Peculiarities of competence in the context of social responsibility

Abstract

The prospects of further farming after the direct aid is discontinued were found to be as follows: 44.3 percent would continue their business, 27.2 percent would abandon this type of production, 22.6 percent would reduce the production volumes, and 5.9 percent of the respondents were not decided. The aid scheme amended in 2007 (when it is paid for produced and sold organic agricultural products) was found crucial by 46.5 percent of the respondents. Consequently 38.1 percent of them reduced the production volumes, while 8.4 percent abandoned organic farming. Over half of the respondents were not affected by those changes and they continued organic farming. The research found that 59.3 percent of the respondents supplied the grain produced in their farms to the market, 41.4 percent supplied vegetables and potatoes, and 32.8 percent supplied fruit and berries. However the demand satisfied merely 24.8 of the respondents and only 17.3 percent were happy with the prices. Most of the respondents (ca 90 percent) supply organic products directly to the customers, approximately 45 percent sell them through their friends and acquaintances, and about 56 percent sell their products in the farmers' market. Only a small number of respondents opt for internet sales. The income from sold organic products accounted for less than 50 percent of the total farm revenue in three fifths of cases, and only 6.8 percent of respondents declared that this income exceeded 90 percent. The above findings indicate that in Lithuania the scope of organic product supply is low since the farmers fail to supply sufficient quantities. Therefore this factor should be considered as a less important motivator of organic farming. The respondents insisted that motivation for organic farming could be strengthened if the direct aid was not reduced (71.8 percent of the respondents) and if there was a growing demand in organic products. The article focuses on the preconditions behind the global incidence of organic farming and the external factors contributing to its development It assesses the significance of external factors in choosing/pursuing organic production business and offers tools stipulated by the external environment that add to the Lithuanian farmers' motivation for organic farming. The motives that inspire the farmers' decision to take up organic farming include higher product prices and compensations; aspirations to engage in nature-friendly farming, healthy diet and healthy lifestyle, established organic product processing and wholesale systems and trading infrastructure; growing demand in products. Those factors can be divided into internal and external. A quantitative research method, a questionnaire survey, was elected for estimating the impact of external factors on farmers' motivation. The article introduces the research object which includes two external factors considered to be the most important by scientists, i.e. direct aid to the organic production farms and the organic product market conditions. The questionnaire survey was performed in summer 2009.After some of the questionnaires were rejected due to a poor quality of completion, the article reveals and analyses the answers of 324 respondents. The research found that ca 90 percent of the respondents recognize the direct aid provided to organic production farms as an important or very important factor in choosing/pursuing organic farming. Their judgement of the size of the aid received by organic farming differs: one third of the respondents think that it is insufficient, a half of them find it satisfactory, one fifth rate it as sufficient.