Vesna Rodic - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Vesna Rodic

Contemporary Agriculture

Summary Biomass power production offers significant potential for the Republic of Serbia, especia... more Summary Biomass power production offers significant potential for the Republic of Serbia, especially for AP Vojvodina, as it is an agricultural area with large quantities of plant residues. However, in order to use these resources sustainably, the price of the produced energy should include the cost related to environmental protection. The aim of this paper is to use the LCC method to determine the cost arising from environmental protection in a biomass power plant. The results show that the investments in equipment for reducing pollution in a biomass power plant of the capacity 1MW accounts for 1.08% of the total investments. Also, the environmental cost accounts for the lowest share in the cost price. If investments are (voluntarily) made in purifier filters, they amount to 1.53 EUR/1,000kWh (1.52% of the total cost). If the investments in filters are excluded from the calculation (as under the existing legislation these filters in Serbia are still not mandatory), then the environ...

Economics of Agriculture, Dec 1, 2011

Increasing living standard and purchasing power, various health crises and increased concern abou... more Increasing living standard and purchasing power, various health crises and increased concern about animal welfare have shifted consumers' attention towards rearing systems and feeding methods and towards the reliability of information and the veracity of labels. Research done decade ago showed that consumers in Serbia, like in other countries, were extremely enthusiastic about the systems in which chickens are reared, their welfare, nutrition etc. They believed that poultry meat from extensive housing systems was healthier, more tasteful and they were ready to pay a higher price for this kind of meat if such products were appropriately controlled and labeled. Despite all that, the extensive housing systems and market opportunities are not yet fully exploited in Serbia. In this paper, the authors have repeated the above mention research in Novi Sad and area nearby (300 respondents) and have compared consumers' perception now and ten years ago in order to investigate the consumers' perceptions and possibilities of enhancing the competitiveness of poultry meat from extensive housing systems.

CVM is one of the main techniques in environmental economic analyses. It was first applied in the... more CVM is one of the main techniques in environmental economic analyses. It was first applied in the early 1960', but it became widely used at the beginning of the 1990'. Due to a hypothetical character it was usually criticized, but the fact that it is the only method which provides the measuring of both the use and non-use values, it became irreplaceable. The main obstacles to its use seen from the critics' point of view are the starting point bias, strategic behaviour of respondents, embedding effect, etc. In addition to environmental protection, it can be applied in almost all spheres of social life. Unfortunately, this method is insufficiently known and used in Serbia, although there is an undoubtedly need for it, having in mind numerous environmental problems.

Worldwide production of poultry meat has a steady growth. In Serbia, however, there has been a si... more Worldwide production of poultry meat has a steady growth. In Serbia, however, there has been a significant decrease in poultry population, production and consumption of poultry meat since the early 1990s. Numerous factors contributed to the current situation. Firstly, dramatic shrinking of the market due to the disintegration of former Yugoslavia and then of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, followed by the UN sanctions, collapse of big poultry businesses and their unsuccessful privatisation, lack of the state support etc. The paper gives an overview of poultry meat sector in Serbia, including population, production and consumption of poultry meat, and foreign trade. The aim is to examine the current situation in Serbia’s poultry meat production and put forward suggestions on improving the sector.

Biotehnologija u stocarstvu, 2011

In the last decades people became highly aware of the connection between food and health, especia... more In the last decades people became highly aware of the connection between food and health, especially in developed countries of Europe and USA. Food can only be considered functional if together with its basic nutritional impact it has beneficial effects on human health. It must improve general conditions and/or decrease the risk of the disease. Functional foods should be enhanced with added ingredients not normally found in the product, providing health benefits beyond their nutritional value. Functional foods are intended to be consumed as part of the normal diet but offer the potential of enhanced health or reduced risk of disease. Functional food could be rich in vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids or antioxidants. Poultry meat and eggs have a potential to be considered as a functional food because of the high level of conversion of beneficial nutrients from feed to poultry products. Enrichment of eggs is more pronounced than enrichment of meat because of the higher fat content. Curren...

The most important entities in the organization of agricultural production in Serbia in general, ... more The most important entities in the organization of agricultural production in Serbia in general, as well as in Vojvodina, are family farms. These subjects own the most of the productive capacities in agriculture, most notably agricultural land. Nowdays, family farms in Vojvodina have 73% of total agricultural land, and 77% of the arable land in this production area. Research in this paper focuses on changes in land resources and their utilization. The main aim of the paper is to point out insufficient utilization of agricultural land and the possibility of its more intensive use, as a significant factor of increasing the income of family farms.

