MARKET ANALYSIS OF SOFTWARE TO SUPPORT DECISION MAKING FOR FARMS IN POLAND

Abstract

The article analyses the market of computer software offered to farms to support production and management decisions. It
is the first Polish attempt to make a complex quantitative and functional analysis of the supply of such software. It comprises
the offer of 25 major companies and scientific institutions manufacturing and offering software for agriculture. Eighty applications
of different types and usage were subjected to analysis. The investigations proved that nearly 73% of the applications
were used to support decision making in plant production, 21% in animal production and only 6% were the applications used
for management of the whole farm. The results of the analysis revealed that the most applications, i.e. 30.6% were used in
precision agriculture, nearly 22.5% in herd management and slightly more than 13% in plant production. As far as the aspect
of the functional mobility of the software is concerned, the results of the analysis showed that 13.7% of the applications had
a mobile character, whereas in 86.3% of the cases it is the software for desktop computers. Besides, some applications are
compatible with on-board computers installed in machines and appliances and with the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). As
results from the analysis, more than 81.3% of the applications under consideration are offered by private businesses and 18.7%
are offered by scientific institutions. As far as the licence cost is concerned, the companies provided licence fees on websites
for 40% of the applications. Furthermore, in consequence of the analysis the most important functionalities of individual applications
were presented with division into the areas of use in farms. The market of computer applications for agriculture is
developing dynamically in Poland, mainly due to the development of the significance of precision agriculture and decisionmaking
support systems.