HIGHER UTILISATION OF AGRICULTURAL MECHANISATION THROUGH ORGANISING MACHINE RING ASSOCIATIONS
Keywords:
Agricultural mechanization, exploitation, machine cooperatives, machine rings.Abstract
During the 1990s, turbulent processes emerged in the Balkans, conflictss, economic crises, where most affected was agricultural production and farmers. During that period, there were still large factories, the so-called Agricultural-Industrial Combines, which had 70% of the arable land. At the time of the transition, most of those plants collapsed economically, agricultural machinery was sold at auction, the land was divided into tenders, the areas were shrunk and a process was gradually started in which everyone wanted to be a farmer. Agricultural machinery, although purchased new, with insufficient number of effective working hours during the year had a high cost per machine working hour. It has emerged as a result of large service outages, overhaul, and maintenance of tractors on the one hand, but also small agricultural parcels and small production on the other. High costs contribute to high production prices of the agricultural product. Although small farmers have a small volume of work, they still buy and purchase new propulsion machines, the purchase of which made them even more indebted, instead of organizing and jointly procuring what they need and thus enabling rational agricultural production. Therefore, through this scientific paper, we have analyzed everything that farmers can get, and what to lose if they are organized in tractor cooperatives (machine rings). Through surveys and recording the actual situation on the ground, we gained a realistic picture of the situation with our farms, and what it should be like.