Ratarstvo i povrtarstvo, 2013

It has long been clear that rural economy involves not only agriculture, but all human, social, n... more It has long been clear that rural economy involves not only agriculture, but all human, social, natural and material resources in rural areas. Human resources are of particular importance since limitations in human capital may limit the use of other resources and could be (and often they are) a 'bottleneck' of rural development. Serbia is characterised by the long-lasting lack of a viable and high-quality labour force in rural areas. That makes the inclusion of the rural population in the wider labour market difficult and limits their access to other markets (knowledge, information, and financial capital). This, consequently, leads to further impoverishment of the rural population, making poverty both a cause and a consequence. Starting from the above mentioned importance of human resources in this paper, the main demographic characteristics of the rural population in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina have been analysed and discussed as an important factor of rural econom...

Bulgarian Journal of Agricultural Science, 2015

BOSNJAK, D., V. RODic and J. KARAPANDZiN, 2015. Equivalent amounts of soybeans required for cover... more BOSNJAK, D., V. RODic and J. KARAPANDZiN, 2015. Equivalent amounts of soybeans required for covering the primary inputs on selected family farms in Vojvodina. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 21: 725–729 in recent years, the area devoted to industrial crops in the AP Vojvodina has recorded an increasing trend at the expense of less intensive crops. Therefore, the soybean has especially gained prominence and nowadays accounts for 8% of the total arable land in the province. The future of this trend primarily depends on economic results of soybean production. Since economic results of any production are based on investments on one hand and achieved production value on the other, this paper provides a trend analysis of the basic material investments and the achieved results in the soybean production within the period 2007-2013, as well as their relative interrelation. The purpose is to determine the equivalent amounts of soybeans required for covering the primary inputs and to review the possibil...

BOSNJAK, D., V. RODIC and P. MUNCAN, 2012. Soybean acreages needed to satisfy consumption of basi... more BOSNJAK, D., V. RODIC and P. MUNCAN, 2012. Soybean acreages needed to satisfy consumption of basic livestock products in Serbia. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 18: 539-544 Despite the fact that Serbia is a significant producer and exporter of soybean, the import of soybean and soy meal is still higher than the export. Taking into consideration the advantages of domestic production, especially if knowing that in Serbia only non-genetically modified soybean cultivation is allowed, one can say that there is a need for soybean acreages (and production) increase. This applies both to the present (low) level of livestock products consumption and even more if consumption per capita achieves the consumption level reached during 1990s or even that recorded in the EU-27. The aim of this paper is to point out the needed soybean acreages in Serbia, starting from the quantity of soy meal necessary for the production of the most important livestock products (milk, meat and eggs), at different levels of th...

Contemporary Agriculture, 2018

Summary Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for all forms of life, which means that food cannot b... more Summary Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for all forms of life, which means that food cannot be produced without it. As the phosphate rock (concentrated source of phosphorus) is a non-renewable and finite resource, with no substitute, without more sustainable management of phosphorus its deposits could be depleted in a rather short period. In addition, much of phosphorus eventually ends up in environment, where it causes pollution. Hence, one could say that the lack of phosphorus and its inappropriate management could be a bottleneck for a sustainable food supply and agricultural development in general. Nevertheless, unlike some other challenges that modern agriculture has to face (for example, water and energy scarcity, climate changes etc) the problem of phosphorus limited availability and accessibility has been largely neglected until recently. This paper’s particular intention is to explain why phosphorus management is one of key issues for the sustainable food supply and agr...

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2011

The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province in the Republic of Serbia. It is l... more The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province in the Republic of Serbia. It is located in the northern part of the country, in the Pannonia plain. Vojvodina is an energy-deficient province. The average yearly quantity of the cellulose wastes in Vojvodina amounts to about 9 millions tons barely in the agriculture, and the same potential on the level of Serbia estimates to almost 13 million tons. This study gives the analysis of energetic exploitation of straws from stubble cereals processed in different forms. Costs for the equipment that uses biomass in the EU are approximately two times higher with respect to those for the equipment for combustion of natural gas or of fuel oil. Costs of investments for combustion of biomass in Vojvodina if compared with the cited data are approximately for 40-50% lower. The difference of the investment costs for the construction of such units is because units for straw combustion designed and constructed in our country, have neither the complicated devices for manipulation of fuels, nor the devices for the waste gasses processing. The definite conclusions about the economic justification of the energetic exploitation of stubble straws can be obtained only by comparison of costs of the so obtained energy, with the costs of energy obtained through the combustion of classical fuels. Previous comparisons were the most often based on the comparisons of value of prices of the equivalent straw quantity with the process of fuel oil of other classical fuels. Such the comparisons leaded to the very positive evaluations of the economical effects of straws, without taking into account the realizability of the named method. Namely, comparisons of straw and fuel oil hardly could lead to the conclusion that these two fuels are mutually substitutable. According to its physical properties, straw is most similar to firewood, but the preciousness and lacking of this the very resource excludes it from the comparative analysis, so that comparisons were performed with respect to coal. The basic reason for the application of coal as the alternative energent is the circumstance that coal represents very often-used energent whose technology of combustion is the most similar to those used for straw, and at the same time, it has not any other application.

