Agriculture was greatly affected by the transitional shocks of economic and social systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). B&H is evaluated as the country that, to this point, does not have a very fast reform in this domain. There are several reasons for this. First of all, B&H is still in the process of country reconstruction after the wars and even today a high share of potentials and efforts have been directed toward these purposes. On the other hand, B&H has a very complex organizational structure in the political sense with numerous political entities. Each entity has its own administrative structure and policies concerning economic policy and within its agricultural and rural policies. Recent analyses show that more than one third of the support set aside for agriculture and rural areas in B&H has been linked with the support of production and only a little more than 10% for the purposes of rural development. These trends are not in accordance with the current trends present in EU countries where support for production has been abandoned for the support of the multifunctional rural development purposes, increased income as well as the quality of life within rural segments of the population.

This paper considers the essence, significance and necessity of application of the marketing approach, i.e. planning, organizing and control of marketing activities in tourist and rural tourist policy, intending to add to competitiveness of the tourism offer in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The paper elaborates theoretic and substantial aspects of marketing element in tourism and rural tourism, with a special view on importance and contribution of marketing approach in competitiveness of tourism and rural tourism offer in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The marketing approach in tourism and rural tourism, presented in this work, may serve as a basis for creating policy and developing marketing approach in B&H tourism and rural tourism.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has a defi cit of most agricultural products, and that is why it is compelled to import signifi cant quantities of food. In order to increase the degree of self-suffi ciency, particularly for those products that have good potentials for production growth, creators of agrarian policy try to apply diff erent agrarian policy measures for stimulation of agricultural production growth. One production with good potential is cattle production, i.e. production of milk and meat, for which Bosnia and Herzegovina has signifi cant development potentials, and for whose advancement there have been provided diff erent supporting measures. Th is paper presents the possible application of the cost-benefi t analysis in evaluation of effi ciency for some supporting agrarian policy measures adopted in order to improve the cattle production in Bosnia and Herzegovina . Th e cost-benefi t analysis was completed for the sixyear period, taking into account the productive period of bought heifer. Th e analysis includes economic and fi nancial parameters (infl ows and outfl ows), which annual amounts were discounted to the present values by utilization of the average social discount rate, in order to put all annual amounts at the same trend of calculation and to account for opportunity capital costs as well.

Speaking about transition in agriculture, we think on agriculture in transition countries, that is Central and Eastern European Countries. Such development is observed from the perspective of the European Union, discussing about possibilities as well as restrictions brought with accession of the CEECs to the Union, but also from the CEECs point of view. In this analysis we examine some consequences of changes in agricultural policy in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The general conception should help in recognizing strategical guidelines for local development of agriculture and rural areas within the current and coming frame of Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the process of adjusting the agricultural sector, but also the agricultural policy, it should be improved competitiveness of domestic agriculture. That is why in this paper we use the cost-benefi t analysis in estimation the consequences of changes in subsidies and custom rates in specifi c case of construction new plantations and production of apples, that is in evaluation advantages and limitations of agriculture. The results of the analysis provide more objective illustration of domestic agricultural sector in internatioal environment.

Before making a decision to invest in fruit growing, an investor needs to have the basic information on which to base his decision. This information contains sufficient economic indicators to form the basis for the decision making. The decision should be based, first of all, on economic profitability of the investment. Cost-benefit analysis is a method which provides the decision maker with the information about a number of economic indicators regarding the desired investment, from its profitability and competitiveness to the return on investment period, etc. This paper deals with the cost-benefit analysis in the decision-making process concerning economic profitability of investing in agricultural production, namely the newly planted fruit. Cost-benefit analysis has many advantages compared with the other known methods. It has proved very useful in agricultural production since it makes it possible to estimate the profitability of investment in very specific conditions of agricultural production, taking into account numerous factors of its economic efficiency as well as the main effects that may be expected both by individual producers and the social community as a whole.