Efficiency of farm assets is a very important factor of competitive production. It could be in strong correlation with profitability of economic activities. One of the most important factor of the farm assets is the fixed assets, and as a part of it, the equipment as well. An important factor of the farm asset value is the machinery, which depends on the amount of internal resources of farms and external financial resources i.e. governmental subsidies, bank loans. But, as it could be observed during the 1980s and 1990s on the farms of developed countries, the technical development was also a considerable factor of farming. This paper, based on the data of the FADN, and yearbooks of the HCSO, focuses on the investigation of some figures of the European Union for capital efficiency between 1989 and 2003, and compares these experiences with the Hungarian changes on the farms during the 1990s.