Agriculture & Food, Volume 6, 2018

Abstract: The aim of our project is to study such farms in Hungary (Nógrád, Heves, Komárom-Esztergom counties) and Slovakia (Nitriansky kraj,Banskobystrický kraj) that mobilize labour and capital for the sake of agricultural production. In our projects we examined the following topics: opportunities of sales in food commerce, taking part in short supply chains and the effect of the legal system change on the operation and development of family farms, especially the impact of the new land act. We introduced and analysed local (county level) and wider (regional level) farming conditions based on secondary data. Moreover, in collaboration with the Hungarian Chamber of Agriculture we obtained information about family farms and other agricultural producers via on-line empirical survey from 2017 to spring 2018. Regarding the composition of the questions both qualitative and quantitative methods have been used. The aim of this project is to answer the following questions: How do and exactly which sources help farmers develop and expand their farms? Which human factors have a role in farming? How do farmers see their own future, what kind of objectives do they have? Who will give up and who will go on producing? It is important to emphasise that the current examination of this paper is a ‘snapshot’ that intends to represent part of comprehensive research.