Abstract Within the current business operations of the agricultural holdings in Serbia, one of the biggest issues is not only the lack of modern agricultural mechanization, but also the low use of new technologies. Consequently, the purchase of modern agricultural mechanization and the application of new technologies will enable agricultural holdings to optimally perform agrotechnical measures, as well as to rationally manage the production costs and effectively increase gained yields. On the other hand, mentioned type of investment would empower the development of agricultural holdings in accordance with the concept of sustainable development (implying the need to ensure economic growth, provide welfare to society and preserve the environment). This research has been focused on assessing the economic effectiveness of investments in contemporary agricultural mechanization and the use of new technologies aiming the sustainable development at selected family agricultural holding in Serbia. For that purpose, the static and dynamic assessment methods, or methods for assessment under risk and uncertainty have been used. In observed case, the overall investment involves 129,533.95 EUR (i.e.: 117,758.14 EUR in fixed assets and 11.775,81 EUR in permanent working capital). Investment in fixed assets relates to purchase of modern agricultural mechanization tools, drone for crops spraying (crops protection and fertilization), and GPS device for precision agriculture (mentioned enables fully automatic control of tractor and equipment use, increasing the work efficiency, reducing fuel and agro-chemical consumption, and ensuring maximum precision in activities such are sowing, fertilizing, spraying, etc.).
Abstract Due to the rapid development of production technology in agriculture, digitization of the system is becoming inevitable. Recently, many studies have appeared that deal with the problem of applying digital systems in agriculture, while a large number of studies analyze the application of multi-criteria decisionmaking methods in this area, which gives this work theoretical and practical importance. In the conditions of making as rational a decision as possible, as well as in independent decision-making conditions, the fuzzy logic of the subjective multi-criteria decision-making method SiWeC (Fuzzy Simple Weight Calculation) was applied, which tried to give an answer to the importance of certain criteria, when it comes to sensors for measuring humidity in the ground, as well as an answer to whether the method can be successfully used in this case. The results show that the criterion “Depth of analytics”, i.e., data detail, layering as well as usefulness for decision-making. The results provide a basis for the rationalization of the decision on the importance of the choice of the research subject, as well as the successful application and future upgrading of the existing method. Also, the most important features of a digital system that should be applied in the field of agriculture are expertly demonstrated.
This paper examines the reduction of extreme downside risk for a U.S. investor holding the S P500 by constructing multivariate portfolios with developed and emerging European stock indices. Portfolio optimization is conducted using parametric Value-at-Risk under alternative distributional assumptions, including the normal, logistic, hyperbolic secant, and Laplace distributions. The non-Gaussian models capture fat tails while relying on fully invertible closed-form distributions, ensuring numerical stability in optimization. The analysis covers daily data from 2016 to 2024 and distinguishes between pre-crisis and crisis subsamples. Results show that portfolio composition is largely invariant to the chosen VaR specification, but downside risk estimates and back-testing performance differ substantially. Emerging market portfolios consistently provide superior hedging effectiveness due to lower correlation structures, particularly during crisis periods. The back-testing results show that the portfolio with developed stock indices performs better in the pre-crisis sub-sample, satisfying both coverage and independence criteria, whereas in the crisis sub-sample the emerging markets portfolio exhibits superior performance.
We conducted a study on the tourism potential of the wine-growing areas of the countries of the former Yugoslavia, a region that has undergone extensive economic and political changes. We propose a new analysis model based on the open data for the evaluation of the tourism potential in wine-growing areas and wineries. For the research purposes, open geodata available through Open Street Maps, Google Maps, CORINE Land Cover, Digital Elevation Model and official databases of the countries analysed were taken. The tourism evaluation of the potential was carried out using a multicriterial method and the Geographic Information System. The variables linked to the wine tourism activity are grouped into six main tourism factors (cultural attractions, accommodation offer, etc.). On the other hand, the potential for wine tourism in the vineyard areas and winery are calculated, and the results are translated into maps that identify the tourism variables and are captured in three potential maps: Tourism factors, Vineyards and Wineries:i)Tourism factor results highlight the areas with a high tourism potential that have a close connection with some tourism resources (sea, natural and heritage areas). The best scores were obtained in the wine-growing areas of Croatia and Slovenia, especially those located near the sea.ii)Vineyard areas with a high level of wine tourism are located in the similar areas, Dalmatia, Istria and border areas between Slovenia and Croatia.iii)Wineries with high tourism potential are located in Dalmatia and the Danube valley around Belgrade, and areas of Montenegro.Management implications: The study identifies a series of specific measures for each of the former republics of Yugoslavia to improve wine tourism management. General measures for public and private managers are also proposed: i)Improving the training of farmers in tourism management.ii)Tourism promotion and creation of tourism packages for wine tourism, as well as gastronomy and nature.iii)Development of accommodation infrastructures and improvement of the internet network.iv)Search for segments of travellers interested in wine tourism, gastronomy and nature.v)Development of quality brands for the wine sector and wine tourism sector.
The objective of the research is the evaluation of the competitiveness of Serbia’s exports in the agro-food trade with China, with the aim of deciding on the appropriate export strategy within the 2024 Serbia-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Export competitiveness diagnostics comprises 2018-2022 trade performance indicators (trade flows, export diversification and technological classification and indices of trade specialisation, intraindustry trade and revealed comparative advantage), review of China's tariff concessions and analysis of supply trends in the agri-food sector. Revealed comparative advantage indices coupled with tariff concessions indicate a number of agri-food products with comparative advantage and good prospects in the Chinese market. However, other trade performance indicators point to serious weaknesses in Serbian agri-food exports to China, including high product concentration, overall net export competitive disadvantage, prevalence of primary products, and low intra-industry trade, resulted from significant supply constraints. These findings, coupled with the growing demand for healthier and more nutritious foods in China, point to an export strategy based on export diversification and product differentiation, rather than export volume. Research complements the literature on agri-food competitiveness and may be of interest to a number of agri-food economies in the era of proliferation of FTAs.
