Globalisation, Agricultural Development and Rural Welfare in Transition

This paper analyzes the impact of globalisation on agriculture, development and rural welfare in transition countries. First, we present an overview of insights on how globalisation has affected agriculture and rural households’ welfare in transition countries based on existing studies. Secondly, the paper presents new empirical evidence on how specific aspects of ‘globalisation’, in particular the inflow of foreign investment and the integration in international commodity markets, have affected Polish agriculture, and more specifically small-scale dairy farms. Given the characteristics of this sector (many poor small farmers, low quality output, direct need for investment and restructuring, ...) this study yields useful insights which have wider implications.