Innovation in agriculture ensures the widespread use of the most up-to-date technology. One such technology is precision crop protection, which meets the requirement of environmental and economic sustainability. The applicability of precision crop protection has been verified by several studies and in practice, but its uptake is very slow. Examining the economic relationships between potential savings and pests at the European Union level, this paper shows that the savings in pesticide use following the adoption of precision plant protection can be 30,000 tonnes (calculated using the current dose levels) per annum. If approximately 30 per cent of the crop producing and mixed farms larger than 16 ESU apply this new technology, the environmental burden will be reduced by 10-35 per cent. From a survey of 72 Hungarian farmers we found a positive correlation between the size of the farm and the adoption of precision farming technology, and those farmers in the survey that had implemented precision crop production estimated that the consequent change in income had been positive. Thus, at a certain farm size and farming intensity, precision crop production is a real, environmental friendly farming strategy option, through which each farm can generate an income that covers at least...

The decrease in the area of arable land has further continued in the European Union (EU) since the Millennium. Sustainable development is partially based on the sustainable use of natural resources, which is based on the limitation of land use and on the introduction of different incentives. Previous direct subsidies resulted in increased production. The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has aimed to stop the increase in production, possibly even to decrease production. The objective of this research is to show whether such an effect on land use and on the change of production structure in the EU can be observed. Analyses have shown that agricultural and arable areas have further decreased within land use since the Millennium, continuing the previously characteristic trend in the EU. The proportion and the yield of cereals in the production structure have increased. We conclude that in this respect the effects of the CAP on agriculture are the opposite to its original aims.