ECONOMIC ASPECTS AND ACTUAL TRENDS OF TECHNICAL PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURE AT THE PRESENT STAGE

The paper covers topical issues relating to with scientific and technological progress in the agricultural branch of national economy. The author examines main development trends associated with technical progress and states the role of entrepreneurship in scientific and technological progress. Techinal and technological innovations are classified into fundamentally new ones; new ones of a modern scientific and technical level but having analogues; new ones developed as a result of modernization and innovation activities. The author revelas characteristic features of the modern innovative stage of development of automated agricultural production: complex automation, widespread use of robots, computerization, etc. Data of the agro-holding GC "Agropromkomplektatsiya” serve as an example of modern automated agro-industrial production. The agricultural holding increased the volume of meat processing from 997.5 to 83.4 thousand tons. (more than 80 times) through the use of innovative technologies and machinery from 2003 to 2018. “Dmitrova Gora” agrofirm of the same agricultural holding has tripled milk production for 2010-2018. Due to the introduction of modern production technologies based on the digital economy, there was not only an increase in efficiency, but also a rapid increase in production volumes.