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The article discusses economic development of Slovak agriculture in the period after the accession of Slovakia to the EU and after adopting the CAP. It evaluates agriculture as a whole and its contribution to the national economy, as well as the economic performance of the individual legal forms of business and production sectors. The results achieved by agriculture in 2004-2007 suggest that the income within the sector (except of 2005) has improved also due to the inflow of the EU subsidies. On the other hand, despite the growing aid the production output is shrinking, wages stagnate and the employment is falling. This suggests that the CAP should be changed after 2013, especially as regards the ways of subsidy payments. Economics of the individual products are largely affected by input prices, realisation prices, as well as by the volume of direct subsidies, namely in the plant production - the subsidies for crops grown on arable land, and in animal production - the subsidies per 1 Big Cattle Unit.

Results of agriculture suggest that a typical feature of this industry is economical differentiation of agricultural enterprises and product sectors. In contrast to the expectations at the time of entering the market environment, a more significant levelling of economic results has not yet taken place. Just as before 1990, natural conditions are still the crucial factor of the differentiated efficiency of agriculture and its product sectors, followed by the legal form of farming, agricultural land concentration; as well as the performance of managers, i.e. the organisation and management of enterprises. The evaluation of enterprises was performed through statistical methods (Pearson´s correlation coefficient) and various relative financial and economical coefficients.

In the year before the accession to the European Union, the Slovak agricultural sector reported a loss of SKK 2.4 billion and following a profitable year, the earnings were reduced by SKK 2.8 billion. The situation was caused by a number of reasons, namely reduced sales of agricultural products, damage resulting from adverse weather effects (cold weather, hail, drought and swine fever), as well as widening of the price gap compared to the year before (increasing input prices in agriculture and decreasing purchase prices of agricultural products, especially in livestock production). Legal entities and natural persons experienced mixed business success. While 51% of legal entities made profit, the figure rose to 76% in the group of natural persons. Both the agricultural cooperatives and trading companies performed with a loss. The loss per hectare of agricultural land (a.l.) was substantially lower in the case of business companies. Natural persons - private farmers were profitable over the period. The gap between the profitable and loss-making enterprises has widened. Some 60% of profitable enterprises owned by legal entities made only a small profit below SKK 0.5 million. The loss-making performance was typical for more productive areas of Slovakia. This was related to stronger effects of adverse climate in 2003.

Except of 2001 and 2002, the agriculture has produced losses of SKK 38.8 billion over the entire process of transformation. The losses in agriculture were caused by major disparities between the price of supplies to agriculture and prices of agricultural products, plus the restrictive subsidy and loan policy adopted in the early years of the economic reform. The economic situation has improved over the last two years. This was caused by the increase in subsidies, as well as by the continuing restructuring process (sales and liquidation of dubious assets, optimised production), reduction in numbers of loss-making enterprises, by growth and increase in efficiency of production and due to a substantial increase in earnings of many partnerships. However, even despite the positive trends current financial position of most agricultural enterprises does not meet the requirements for development in agriculture, with the rate of TFA (tangible fixed assets) depreciation achieving 50% (of that, depreciation of machinery stands at 70%). The earnings are moderate even in profit making enterprises, with 75% of those enterprises making only up to SKK 1.5 million in earnings.

This contribution deals with the differentiation of agricultural enterprises, with focus on the declining enterprises as the most troublesome. In 2000, these businesses generated about 47% of the total loss in agriculture. In this respect, the methodological procedure was also used for the purpose of tipping out the highly unprofitable enterprises. The economic and financial analysis is focused on evaluation of the achieved results expressed in basic economic indicators. The analysis refers to the cause of agricultural enterprises decline. The different dynamics of restructuring process of agricultural production confirm the marked difference of results characteristic for declining enterprises with growing year-on-year loss, increasing costs, decrease of own capital, high indebtness and dependence on the foreign sources.