ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF CHEMICAL REDUCTION ON FARMING: ROLE OF PRECISION FARMING – WILL THE PRODUCTION STRUCTURE CHANGE?

Precision farming – besides other aspects – enables the reduction of use of chemical substances in crop production while decreases farming risks, contributes to specific field-cropplant applications, makes production processes more plannable and increases profitability. The latter, however, can be realised on farm level only under well-determined economic conditions. The objective of the study is to examine the optimal farming size of crop producing farms, when the development of own precision farming equipment is managable and the farm can become self-financing with different production structure. The study also makes recommendations for forms of co-operation. In addition to application of hired machine work, the machine clubs, machine co-operatives can offer solutions for small-scale farms, so that similarly to precision crop production they can apply the same environmentally friendly and efficient technology in economic sense.