Farm Investment Behavior in Less-Favorite Areas

The article analyses the rural households investment behaviour and the farms in the less-favoured areas by the point of view of the common agricultural policy CAP application impact. The research has been made in 6 pilot municipalities and embraces 83 farmers, in the framework of the research project Farm investment behaviour under different scenarios of development policies, elaborated in common by the Institute of Agricultural Economics - Sofia, the Institute of Prospective Technological Studies - Seville, Spain and the University of Bologna, Italy. The farm investment behaviour has been strongly stimulated by SAPARD program. Most active in the funds assimilation were the commercial farms, the sole traders and the co-operatives, whereas the family farms have been mainly oriented to the creation of occupation. In spite of SAPARD funds in the sector situation of long-term assets amiability is not too optimistic. The tractors power capacity per decar 0,10 ha, in horse-powers, is 3 times lower than in West-European countries. The number of animals also decreases. In the survey carried out by the IAE in 2007 the long-term assets structure indicates that the biggest part is occupied by the buildings and the agricultural land; the smallest part - the perennial plants. The plant-growing farms put the biggest part of investments in techniques and perennial plants; the stock-breeding farms invest in buildings and techniques and the middle position is for the mixed farms. The animal density per hectare is higher for the small farms, which indicates the lake of own fodder. The polarization, related to the farms size, characteristic for the country, has been confirmed by the excerpt. The structure of the UAA, by property form, indicates that the farms, predominantly the big ones, utilize mainly foreign-owned land, while the smallest farms use their own land. The average price of purchased land is 761,7 Euro/ha. Most expensive is the small farms land, the cheapest is in the biggest ones. On the base of the applied model in the project developed by the University of Bologna, the following conclusions could be made. The incomes from extra-agricultural activities are competitive with these from agriculture and they create opportunities for labour occupations out of agriculture. The farms with intensive agriculture and poorly oriented to the agriculture are tend to make investments in agriculture. Scenarios 1 and 2, using current and lower prices, have influence on the farm sustainability. This is an indication for their position on the edge of the necessary profitableness level. Farms are very sensitivity to the prices raise.