The question of quality and value of human resources have been at the forefront of Hungarian agriculture for the past few years. The decreasing number of agricultural employees in Hungary in the last decade (1990-2000) is a result of the crisis caused by the change of the socio-economic system rather than economic and technological development. Along with the decrease in employee numbers, their qualification level also declined. The aim of our research is to present the results of surveys that we undertook to examine the problems of the qualifications of those employed in agriculture and human resource management. Our survey was carried out within the framework of a research program elaborated by the Department of Management Science at the University of Debrecen. We conducted a questionnaire-based research series amongst managers of agricultural companies. On the basis of the results we worked out an equivalent calculation system suitable for reviewing and comparing the different qualifications within organizations. Using the qualification equivalent as a recalculation factor, the aggregate qualification value and the qualification index of companies was calculated. From the qualification index we carried out different studies in order to compare and analyse the human resource management of organizations. We stated that the qualification index is below 1 in the case of 50% of the involved companies which means that the qualification of the employees in agriculture is extremely low in Hungary. We demonstrated that companies employing higher educated employees operate more effectively. In the case of companies with fewer employees the qualification indexes are higher. (Contains 8 figures.)