ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF CHEMICAL REDUCTION ON FARMING – FUTURE ROLE OF PRECISION FARMING

The social need for the decrease in the chemical use of the agriculture and its environmental impacts is growing. The decreased level of chemical use can be resulted by several means from the reduced number and quantity of treatments, the organic production, the sustainable production by integrated chemical plant protection methods to the precision production techniques. The use of these methods will change the whole operation and production system of the farms. With the help of model calculation, the present paper examines the viable size of a crop production farm turned into precision farming (weed management) under Hungarian conditions. The results show that the break-even point is at 205 hectares, in case of which the expected return on investment costs is included as well. In this case precision farming means rational pesticide use. Applying the concepts of integrated crop production to precision farming can help to found the most cost-efficient and economically viable crop production system.