The national ecolabel of tourist accommodation establishments and rural tourism enterprises of Latvia – the ‘Green Certificate’ (hereinafter the ‘Green Certificate’) celebrated its 20ᵗʰ anniversary in 2019. Its creation in 1999 was initiated by the Latvian Rural Tourism Association ‘Baltic Country Holidays’, and it is currently one of the oldest European ecolabels still in operation. One of the most significant tourism and rural tourism resources in Latvia is the natural and cultural heritage, which is the basis for the development of rural tourism products. In this process, ecosystem services used in tourism products play a major role. One of the goals of the ‘Green Certificate’ is environment, nature and local society friendly and sustainable farming, which means both a careful use of natural resources and their inclusion in the tourism product development process. The aim of this study was to find out which ecosystem services were used and the ways they were used by rural tourism companies to create the nature protection, social and economic added value. According to the respondents, 1/3 of the revenue of the ‘Green Certificate’ companies is generated by the use of the ecosystem services. It is an argument for further research on the possibilities of the ecosystem services to be used more effectively in future in developing new rural tourism products.

The growth data and the potential returns from 15-year-old plantations of pine Pinus sylvestris L. (6 trial sites), spruce Picea abies Karst L. (9 trial sites) and silver birch Betula pendula Roth (13 trial sites), established in abandoned agricultural lands in a variety of soil types (sod calcareous, anthrosols, podzolic, podzols, gley, podzolic gley, alluvial), using the planting density 2,500 and 3,300 and also 5,000 trees/ha are analysed.For tree plantations in agricultural soils (alluvial sod-gley, gley-sod podzolic, sod-podzolic gley, typic podzol) at the survival of 80-98% the stock volume for 15-year pine is as high as 102-155 m³ha⁻¹ with the volume growth 5.72-8.94 m³ha⁻¹ per year; the same indices for spruce in agricultural soils (gley sod-calcareous, sodpodzolic, cultivated, sod-podzolic gley, alluvial sod-gley, base-unsaturated brown) are 75-98 m³ha⁻¹ and 10.26-15.76 m³ha⁻¹, respectively. For 15-year plantation birch the mentioned indices may vary from 61 to 169 m³ha⁻¹ and from 7.54 to 29.82 m³ha⁻¹ per year. The lowest volume growth (4.66 m³ha⁻¹ per year) is for birch in heavy clay soil (gleyic sod-podzolic), the highest (29.72-29.82 m³ha⁻¹ per year) – in cultivated soils and pseudogley soil.Plantation cultivation of pine, spruce and birch in agricultural lands may by the age of 15 years yield with a profit such forest products as pulpwood, fire wood and woody biomass. The gross income gained from first commercial thinnings of plantation pine, utilizing pulpwood, fire wood and logging residue biomass, may vary from 679-2267 EUR ha⁻¹, for spruce the same indices are 1644-3272 EUR ha⁻¹, for birch - 683-2188 EUR ha⁻¹.

In rural Kazakhstan, the credit and insurance services are limited and the state support is weak. Therefore, households’ saving is crucial to provide an insurance against the economic and social shocks. The main goal of this study is to contribute to the literature on financial literacy in emerging economies, namely, the effect of financial literacy on saving rates of rural population. Being well educated not always means to be financial literate and make efficient decisions regarding one’s own finance. People with a lower formal education level but with better experience in consuming financial products could be better prepared for making financial decisions including those related to savings. In this paper other socio-economic determinants of saving rates were taken into account, such as an income level, family size and an employment status. This research was carried out in Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan, and the data collection took place in spring 2014. In total, 405 households were surveyed. Results of the analysis show that if a respondent gives at least one correct answer, it positively affects the saving rates as well as one can observe that the higher the financial literacy level, the higher are the saving rates. Availability of state supported financial education programs for rural people will significantly contribute to the financial literacy improvement. At the same time, providing various and appropriate financial products in rural areas will motivate rural people to search for new knowledge and require authorities to intensify activities in this field.

To survive in today's competitive environment, companies must continuously develop and offer customers new products. To increase the probability of a successful business case of investing in the development of a new product, careful attention must be paid to risk analysis in terms of the present value of future potential income. The article considers an example of the research work of the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, in the framework of which a technical and technological project was developed to produce a new product, like Mediterranean anchovy, from cheaper Baltic sprats. The main goal of this work is to explore the application multi-factor sensitivity and fuzzy real option analysis to the valuation of new product development project. The multivariate analysis of the sensitivity of the financial model of the greenfield production project described in this article revealed the main risk groups, as well as their degree of influence on the assessment of the Net Present Value of the project by a potential investor. The use of Fuzzy Real Option Valuation made it possible to evaluate the project with uncertain parameters, as well as to calculate the potential upside from preliminary refinement of parameters to eliminate negative scenarios. The described approach is applicable to risk assessment of new food product development and allows investors to make a more informed decision about participation in such projects.

Unemployment is a major issue in Nigeria because the youth finds it difficult or impossible to secure jobs that meet their expectations. There appears to be a mismatch between graduate skills and those sought by employers. The study investigated the effect of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) youth Agripreneurs (IYA) programme on employment and income generation on cattle fattening enterprise under the N2Africa Borno youth project. A two-stage sampling procedure was used to select IYA participants and non-participants. Results revealed that the majority of respondents were males in both categories. It also indicated that youths who are in their productive age are more into cattle fattening enterprise in both categories. The study also found that, unemployment and skill acquisition are the main driving reasons for participating in IYA. It also indicated that both categories of respondents’ required external capital support for start-up of their enterprise, and that IYA programme participants on the average earn more income per month than non-participants. IYA programme participants generated more employment opportunities which implied that the programme had not only empowered participants but also made the participants’ become employers. The study recommended that there is a need to support youths with funds, access to trainings on capacity development and skill acquisition to make them self-employed and job creators.