Assessment of the Economic Effectiveness of Investments in Mechanization and New Technologies towards the Sustainable Development of Agricultural Holdings in Serbia

Within the current business operations of the agricultural holdings in Serbia, one of the biggest issues is not only the lack of modern agricultural mechanization, but also the low use of new technologies. Consequently, the purchase of modern agricultural mechanization and the application of new technologies will enable agricultural holdings to optimally perform agrotechnical measures, as well as to rationally manage the production costs and effectively increase gained yields. On the other hand, mentioned type of investment would empower the development of agricultural holdings in accordance with the concept of sustainable development (implying the need to ensure economic growth, provide welfare to society and preserve the environment). This research has been focused on assessing the economic effectiveness of investments in contemporary agricultural mechanization and the use of new technologies aiming the sustainable development at selected family agricultural holding in Serbia. For that purpose, the static and dynamic assessment methods, or methods for assessment under risk and uncertainty have been used. In observed case, the overall investment involves 129,533.95 EUR (i.e.: 117,758.14 EUR in fixed assets and 11.775,81 EUR in permanent working capital). Investment in fixed assets relates to purchase of modern agricultural mechanization tools, drone for crops spraying (crops protection and fertilization), and GPS device for precision agriculture (mentioned enables fully automatic control of tractor and equipment use, increasing the work efficiency, reducing fuel and agro-chemical consumption, and ensuring maximum precision in activities such are sowing, fertilizing, spraying, etc.).