The local authority is a coordinator of all activities undertaken on the commune’s area, also such which a direct effect is the local economic development. The purpose of this paper was the answer to the question: How the communal authority bears on the local economic development? The answer on this question made possible the collected information during the interview into 20 purposely chosen communes in Warmia and Mazury region. The communal authority creating the local economic development uses tools, which an effect is both immediate as and the indirect influence on this process. To generally be used in communes a tool, supporting the local economic development was the strategy. Besides was realized investments, mostly infrastructural and it was taken action supporting the development of the enterprises.

The article reviews the trial of small and medium fi rms fi nancial situation estimation in Warmia and Mazury province. At the beginning authors characterized surveyed fi rms using their number and employment. Moreover, fi nancial results such as: incomes, costs, taxes were presented. The article also presents profi tability ratios estimation of surveyed enterprises. The collected material showed a signifi cant differences in fi nancial situation of surveyed enterprises. The best situation in income and profi ts was characteristic for medium enterprises but the worst for micro enterprises. But, the estate and capital profi tability was the best in small enterprises. Moreover, in the medium enterprises the profi tability factor decreased what proved the worsening in fi nancial liquidity.

The results of fourteen production cycles of broiler chickens, grown on a private farm situated close to Siedlce in the years 2003–2005, were analyzed in the research. The broiler growing was carried out in the intensive system including straw bedding and controlled feed utilization. Randomly selected chickens were weighed every seven days throughout the whole growing period. On the basis of the results obtained, parameters of a chicken growth polynomial curve were estimated. Moreover, production function parameters were estimated taking into consideration live chicken and feed prices. In addition, a feed cost function as well as an average and marginal product function were calculated. Production was divided into stages, taking into account the assumptions of the production function theory, and optimal length of the growing period for broiler chickens was determined according to the assumed changes in live chicken and feed prices.

The aim of the research was to determinate a linear discriminant function and neural network that could be applied for classifi cation of farms. The result of classifi cation was forecasting fi nancial situation of them, based on set of many variables, which including fi nancial indicators. Models were built separately for each year, but they were verifi ed in the rest. The additional aims were to determine the set of indicators with large forecasting ability, and to compare two classifi cation methods – linear discriminant function and neural network.

Within last 15 years the polish agriculture market is characterized by high price volatilities of agro-food raw materials and goods, which has been directly influencing returns of production cost. At each stage of the production chain, raw materials have been changing their properties and chain participants’ are exposed to price risk breeding their incomes’ uncertainty. Growing importance of liberalization process in the farming husbandry and less interventionism in CAP, have had a vital impact on price risk and its management. Due to the fact that risk in agricultural is unavoidable, furthermore, it’s a fundamental fact of enterprise life – knowledge about economic risk and managing price risk – will surely affect the process of income stabilization in agriculture. The aim of this article was to present the volatility of hog prices on the polish meat market from 01.01.1990 to 31.07.2006 and its forecast from 01.08.2006–30.06.2007 using Winters’ multiplicative forecasting model. According to underdone research on price volatility of chosen agro-food goods, especially on hog price volatility, it is to be pointed out that there are observed cyclic fl uctuations, so called: pig cycles, which have their own independent mechanism, different from the mechanism of condition-dependent cycles.

The paper deals with the after-effects of the radioactive contamination of Zhytomyr province. In 1986, Ukrainian government decided to divide the area into 4 zones: the restricted access zone, the zone of obligatory resettlement, the zone of the guaranteed voluntary resettlement and the zone of the strict radiological control. The paper also analyses the ecological and socio-economic situation in the region 20 years after the Tchernobyl disaster. Not all citizens agreed to be displaced and many of them come back. Nowadays, about 4.5 thousand people live in the province. The long-term trends in the development of the economy and improvement of vital activities conditions in Zhytomyr Polissya have been determined.

The paper presents an analysis of relations between a level of share fund and financial situation of dairy cooperatives. The cooperatives differed from each other with share fund’s share in liabilities and share funds. The cooperatives of the highest level of share fund presented the highest level of investments as well as satisfactory current ratio. Moreover, a relatively similar share of general liabilities in the cooperatives’ financing structure was found, what threatened to lose quick liquidity. Involvement of loan fund was usually effective, since leverage remained positive most time. No essential relations between share fund’s size and return on assets and equity were found.

The aim of the paper was to define changes which occurred in the non-agricultural business activity of farms between the agricultural censuses of 1996 and 2002. As provided for in the working hypothesis, it was found that changes in the non-agricultural business activity were more intensive on small farms rather than the medium-size and large ones. Taking up the non-agricultural business activity was mainly driven by the need to satisfy the every-day living and material needs of the family, and much less considerably by the intention to become professionally active beyond the agricultural farm.