Technologies of keeping livestock and management of manure pig complexes holdings built in the country under the Soviet regime no longer satisfy modern veterinary and environmental requirements. Conditions for the modernisation of such complexes were created as from 2000, when agricultural aid programmes (funds) appeared in Lithuania. Information about old and newly implemented manure management technologies, fertilisation value of manure, and quality of the drainage runoff from manure-fertilised fields has been collected in six large livestock companies. Analysis of collected data revealed that new livestock keeping, feeding and manure management technologies are more cost-effective in using energy and mineral resources and conform to the animal welfare, environmental protection and hygiene requirements that are becoming more and more stringent. As the traditional manure management in economic terms is quite expensive and has a significant impact on the environmental quality, academic community is looking for new manure processing methods. The global development of manure management technologies focuses on the manure processing in biogas plants. Biogas generated from liquid manure and animal waste in such plants is an alternative source of energy.

The objective of this article is to assess farm efficiency and productivity change in specialised large farms located in the region of Mazowsze and Podlasie during the years 2014 − 2016. For this, we used the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and Malmquist index. Calculations were performed for three types of large farms classified as: field crop, pig and dairy. The study shows that mean technical efficiency of large field crop, pig and dairy farms amounted to 80, 75 and 70%, respectively. Technical inefficiency of field crop farms come mainly from scale efficiency, while of pig and dairy farms equally from pure technical and scale efficiency. It shows that inefficient management practices had an impact on farm performance. Therefore, in order to increase competitiveness of farms, an improvement of management practices is required. In the studied period the share of farms operating under increasing return was as follows: 67, 72, and 81%, respectively for field crops, pig and dairy farms. The improvement of efficiency of those farms could be achieved by increasing their size. The results indicate that 8% of field crops, 12% of dairy and 16% of large pig farms were operating under decreasing scale efficiency, which means that those farms were operating above the optimal scale. The increase in their efficiency could be achieved through size reduction. In dairy farms the average annual productivity growth of 2% was recorded. In pig farms the productivity reduction of 5.4% was observed. It was the result of a decrease in technological efficiency.

Baltic States and Finland are vibrant regions with similar sized population and historical experience. Their adaptation to the new digital era is undermined by lack of professionals. Across the EU a major reason for labour shortage in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields professionals lies in the insufficient supply of higher education graduates due to stagnant enrolment rates in STEM fields. The aim of this research addresses the existing trends in tertiary STEM education in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This includes the tasks of analysing the quantitative trends (enrolment and graduation) in the HEIs of Baltics and Finland over the period from 2013 to 2017 as well as analysing the structural changes taking place in the respective higher education systems from 2013 to 2018. The Baltic States combined have numerical advantages in terms of young people, and young professionals (25−34 year olds) with tertiary education. However, in terms of the number of students and graduates Finland is at the forefront. The largest proportion of students enrolling in STEM fields lie within Finland (33.9%) whereas the smallest one is in Latvia (24.0%). Finland is also a leader in the share and total number of information and communication technology (ICT) graduates. In the period 2013−2017 Latvia’s results improved in two (5th and 6th) of the STEM study fields, Lithuania made a remarkable result in one STEM (6th) field by 46.9%, Estonia saw a relative increase in the 5th and 6th study field while Finland experienced a numerical decrease in all three STEM fields.

Decrease of the consumption of energy resources is possible if grain is actively dry at low air temperatures, which also has a more favourable effect on a single grain. By using the new low-temperature technologies in grain drying, the same effect can be reached as by using grain dryers with high air heating temperatures. One of such technologies could be active drying of the grain layer at low air temperatures in ozone medium. Laboratory experiments show that the carried out moisture from grain is more efficient is active drying is performed using ozonized air. The presence of ozone in grain active drying process increases the amount of carried out moisture. Ozone when decaying to ordinary oxygen creates additional energy, which can be efficiently used in grain drying. As a result, grain drying is accelerated and energy consumption is decreased. Laboratory experiments prove the effectiveness of the presence of ozone in grain active drying process.

In the EU during the last decade, interest has risen for both consumers and producers in Food Quality Schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs. For producers, the appeal lies in the benefits associated with the collective reputation of quality that characterizes labels linked to geographical origin. This paper obtained estimates of technical and scale inefficiencies of PGI bean farms in Greece by applying the DEA methodology. The main part of the divergence from the efficient frontier is more due to inadequate use of inputs and less because farms are not operating at the optimal size. The vast majority of the farms in the sample achieved technical efficiency scores in the range of 70–100% and scale efficiency scores in the range of 80–100%. Average technical efficiency is lower than average scale efficiency which means that a larger segment of overall inefficiency is due to producing below the frontier than to operating at an inefficient scale.

Results of the study showed the following: 1) There exists an extremely broad range of agricultural and agroforestry land-use alternatives to the current slash-and-burn systems but much work needs to be done. 2) There is a major need for scientific quantification of the many attributes of the most promising systems. 3) There is a need for national policy to discourage use of environmentally destructive systems and to encourage longer-term investment by finding solution to land tenure uncertainty. Innovative marketing approaches that open large market segments for agroforestry fruit products (such as the soft drink market) have been extremely successful but not well documented in many parts of Asia. 4) There is a need to "harness" and distribute the best farmers knowledge about integrated systems, but have little successful experience with this. 5) Finally, scientist must realize that the scientific knowledge base covering the range of options is frightfully narrow, and the scope for learning is enormous. The success stories of imaginative application of the many options give hope, but at the same time stretch our abilities, to understand and to properly apply the numerous technologies waiting for more widespread use