Moldovan agriculture is still characterized by a pronounced structural dualism with a very large number of small-scale family farms. The accentuated poverty makes rural economy to flow more and more to a natural subsistence economy, isolating itself from the market economy. The scope of the paper is to assess the farm performance and its contribution to the development of rural areas. The research analysis is based on national statistics and survey data of 723 farms. In order to assess farm

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... ormance technical efficiency (TE) and stochastic frontier analysis is used. The contribution of different types of income on the farm development level is analysed through regression analysis. Increasing of farm performance through a higher efficiency and competitiveness could be regarded as the key solution to the low income problem of rural families.