Ekonomika poljoprivrede, 2019

Sustainable development is a concept which has not yet been uniquely defined at the international... more Sustainable development is a concept which has not yet been uniquely defined at the international level. As a result, it is difficult to define the indicators which could "measure" the achievement of sustainability. The paper deals with organic agriculture as a commonly used indicator of sustainable agricultural development. The organic farming in Serbia is legally a well-regulated area, but still not developed to the necessary and possible extent. Following the practice of the most developed countries, the area under organic production is distinguished as one of the indicators in the National List of Indicators for Sustainable Development of the Republic of Serbia. Nowadays, organic farming occupies only about 0.45% of total UAA in Serbia (approx 15,000 ha), which is relatively low in comparison with the EU countries. Therefore, the development of Serbian agriculture cannot be assessed as sustainable. Although the authors of this paper support the use of organic agriculture as an indicator of agricultural sustainability, they endorse it in conjunction with other indicators in the matter, whenever possible

The costs of production have become more and more important as a factor of competitiveness in a d... more The costs of production have become more and more important as a factor of competitiveness in a developing market. In order to successful manage the production, managers need to know, at all times, the costs of production, their structure and tendencies. The production of the basic field crops in 2009 was characterised by high production costs per hectare, which were not caused by the increase of the production intensity (the quantity of inputs used) but by their high prices. The total costs of production in agricultural enterprises ranged from € 609 per hectare (in wheat production), up to € 1,148 per hectare (in sugar beet production) while in family households, those which pay only harvesting service, variable costs of production ranged from € 329 (in soybean production), up to € 810 (in sugar beat production). The price increase of raw material and fuel adversely affects the level of production intensity. Producers, striving to gain profit in conditions of expensive production, ...

Taking into account the importance that marinated and pasteurized vegetables have in human nutrit... more Taking into account the importance that marinated and pasteurized vegetables have in human nutrition, particulary in the seasons when needs for vitamins can not be provided from fresh vegetable, authors in the paper analyze consumers attitudes and motives, which are obtained on the bases of conducted survey. Achieved results can be used by decision makers, both on micro, and macro levels, if their objective is to provide adequate assortment and quality of these products in order to increase their consumption, which is consistent with WHO recommendations.

In the paper losses during the harvesting of soyabean has been determinated. Two varieties and tw... more In the paper losses during the harvesting of soyabean has been determinated. Two varieties and two types of combine has been observed. The achived results indicate diff-rencies in harvesting losses between two observed varieties. Research also has showed that harvesting with modern combine provides about 23% less losses comparing with the older one. Generally, the losses of 162 kg/ha are about 6% of value of production. In other words, during the harvest of soybean about 51 €/ha is lost. Altogether, total losses on Serbia's fields were about 7.6 milion euros, which is an impоrtant level of financial means.

Main goal of this research is to make an overview of the market supply of marinated and pasteuriz... more Main goal of this research is to make an overview of the market supply of marinated and pasteurized vegetable products on the Novi Sad market. It should also take a look at the competition among producers and determine the market position of mentioned products. Data is gathered in two significant retail objects: „M-Rodic“ and „Univerexport“, in Novi Sad. This research has gathered the data about assortment, price and type of package of products. Supply of pickles, peppers, beet root, and button mushrooms is the most diverse. The least diversity is seen in the supply of beans, string beans, sweet corn and carrot. This condition is the result of, before all, habits and affinities of consumers. Domestic producers are dominant in the supply of beet root, hot peppers and pickles. In the supply of mixed salad, only domestic producers are present. Foreign producers are dominant in the supply of pepper and button mushrooms. In the supply of string beans, carrot, sweet corn and beans, there ...

Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 2017

The economic and political crisis Serbia had to face during the nineties affected the competitive... more The economic and political crisis Serbia had to face during the nineties affected the competitive advantages its agricultural sector had in comparison with the other countries of the region. Despite a number of differences related to the specific economic, political and social settings and developments, the reform path Serbia started in 2000 showed a number of similarities, but also some differences in comparison with most of the Central and Eastern European Countries. In this paper the main features of structural changes in the Serbian agricultural sector are analyzed, also in comparison with other countries in the region, the basic factors that contributed to these changes are identified and explained, and the key consequences and implications of this process are examined.