CURRENT CHALLENGES OF AGRICULTURAL BUSINESS AGAINST FARMING ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The paper investigates circumstances determined modern agriculture and agribusiness challenges and shows methods ensuring sustainability of value-added agriculture and rural areas taking into account, inter alia, climate change, healthy food, organizational and technological progress. The aim of the article is to show that combining the agribusiness circumstances and methods allows to ensure sustainable development, value-added agriculture and rural areas. To verify adjustment farming processes according set up goals the questionnaire survey on farm equipment and information systems was carried out in 2017 in Kujawy & Pomorze region. The questionnaire was sent to all participants in the supply chain of that particular company. The challenge facing modern agriculture is the ability to efficiently implement farm innovations, acquire new knowledge and effective use of the farming progress achievements. Negative effects of intensive farming for environment cause to seek for solutions let face economic and environmental challenges for contemporary agriculture and rural areas development. Serious threatens in a climate change can cause imbalance in food supply and demand. Observed higher frequency and severity of adverse weather events require genotypic adaptation. Hence, some studies on genetic progress in those crops adaptation were presented. Also some approaches how to assess and collect data for yield gap analysis, and to summarize the yield gap explaining factors were identified. The presented results showed that although management and edaphic factors are more often considered to explain the yield gap, both farm characteristics and socio-economic factors often explain the yield gap.