Evaluation of Selected Economic Indicators of Agricultural Sector in Slovakia

Agriculture is one of the most important industries, because its primary goal is to provide people with enough healthy and harmless commodities for direct consumption and food production.In the 20th century, agriculture turned into an industrial sector with an effort to minimize costs and maximize profit, which follows from the principles of conventional agriculture.The production function of agriculture represents the production process of agricultural enterprises, which significantly affects the efficiency of enterprises and the competitiveness of their products.The production function expresses the relationship between input and output and determines the maximum volume of production, i.e. the production capacity of enterprises.The social function of agriculture is also important, which contributes to this sector in solving employment and using available labour resources.In financing agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture of the Slovak Republic uses funds from the state budget as well as funds from the European Union. Paper's objective(s) and research backgroundThe main goal of the contribution is the evaluation of selected economic indicators of the agricultural sector in the Slovak Republic.Specifically, attention is focused on: -Number of enterprises in the agricultural sector, -Gross agricultural production from gross turnover, -Sales of agricultural products from primary production, -Employment in agriculture sector. Data and methodsData from the portal of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (Datacube) were used in the analysis.We applied the method of analysis and comparison, as well as the method of time series analysis, when investigating the mentioned issue. Results/Conclusion/Value addedAgrarian enterprises belong to the primary sector of the national economy.In the Slovak Republic, up to 99.69% of agricultural enterprises are privately owned by domestic persons or cooperatively owned.The development of agriculture is also conditioned by the age structure of employees, which is currently unsatisfactory in the Slovak Republic, because most farmers are of retirement age.The contribution of agriculture to the demographic reproduction of the population and its influence on the migration of population and mobility is also significant.