This paper presents a sociological analysis of the image of a "good village", as portrayed in the annual Czech competition Village of the Year. It focuses on the positive representations attached to the rural in the political and expert discourse. The analysis is rooted in cultural rural sociology and in its study of rural idyll. It is argued that a specific kind of rural idyll is produced in the competition. This idyll is analysed using the photographs submitted to the competition by the villages themselves. A combination of visual methods is employed to uncover the positive values attached to the images. The results show that activity and social life play a key role in the image of a "good village" thus produced. On the other hand, there are virtually no references to agriculture.Keywords: Village, rural, village of the year, representations, visual images, Czech Republic Abstrakt: Tento text sociologicky zkoumá obraz "dobré vesnice" v soutěži Vesnice roku, pořádané každoročně v ČR. Jeho cílem je zjistit, jaké pozitivní hodnoty jsou spjaty s venkovem v současném politicko-expertním diskurzu. Analýza vychází z kulturně orientované rurální sociologie a z jejího zaměření na venkovskou idylu. Text předestírá různé formy venkovské idyly a představuje ideál "Vesnice roku" jako svého druhu idylu, soubor pozitivních obrazů venkova. Empirická část shrnuje výsledky vizuální analýzy fotografií, které obce do soutěže zasílají. Kombinací výzkumných technik identifikujeme obsah fotografií a pozitivní hodnoty s ním spjaté. Výsledky ukazují, že "dobrá vesnice" v soutěži znamená především vesnice s aktivním společenským životem. Naopak vůbec zde není zastoupen obraz zemědělství.

Abstract:The paper deals with the quality of life in czech rural areas and its measurement. The first part is focused on the introduction of the term "quality of life", with particular emphasis on its analytic uses and the related issues. Building on the up to date research, we go on to conceptualize the term into seven groups of indicators. in the next part, we deal with living conditions in czech rural areas and build our hypotheses, based upon them. We employ the methods of statistical analysis of the European Social Survey data to perform a rural vs. non-rural comparison for each of the seven dimensions identified. in the final part, we discuss the findings and match the conclusions with the current trends in czech rural areas.Key words: quality of life, rural areas, czech republic, European Social Survey Abstrakt: Článek se zabývá měřením kvality života na českém venkově. V první části představujeme pojem kvalita života, naznačujeme jeho analytické využití i potíže s ním spojené a na základě dosavadního výzkumu jej konceptualizujeme do skupin indikátorů. V další části se zabýváme podmínkami života na českém venkově a z nich vyvozujeme hypotetická očekávání ve vztahu ke kvalitě života. Výsledky jsou získány pomocí statistické analýzy dat z European Social Survey. Pro každou ze sedmi identifikovaných dimenzí kvality života uvádíme srovnání venkovské a ne-venkovské populace a v závěru výsledky tohoto srovnání interpretujeme v kontextu současných trendů na českém venkově.

Ensuring the generation renewal in the agriculture is crucial. There are policy incentives to attract young people, but the motivation to enter the sector depend on many factors and there are also barriers. The aim of the paper is to assess the motivation and barriers of the young farmers, newcomers to the agrarian sector in the Czech Republic and to draft the conclusions for policy and incentives creation. Based on answers of 510 young farmers, the main motive to enter was the wish to continue with farming on the farm of the parents or other relatives and to work in nature and with animals. The hardest was to purchase the agricultural land, administrative burden and ensuring the finances for the development and for start-up. Hence, to facilitate the start-up it is useful to support the land purchase and provide investment subsidies. The research was financed from internal research project 1113/2018.

There are numerous influences affecting the age structure of agricultural workforce. These range from the economic, social and demographic factors to the technical and political determinants, and to analyze all of them would go far beyond the scope of the present paper. our analysis thus focuses only on the factors which are, in a primary way, tied to the agricultural labour market, or, in other words, the factors produced or co-produced by the dynamics of the labour market. other influences, even though they might be related to labour markets or manifest themselves there, are thus omitted. The sheer fact that it is possible to identify the factors tied to the agricultural labour market in a primary way proves the status of agricultural labour market as a phenomenon of its own kind, with its own structure and dynamics. Apart from being a place where supply meets demand, labour market is also a place of job-related negotiations. These are affected by the influences of state and state institutions, Trade Unions and other interests. Economic and social processes in the labour market are thus determined by a multitude of factors (hrabánková et al. 2007). The four major factors we will concentrate on are the following: demand for workforce, supply of workforce, wages, Aging of the agricultural workforce in relation to the agricultural labour marketStárnutí zemědělců ve vazbě na agrární trh práce D. Spěšná, P. Pospěch, F. Nohel, J. Drlík, M. Delín Institute of Agricultural Economics and Information, Prague, Czech RepublicAbstract: The development of age structure of czech agricultural workforce has been continuously predominantly negative since 1989 and it constitutes a serious problem in terms of reproduction of agricultural workforce. The present paper abstains from analyzing the demographic, economic and socio-political influences on this process and tries to identify the specific factors inherent in the agricultural labour market. it considers opportunities for improving the age structure of agricultural workforce provided by the labour market system, particularly in relation to the supply of workforce, demand for it, unemployment and wage levels. An abductive approach, based on a secondary analysis of quantitative data and the authors' own empirical survey, identifies a set of hypotheses about the relationship between agricultural labour market and the age structure of agricultural workforce.Key words: agriculture, agricultural labour market, aging of agricultural workforce, supply and demand, unemployment, wage levels Abstrakt: Věková struktura pracovníků v zemědělství v Čr se od roku 1989 vyvíjí negativně a v současnosti představuje závažný demografický problém ohrožující možnosti reprodukce zemědělské pracovní síly. V následujícím textu hledáme příčiny této situace, přičemž se soustředíme pouze na tu skupinu faktorů, které působí bezprostředně na agrárním trhu práce (a odhlížíme tedy od širších ekonomických, sociodemografických a politických souvislostí). Možnosti zlepšení věkové struktury zemědělců jsou dány ...

Abstract:The paper examines the role of social capital in czech agricultural sector. it is argued that social capital, just like economic capital, can be employed as a resource for the improvement of economic performance of agricultural enterprises. This hypothesis is tested on a sample of primary data and an analysis of the selected indicators of social capital is presented. These include personal social networks, membership in agricultural associations and access to sources of information. Following the results, it is argued that the presence of informal personal ties displays a stronger relationship to the entrepreneurial success than formal membership in agricultural associations. This outcome suggests a comparatively strong role of social capital in the dynamics of the sector.