Agricultural production is connected with machine technologies of cultivation of agricultural crops. Tractors are operated under certain changing conditions, which are determined by the operation technology, organizational and climatic conditions, and technical operation conditions. The concept is introduced as a complex, dimensionless indicator that determines the conditions of functioning of tractors in agricultural production -the level of operation of tractors. Indicator of the level of operation of tractors reflects the state of their operation on the farm, which determines the degree of implementation of technical operation of equipment and the share of the labor-intensive process in the total volume of planned work for the upcoming period. Theoretically, this indicator can vary from 0 to 1. When equal to 1, the state of operation of the tractor is characterized as the best in terms of resource consumption, that is, all measures to maintain the tractor in working condition meet the requirements of GOST, and the tractor performs only work with minimal resistivity. If equal to 0, resource consumption of the tractor is maximum, i.e. the technical operation of the tractor is not performed and the tractor performs work with the maximum resistivity. The regularities of changes in the unit costs for eliminating failures and downtime depending on the level of operation of tractors are obtained. The article deals with the issues of optimizing the level of operation of tractors, presents a method for optimizing this indicator and provides a calculation on the example of farms in the Republic of Tatarstan.