Agritourism has emerged as a strategic tool for fostering sustainable rural development by diversifying farm income, preserving cultural heritage, and promoting environmental stewardship. This study presents a global bibliometric analysis of research on agritourism and rural development, aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of the field, identify key trends, and highlight future research directions. Utilizing the Web of Science database, 171 relevant publications from 2004 to 2024 were analyzed through bibliometric techniques, focusing on publication trends, keyword co-occurrence, and co-citation analysis. Findings indicate a growing academic interest in agritourism, with sustainability as a dominant theme. The study identifies five thematic clusters: economic contributions, policy frameworks, tourist motivations, environmental sustainability, and agritourism’s broader role in landscape conservation. Co-citation analysis highlights the intellectual evolution from foundational perspectives on rural tourism to complex discussions on sustainability and innovation. Despite these advancements, knowledge gaps persist, particularly in geographic representation, digital innovation, climate change mitigation, and policy governance. Addressing these gaps will enhance academic discourse and provide practical insights for policymakers, entrepreneurs, and rural communities. This study serves as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners seeking to navigate the expanding literature on agritourism and rural development.

The present paper empirically analyzes the efficiency of European Union (EU) subsidies for farms in the Southern Great Plain region of Hungary between 2014 and 2021. The aim of this analysis was to explore whether the subsidies increased the resilience of farms, enhancing their profitability, liquidity and solvency, and economic efficiency, measured by the usual financial indicators of farm performance. The analysis also evaluated the ability of farm businesses to create and retain jobs, i.e., to increase employment in the rural environment, focusing on differences between the subsidized and non-subsidized farms. The research analyzed all agricultural companies of the selected region. The methodology was a non-parametric statistical analysis (Kruskal–Wallis test, Dunnett’s T3 test) for identifying significant differences between subsidized and non-subsidized farms in the 8-year period. Results show that subsidies significantly improved the financial stability, resilience and efficiency of subsidized farms only in the micro size category, and the employment indicators deteriorated more in subsidized farms than in non-subsidized ones. Thus, the intended purpose of the subsidies was not entirely realized, and positive impacts were noticeable only in the micro enterprises. This might imply that subsidies contributed to the survival of non-viable enterprises instead of enhancing their competitiveness.

Yield fluctuation is a major risk in all agricultural sectors, and it influences Goal 2 (food security) of the UN SDGs. Yield fluctuations are expected due to climate change, risking stable coffee supplies, and compromising coffee-exporting countries’ ability to earn revenue to pay for food imports. Technology minimizing yield fluctuations is crucial for food security and for coffee farmers to earn a stable income. Fluctuations are small if yields remain close to the mean yield trends. In this study, the coffee yields of major producers are analyzed, together with zonal temperature data, to see where coffee is grown with stable technology under rising temperatures; thus, we demonstrate the advantages of the Yield Stability Index (YSI) over traditional stability measurements in guiding policy formulation and managerial decisions. The Yield Stability Index (YSI) is applied for 1961–1994 and 1995–2020, for the world’s 12 major coffee-producing countries. The YSI indicates that of the 12 countries, only Indonesia, Honduras, and Mexico maintain stable yield levels, while Brazil and Vietnam considerably improve their yield stability, which traditional stability measures cannot grasp. Country-wise differences exist in environmental vulnerability and adaptability, with implications for food security. The novelty is the application of the YSI, and the connection between yield stability, climate change, and food security.

Eastern Africa is a relatively dry area, with a considerable pastoralist population, which is among the poorest segments of society. Pastoralism is a form of subsistence lifestyle, and while pastoralists produce a large proportion of the region’s livestock products, they are not covered well by statistical recording. Pastoralists are experts in keeping livestock in arid rangelands, but they often suffer from land alienation, environmental degradation, and conflict with other land use intentions. The semiarid rangelands in Eastern Africa are home to spectacular savanna wildlife populations, attracting substantial conservation and tourism revenues. Estimations indicate that pastoralism generates significant economic values in the national income due to livestock production and maintenance of tourism attractions. To assess this contribution, the concept of total economic valuation (TEV) is applied. The main aim of the paper is to analyze the contribution of pastoralism to the tourism-related GDP of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, where considerable numbers of pastoralists live. Because of the lack of statistical data on pastoralism, the second objective is to construct a database of indicators that measure the extent of pastoralism for these countries for 2004, 2014, and 2018. The methodology includes the construction of the above database using secondary sources, and then to apply correlation and regression analysis on this database and the economic and tourism performance data series of the studied four countries. The results of the analysis showed that the extent of pastoralism is positively related to GDP and to value added by tourism and agriculture, and international tourism receipts are positively related to pastoralism’s contribution to GDP. The tourism competitiveness index (TTCI) was found to be negatively related to the size of the pastoralism sector. The policy implications of our findings are that pastoralist societies are increasingly important not only for their marketed economic output, but for their services provided to tourism and to the environment; therefore, instead of neglecting them, they should be more in the focus of development.

A good crop production technology should provide high yields under varying environmental conditions, i.e. keep yield fluctuations small. The magnitude of fluctuations is usually measured by statistical indicators of average dispersion, e.g. the standard deviation. However, while many small fluctuations are usually well tolerated by the farmer, an extreme yield may be a serious risk factor. The present research introduces a yield stability index developed which measures the frequency of extremely high and extremely low yields. The index is tested for 10 countries and 18 crops for 2004-2016, comparing it to 1961-2000, pointing out possible agricultural policy implications.