The presented development attempts to visualize and analyze part of the non-financial enterprises in the rural areas (RA) of the South-Central Region (SCR) of Bulgaria. The aim of the scientific work is to present the localization (concentration) of non-financial enterprises in the rural areas of the South-Central Region and their specialization, relative to the region and the country based on the Localization Index (LI). The development considers the definition of RA as such in the country and the EU. The NUTS classification is applied to group the above-mentioned territories by districts in the region. The methodology includes - Localization index, for analyzing part of the non-financial enterprises (I 55 – Hotel industry, I 56 – Restaurant industry, P – Education and H – Transport, warehousing and posts) in the RA of the SCR according to the CEA – 2008 classification. An empirical, statistical and comparative approach is applied in research, analysis, drawing conclusions and conclusions. The visualization of the developed material is presented in tables and figures, in which the dynamics of numerical values of LI for the period 2010 – 2020 are indicated.

The following article presents an analysis of various factors and attitudes of farmers in Bulgaria towards the provision of agro-ecological public goods. A survey is being conducted as part of the project “Provision of Agro-Ecological Public Goods in Agriculture by Improving Contractual Relations (PRADO)” 2022 – 2023, led by the Institute of Agrarian Economics in Sofia. In addition, a partial proportional logistic model was used for evaluation purposes as well. The analysis of farmers’ perceptions and willingness to participate in the provision of agri-environmental public goods focuses on four main types of contracts: result-based agreements, collective action initiatives, value chain arrangements, and land tenure agreements. The research findings indicate that several factors, including education level, production of certified organic goods, cultivated area size, discounted land rental, and primary farm activities, have a positive influence on farmers’ inclination to engage in the four types of contracts under analysis.

Soil health business models can lead to the maintenance of sustainable and competitive agriculture. The agricultural policy in the EU pursues different incentives to encourage adoption of environmentally oriented practices. Investments in soil health can lead to significant benefits not only for the environment but for society as well. The aim of this paper is to present the methodological approach for assessing new incentives for soil health business models in the frame of the NOVASOIL project. The goal is to investigate the opportunities and gaps of new incentives for redirection of financial streams and policy support measures for provision of innovative soil health technologies. The methodology includes two phases. The first one comprises of targeting new incentives for soil health and then identifying the corresponding gaps and opportunities. The second one continues the analysis with assessing the selected incentives with the BOCR-ANP model.

The Common Agricultural Policy has supported a less intense use of fertilizers and chemicals in agriculture in the next five years (2023 – 2027) because of the European Green Deal proposals that are environmental protection-oriented. The most common consequence of input reduction in farms was a direct effect to the technical efficiency in farm. The main purpose of this research was to assess the technical efficiency in a sample of Italian farm part of the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) dataset using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) input-oriented approach and by the machine learning approach such as the iterative decision tree evaluating which quantity of chemical fertilizer in terms of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) has to be reduced to improve the technical efficiency. Results have pointed out that between a reduction of chemical fertilizers and technical efficiency there is a fundamental link and the drop in chemical fertilizers has impacted the technical efficiency in Italian farms part of FADN dataset. Based on these results emerged the need of putting into practice some actions towards farmers to compensate the reduction in technical efficiency and the produced output in the productive process as well.

This literature review aims to present a comprehensive overview of contracts used in agriculture, focusing on their development, usage, and impacts in Bulgaria and other countries, and based on it make a classification of the contracts. The research is grounded in the broader field of agricultural economics, rural development and instructional economics, emphasizing the shift in use in contracts in agriculture in Bulgaria after the accession of the country in the EU. It delves into various types of contracts used in agriculture. The classification that is created is illustrating a detailed framework that organizes these agreements based on their focus and functionality.

