Bożena Karwat–Woźniak

Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics

National Research Institute (IAFE – NRI), Poland

Economic potential of Polish agriculture and the possibilities of its developing in globalization period

ABSTRACT. Globalization and the necessity of being competitive induced by the mentioned process causes that the main criterion of economic activities involves rising of functional effectiveness and maximization of profit. The mentioned conditions are referred more and more often to agricultural sector. It results in the increase of the role of effectiveness and competitivity problems in functioning of agricultural farms, also those having a family character. In the discussed situation, the level of economic force of the particular farms and the number of entities, capable of effective competition on the global market has become one of the important questions. Due to this reason, the analysis and evaluation of economic potential of family farms in Poland has been carried out. The possibilities of increasing the competitive capacities of the particular farms and the whole agricultural sector in Poland constitute the important element of the study. In the article, the diverse aspects connected with the above mentioned problems have been presented. In the paper, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) data and those of Eurostat have been utilized. Information of universal statistics has been supplemented with the results of multiannual field studies of IAFE–NRI, conducted on the representative sample of agricultural farms. It was found that although the mutual opening of markets of the EU countries was not an inhibitor of development of economic potential of Polish family farms, the statistical family farms are still characterised by relatively small economic size. The probability of increasing the economic size determines many much differentiated factors. Factors of endogenous nature include such parameters as age of farmer and its skills, scale and structure of investments, complexity of mechanization, and first of all, area of crops.

Received: July, 2009

1st Revision: September, 2009

Accepted: November, 2009

JEL Classification: Q1, N5

Keywords: globalization, agriculture, economic size of family farm and its determinants, regional differentiation.