental losses of Ukraine's agricultural sector as the result of Russian aggression. It is noted that a significant part of environmental issues in Ukraine are the result of global processes (warming, biodiversity loss, pollution, overpopulation and urbanization, harmful effects of heavy industry), also, of the Soviet era energy and resource-intensive economy, consequences of the Chornobyl accident (radioactive contamination), degradation of agricultural land, military infrastructure, etc. After gaining independence these problems not only did not diminish, but also deepened. However, efforts to ensure environmental protection were interrupted by the military attack of the Russian Federation. The authors collected and summarized information on the amount of environmental and economic losses of the agricultural sector of Ukraine. Their interrelation is emphasized. The sources are analysed. It is noted that in wartime accurate accounting of losses and damages is impossible, so the main attention is paid to the analysis of their causes, structure, and consequences. It is shown that the economic and environmental damage caused by the war was inflicted not only on Ukraine, but also to neighbouring countries and poses a potential danger to the World. The problems associated with increased competition in the European agricultural market due to the impact of the war and the inaccessibility of traditional sales markets are highlighted. Based on the Ukraine's recovery plans and regional programs, the authors identify key areas of work for the future. The significant support from the United States, the European Union and other countries and its importance in the future to overcome the consequences of the war are emphasized. The authors have summarized the common economic and environmental problems that need to be addressed.

Understanding the importance of grassland management is crucial for predicting the effects on forage production, pasture and ecosystem stability. Studies about the impact of grassland management in temperate humid environments on soil, erosion and aboveground biomass properties are lacking. This study investigates the effect of different grassland managements—no grazing, moderate grazing and heavy grazing—on soil properties, hydrological responses and herbage quality in an organic farm located in Croatia. The results showed that heavy grazing significantly increased soil compaction, structural deterioration, erosion and nutrient transport compared with no grazing. Heavily grazed plots had significantly higher soil organic matter and nutrient concentrations compared with no-grazing plots. Moderately grazed plots had the highest biomass production and the herbage with higher quality compared with other treatments. Significantly higher ash contents on heavily and moderately grazed plots were due to cow trampling. Cow grazing behaviour was a more important factor for plant regrowth and herbage quality than soil properties. Moderate grazing did not induce serious soil erosion problems or reduce soil productivity. Soil conservation measures should focus only on the heavily grazed areas and include the introduction of rotational grazing in combination with various strategies: excluding grazing, reseeding and increasing the diversity of resting areas.

This article focuses on the importance of the right to effective participation of children in conflict with the law in criminal (youth justice) proceedings. In particular, it explores two procedural aspects which are closely related to the right to child-friendly legal aid and the role of individual assessment. The authors claim that qualitatively identifying the needs of the child (through the instrument of individual assessment) and establishing a relationship of trust with a specifically trained legal aid lawyer is critical in raising the child’s status to that of an active participant in the proceedings and ensuring that the best interests of the child are observed. The authors also suggest that such an initial encounter within the justice system forms an attitude (of either confidence or rejection) of the child towards public institutions and, accordingly, directly affects the effectiveness of further interventions. To support their position, the authors of the paper bring several examples from the comparative research carried out in two European projects, noting, regretfully, that the initial interventions often suffer from formal implementation and lack a systemic approach.

Creation of a sustainable agricultural sector involves boosting the cooperation activities as these contribute to the societal and economic development of the farms, farmers and rural societies. This paper contributes to the literature on the analysis of the drivers and obstacles of cooperation development in agriculture. The case of Lithuania is considered as the cooperation activities are lagging behind the European Union (EU) practice here. Specifically, analysis of the public support measures and the expert survey are carried out to analyse the effectiveness of the public policy measures as represented in the relevant legal acts. The experts involve policy makers, farmers’ organisations and academia, which are the major stakeholder groups in Lithuania. The results indicate the effectiveness of the measures linked to capacity building (in the sense of human capital) requires improvement, whereas those related to financial support and promotion of the farmers’ organisations are much better perceived. Thus, public support measures are available to promote cooperation in agriculture, yet the legal system of Lithuania still requires improvement in accommodating effective agricultural cooperatives.

