Economic Situation and Development Perspectives of Farms in Poland - An Analysis Based on Survey Data from Selected Polish Voivodships and a Comparison with German Farms

The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of farm-level data collected in a survey of 464 Polish farms in 2000. Performance indicators of farms in three Polish voivodships are compared with farm accountancy data from two German Länder. The results show that Polish farms are much less profitable than their German counterparts. The gap in income levels is much higher between persons employed in the agricultural sector than between average working persons in the two countries. Living standards of the Polish farm population in the north-west exceed those in the south-east of the country. The analysis suggests that the lower profitability of farms has two major reasons. First, farms in the German regions receive much higher levels of subsidies. Second, there are pronounced structural deficiencies due to a quite unfavourable workforce-land ratio on Polish farms. These farms are less productive and less specialized than the German farms analysed. There is a generally conservative attitude among Polish farmers that prefers the continuation of farming over leaving the sector. Nevertheless, income from agriculture is to a substantial extent complemented by off-farm employment in the southern regions. Our overall conclusion is that Polish farms currently are in the midst of a regional, economic, and social differentiation process fuelled by severe imbalances in terms of income levels between rural and urban population groups. This process is however seriously slowed down or even halted by a number of effective institutional barriers, particularly with regard to rural labour markets. These barriers should be properly addressed by a formulation of future policies in order to avoid further social frictions in the course of the Polish EU accession.agriculture, farm performance, survey data, Poland, Germany, International Development,

Assessing food availability: A novel approach for the quantitative estimation of the contribution of small farms in regional food systems in Europe

Recent findings on the contribution of smallholders to global food production and security challenge the values used in several reports of international organizations. The skewed distribution of the number of farms and the agricultural area by farm size may explain overestimations in small farms' food production. In fact, the highest values found in literature seem to be more strongly correlated to the total number of small farms than to the actual area they cover, suggesting errors in the estimation procedures. Additionally, a significant part of the small farms is not considered in official statistics, thus limiting the use of the data and also leading to underestimations. New efforts are thus needed to develop and apply methodologies to reduce the error and uncertainty of these estimates. In this paper we demonstrate the progress obtained by using a novel approach to provide new and more accurate estimates on the availability of food produced in small farms in 17 European regions (NUTS-3 level) distributed in 8 countries. Our assessment was carried out using two data sets: [1] data on crop area and production for a priori selected key products in each reference region, collected through questionnaires to small producers; [2] remote sensing-based products derived from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images, including crop type maps with ground-truth validation and small-scale farming systems probability maps. To reduce error propagation resulting from self-reported yield estimates, we used robust measures of central tendency based on Tukey's bi-weight function to compute the overall production in small farms in each region, minimizing the effect of outliers. The self-reported yields by small farmers were also compared with national and regional values of productivity per unit area and discussed in light of previous findings. Our results highlight not only the importance of small farms in the European context, but also their diversity in productivity levels. In addition to the novel methodological steps that underlie our study, which involve the combination of remote sensing data with data resulting from field surveys, the approach undertaken allows to better understand the contribution of small farmers to food security in each regional context, and the potential they have to support short food supply chains. Our findings can be key in supporting policy options that aim to enhance food security by reducing the EU footprint through strengthening and diversifying regional food systems

Comparative typology in six european low-intensity systems of grassland management

European biodiversity significantly depends on large-scale livestock systems with low input levels. In most countries forms of grazing are organized in permanent or seasonal cooperations (land-owner/land-user agents) and covers different landscape such as alpine areas, forest, grasslands, mires, and even arable land. Today, the existence of these structures is threatened due to changes in agricultural land use practices and erratic governmental policies. The present chapter investigates six low-input livestock systems of grassland management with varying degrees of arrangements in different European countries and landscapes. These large-scale grazing systems (LSGS) are reindeer husbandry in Northern Sapmi (Fennoscandia), sheep grazing in the Polish Tatra mountains, cattle grazing in the Swiss and German Alps, cattle, sheep, and pig grazing in Baixo Alentejo, Southern Portugal, and sedentary sheep grazing in Central Spain. These systems showed very heterogeneous organizational patterns in their way of exploiting the pastoral resources. At the same time, these LSGS showed at least some of the following weaknesses such as poor economic performance, social fragility, and structural shortcomings for proper grazing management. Lack of proper mobility of herds/flocks or accession to specific grazing grounds can be a cause of environmental hazards. The surveyed LSGS are mostly dependent on public handouts for survival, but successive policy schemes have only showed mixed effects and, in particular study areas, clear inconsistencies in their aim to stop the general declining trend of LSGS

Economic Situation and Development Perspectives of Farms in Poland - An Analysis Based on Survey Data from Selected Polish Voivodships and a Comparison with German Farms

The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of farm-level data collected in a survey of 464 Polish farms in 2000. Performance indicators of farms in three Polish voivodships are compared with farm accountancy data from two German Länder. The results show that Polish farms are much less profitable than their German counterparts. The gap in income levels is much higher between persons employed in the agricultural sector than between average working persons in the two countries. Living standards of the Polish farm population in the north-west exceed those in the south-east of the country. The analysis suggests that the lower profitability of farms has two major reasons. First, farms in the German regions receive much higher levels of subsidies. Second, there are pronounced structural deficiencies due to a quite unfavourable workforce-land ratio on Polish farms. These farms are less productive and less specialized than the German farms analysed. There is a generally conservative attitude among Polish farmers that prefers the continuation of farming over leaving the sector. Nevertheless, income from agriculture is to a substantial extent complemented by off-farm employment in the southern regions. Our overall conclusion is that Polish farms currently are in the midst of a regional, economic, and social differentiation process fuelled by severe imbalances in terms of income levels between rural and urban population groups. This process is however seriously slowed down or even halted by a number of effective institutional barriers, particularly with regard to rural labour markets. These barriers should be properly addressed by a formulation of future policies in order to avoid further social frictions in the course of the Polish EU accession

POLAND'S AGRICULTURE: SERIOUS COMPETITOR OR EUROPE'S POORHOUSE? SURVEY RESULTS ON FARM PERFORMANCE IN SELECTED POLISH VOIVODSHIPS AND A COMPARISON WITH GERMAN FARMS

The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of farm-level data collected in a survey of 464 Polish farms in 2000. Performance indicators of farms in three Polish voivodships are compared with farm accountancy data from two German Länder. The results show that Polish farms were much less profitable than their German counterparts. The gap in income levels is much higher between persons employed in the agricultural sector than between average working persons in the two countries. Living standards within the Polish farm sector decline from the north-west to the south-east. The analysis suggests that the lower profitability of farms is a consequence of pronounced structural deficiencies due to a quite unfavourable workforce-land ratio on Polish farms and hardly a result of lower product prices. Serious technical and economic inefficiencies in the production process become visible in the data. There is a generally conservative attitude among farmers that prefers the continuation of farming over leaving the sector. Nevertheless, income from agriculture is to a substantial extent complemented by off-farm employment in the southern regions. Formal education of farm managers and access to finance appeared not to be crucial for their economic success in the past, although especially the most profitable farms in the north did not obtain as much credit as desired. Our overall conclusion is that Polish farms currently are in the midst of a regional, economic, and social differentiation process fuelled by huge imbalances in terms of income levels between rural and urban population groups. This process is however seriously slowed down or even halted by a number of effective institutional barriers, particularly with regard to rural labour markets. These barriers should be properly addressed by a formulation of future policies in order to avoid further social frictions in the course of the Polish EU accession

The Role of Agriculture in Central and Eastern European Rural Development: Engine of Change or Social Buffer?

Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Farm Management, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, Labor and Human Capital,