Over the past 70 years, farming in Europe has changed thanks to policies, technologies and practices that aimed to ensure a stable supply of food at affordable prices. But this success was achieved at the cost of an increasingly deteriorating environment. It is therefore important to highlight the potential of more sustainable alternatives. Organic farming (OF) is an integral part and instrument of the state policy in the field of agriculture in terms of sustainable management of natural resources, compliance with high standards for food quality and safety, and animal welfare. At the same time, OF contributes to the development of viable rural areas. That is why it is a key priority in the agricultural development policy in the EU and in the Republic of Bulgaria and one of the highlights of the CAP for the next program period. Organic production benefits nature and society as a production system that contributes to the reduction of air, soil and water pollution; to increase biodiversity, strengthen the sustainability of agriculture, to ensure healthy food and clean nature for current and future generations, and as such it organically fits into the requirements of the new CAP. The research aims to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of organic production in our country, in the context of the changes, development and dimensions that the implementation of the CAP has on agriculture and more specifically on agroecology. For the purposes of the study, data for the efficiency are compared for Bulgaria and on average for the European Union, by calculating the efficiency coefficient of OF. The calculation of the coefficients of efficiency and effectiveness is done in a way borrowed from Ivanov (Bachev et al., 2020), and the efficiency is considered in relation to the role of the provided compensatory payments (subsidies) in the sector by year. The years from 2010 to 2019 were mainly tracked, and for some of the indicators, data up to 2020 was used. The study is based on and is part of the work on the research project “Perspectives for Bulgarian agriculture and rural areas in the context of CAP 2021 – 2027 and the EU Recovery Plan”, developed by a team led by associate professor Bozhidar Ivanov, IAE, Agricultural Academy – Sofia in 2021 – 2022. The research used the methodology developed for the purposes of the above-mentioned project, using a corresponding algorithm, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, literature research, comparative, institutional and multi-criteria analysis, method of groupings, value-measurement and qualitative analysis, method of relative comparative assessment, indicator method, including efficiency and effectiveness coefficients (Ivanov et al., 2023). The current research establishes that organic production in our country has a changing performance during the period 2010 – 2019. Efficiency – increasing in almost all indicators until 2014 – 2017, and decreasing thereafter. This is calculated on the basis of public support for the sector and shows that support plays an essential role in the development and effectiveness of OF, but also that the change of the funds spent is not always synchronized and in accordance with the expected and obtained results, like a number of others factors also have their important role in increasing the efficiency of the sector. The efficiency of the OF sector is relatively low, although it shows an upward trend (starting, however, from a low base). The share of OF in UAA is still small and there is a need for further support and promotion of OF in our country in order to increase this share and reach the EU average level. The compensatory support per ha and animal, in combination with the provided priority support for investment measures and the higher intensity of financial support are an incentive for farmers to switch to organic production, as a result of which both the areas in the control system and the number of organic producers grew many times in the studied period.

The application of precision farming techniques leads to significant improvements both in economical and environmental point of view, facilitates the optimization of resource use and reduces farmers’ risks in terms of natural and disease hazards but enhances the risk from technological faults. The whole article is to explore the attitudes of farmers regarding the possibilities and prospects for the implementation of precision agriculture technologies, identifying and establishing the most possible and unifying views and perceptions obtained from a field study. In this article, a statistical grouping is used to process surveys conducted in farms in Bulgaria. Given the growing role of technology and its importance in expanding, improving and stabilizing farms, the role of precision agriculture is becoming stronger in the agriculture industry.

Within the European space, there is more and more talk about the differences between the center and the periphery, regional development at different speeds, depressed states of the settlements and other problems with a focus on the condition and functioning of the settlements. Our focus is on rural areas and their particularities of settlement and functioning of the settlements in them. In this direction. We set ourselves the goal of deriving the regularities caused by the historically developed network that rural settlements form in the EU and to propose an up-to-date methodology for the typology of villages. This is possible only by systematizing the facts and establishing the main types of approaches and criteria for typology.

This article presents the assessment of the degree of influence of socio-economic parameters of farms applying soil restoration strategies over the supply chain cooperation, public-private partnerships, and landscape alliances in Austria and Bulgaria. The aim of the assessment is to highlight new socio-economic opportunities, which can be a target for the public policies. The study is based on the pilot farms analysis of the TUdi1 project survey results. The analysis of the socio-economic parameters is made with an Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The results are analyzed on both county and soil restoration strategy base. The analysis shows that Fertilization strategies have impact on supply chain cooperation. The goal aims to involve all suppliers and the most important socio-economic opportunities are certainty of demand, access to finance, and uncertainty of income. In terms of fertilization and remediation strategies, the analysis shows that the most important socio-economic opportunities are related to certainty of demand and access to finance. On the other hand, the implementation of Remediation strategy requires higher consensus in the local society and more activities, which explains the stronger interaction of this criteria with the goals public-private partnership and landscape alliances. In this case, the most important socio-economic opportunities are certainty of demand, access to finance, political support, and training and equipment.

The Bioeconomy concept uses as a starting point the natural cycles of materials and covers all sectors of the economy that produce, work and process, use and trade renewable resources such as plants, animals, microorganisms, and their derivatives. The accepted definition is that “The Bioeconomy covers the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, feed, biological products and bioenergy”. It includes the sectors of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food production and pulp and paper, as well as and parts of the chemical, biotechnological and energy industries. The purpose of the study is to assess the state of the circular Bioeconomy in the country and outline guidelines for developing its potential.