The farms in the European Union do not reach their full production potential and the level of technical efficiency of agriculture is diverse. The difference between the states with the highest and lowest technical efficiency is up to 40% (Nowak et al. 2015). The Czech Republic ranks among the countries with a low technical efficiency, as shown in some studies (Pechrová and Vlašicová 2013;Čechura 2014;Giannakis and Bruggeman 2015;Nowak et al. 2015). There is, therefore, a strong need to improve the economic performance of agricultural enterprises in the Czech Republic. The availability of high quality information for the individual agricultural entities could greatly help to improve this situation. Highquality information is a key aspect of the information support of the agricultural sector. This issue is closely related to the information needs of the business. The information need can be regarded as a basic social need for information in the quality and quantity level necessary to solve certain tasks and problems. The Abstract: Th e supply of fast, accessible and high-quality information to individual users is the key aspect of information assurances of the agricultural sector. Th is aspect is closely related to the so-called information need. Th e paper aims to evaluate the current state of the information needs and information support and their impacts on small farms in the Czech Republic. Th ere is a strong necessity to improve the economic performance of farms in the Czech Republic. Moreover, the need for the introduction of new ICT in farming and farm management has rapidly increased at present. In farming, the ICT directly supports the operational agricultural activities and it can also serve as an interactive and fl exible tool for monitoring the progress of the farm economic performance. Th e analysis of the current state of the issue of information needs and dispositions among Czech farms was based on the questionnaire survey. We obtained 165 correctly fi lled answers from agricultural enterprises. Survey results are analysed with descriptive statistics, frequency tables, the clustering analysis and the correlation analysis. Th e results show that with 95% probability: (1) Th e level of the information needs is related to the current state of the ICT and the decision support system at the farm, (2) Th e infl uence of the information need level to the level of new technologies usage was not confi rmed, (3) Legislation issues represent a crucial part of the information needs of agricultural subjects, (4) Large enterprises with more than 500 ha have a much better level of the information support than the companies with fewer hectares, (5) Companies with less than three employees face problems with their information support, (6) Czech farms in average use advanced ICT and information systems, and (7) Th e farmer's decision-making is not strongly facilitated through the ICT.
The current state of the issue of information needs and dispositions among small Czech farms
