STUDENTS' KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE AGRICULTURAL MECHANIZATION ON UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB FACULTY OF AGRICULTURE AND UNIVERSITY OF SARAJEVO FACULTY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SCIENCE

The paper presents the results of research on the first-year students' knowledge about agricultural mechanization on Faculty of Agriculture in Zagreb (FAZG) and Faculty of Agriculture and Food Science in Sarajevo (FAFSSA). The aim is to examine the knowledge of agricultural mechanization by comparative analysis of the results in which we assume that there are no significant differences between students' knowledge of certain faculties. For these purposes questionnaire was used and data obtained were analyzed using SPSS. The survey was conducted in October 2016, with the sample of 240 first year students of undergraduate studies (120 from each faculty). There was larger share of female (69.2% FAZG; 61.7% FAFSSA). Most of respondents grew up in urban areas (69.2% FAZG; 65.8% FAFSSA). On FAZG most respondents were with the gymnasium education (63.3%) and on the PPFSA most of them were with a completed professional non-agricultural high school (43.3%). There was higher share of respondents with completed agricultural secondary school on the FAFSSA (23.3%) than on the FAZG (10.0%). Research has shown that most of the respondents do not know how to manage even one agricultural machinery (77.5% FAZG; 70.8% FAFSSA), and most of others know how to run a tractor, motocultivator and/or rotary cultivator. The respondents know that the harvester is not used for soil treatment (54.2% FAZG; 75.2% FAFSSA) and that it is a machine for harvesting. Although most of respondents know that the four row-seeder sown in four rows in one pass, however, 10% (FAZG) and 20% (FAFSSA) of them think that seeder can sow three, five or even eight rows in one pass. Research has shown that students are aware of the importance of the use of mechanization in agriculture, and also with the need of efficient management, emphasizing the farmers' cooperation, all with the purpose to reduce the cost of mechanization in the production process. Although the most of them considers that the management machinery required formal education (55.8% FAZG; 55.9% FAFSSA), there is surprisingly little willingness to attend collegiums that studied this topic (1.7% FAZG; 10.1% FAFSSA). Male respondents and those who grew up in the rural area have a higher level of knowledge about agricultural mechanization.