The promotion of pro-environmental behavior is regarded as very important in solving environmental problems. The Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory usually emphasizes internal factors; however, we have transformed this theory by including the environmental knowledge as an external factor. The results showed that action-related environmental knowledge was related to the ecological worldview and directly influenced the private sphere behavior. The ecological worldview, which in this paper was operationalized as environmental concern, had a direct effect on public sphere behavior and an indirect effect on private behavior through awareness of behavioral consequences. Thus, in this paper we revealed how specific environmental knowledge influenced pro-environmental behavior. We also suggest that it is important to educate people about local and global environmental problems, about the impact of behavior on the environment not only in private but also in the public sphere, and to foster the ecocentrism, as well. In addition, we revealed the meaning and necessity of education for environmental citizenship.

The European Union (EU) is an integrated alliance of equally treated Member States sharing mutual values, legal principles and markets. Close cooperation, deep integration and convergence are the major priorities for the EU. Anyway, these principles are not always reflected in the EU-wide policies which are implemented through financial support mechanisms. The direct payments financial support mechanism under the Common Agricultural Policy, the main instrument for promoting convergence in development of Member States’ agricultural sectors and rural sustainability, faces critique for failing to meet its objectives. One of the major deficiencies of the direct payments scheme is that it allocates more resources to already developed agricultural sectors of the older Member States and less resources to developing ones thus increasing the divergence among the Member States. The aim of this paper is to suggest new mechanisms for direct payment funds redistribution across the EU Member States which are based on the methodological principles that would more precisely correspond to the aims of convergence, transparency and fair redistribution. The results show that, regardless of the method chosen (to support more or less effective agricultural sectors of EU Member States), the proposed methodology lowers differences in direct payment rates among the EU Member States by two-fold. This ensures correspondence to the goal of convergence within the EU.

Transition from the academic setting to the turbulent labour market requires more personal resources than ever before. In order to successfully enter and perform in professional life one must be ready to respond adequately to conditions of uncertainty and complexity. The concept of planned happenstance skills presents a set of competencies to deal e ectively with unplanned events generated by chaotic environment. These career-related resources are extremely important for students pursuing successful adaption to professional environments and seeking to prepare for personal career management. The present article aims to analyze the role of planned happenstance skills when predicting psychological wellbeing and academic adjustment. Lithuania was chosen as a case study since there is a high percentage of people with higher education. The study was conducted using the quantitative method of questionnaire survey. Data of the survey were analyzed using correlation and multiple regression analyses. It was found that planned happenstance skills had a significant positive relationship with study variables and were a significant predictor of academic achievement and psychological wellbeing.

The productive technology can be analysed in terms of the technical and economic (cost) efficiency. This paper analyses the performance of the Lithuanian family farms in terms of the economic (cost) efficiency. Specifically, the economic efficiency is decomposed across specific inputs in order to identify the major sources of inefficiency. The livestock farms exhibited the highest overall cost efficiency (65%) and input-specific cost efficiencies. The mixed farms were peculiar with a somehow lower level of the cost efficiency (52%). Finally, the crop farms featured the lowest east efficiency (42%). The dynamic analysis of the input-specific cast efficiencies was presented in the paper.

The productive technology can be analysed in terms of the technical and economic (cost) efficiency. This paper analyses the performance of the Lithuanian family farms in terms of the economic (cost) efficiency. Specifically, the economic efficiency is decomposed across specific inputs in order to identify the major sources of inefficiency. The livestock farms exhibited the highest overall cost efficiency (65%) and input-specific cost efficiencies. The mixed farms were peculiar with a somehow lower level of the cost efficiency (52%). Finally, the crop farms featured the lowest cost efficiency (42%). The dynamic analysis of the input-specific cost efficiencies was presented in the paper.

The article analyses the issue of the analysis and assessment of municipality's financial condition that is relevant theoretically and practically. The relevance and importance of the analysis of municipality's financial condition based on financial reports and other information show that regular and timely analysis can disclose strengths and weaknesses of the municipality's financial management as well as highlight fiscal problems and provide the information necessary to make corrections. The aim of the research is to assess the financial condition of Lithuanian municipalities in rural regions. Ten financial ratios, which aim to analyse and assess the financial condition of Lithuanian municipalities in rural regions, are presented referring to literature and considering the peculiarities of the accountability of Lithuania's public sector. In the research, it is possible to divide Lithuanian rural municipalities into three groups according to their level of rurality: municipalities of strong rurality, medium rurality and weak rurality. The research, which revealed the ability of Lithuanian municipalities on different level of rurality to cover their financial liabilities, their financial capacity to perform their functions, the ability to manage own assets, and financial autonomy, was performed referring to the consolidated financial reports of municipalities announced publicly and by applying the SPSS software.