Fase IV Plan de Transformación

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JANUSZ ŻMIJA, EWA TYRAN∗

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses the main problems of both agriculture and the rural areas of Southeastern Poland known as the Małopolska region. The process of systemic transformation in this region is hampered by the very specific characteristics and conditions of rural areas and of agricultural production. The analyses show the current situation by using research and statistical data from the General Census of the Population and Housing and the General Agricultural Census, both of which were conducted in 2002. Occurrences in the eight years between the pre- vious General Agricultural Census (1996) and the last one allow some conclu- sions to be drawn about the pace and direction of changes in rural areas devel- opment and agricultural transformation. The next stage of those changes and transformation will be heavily influenced by the results of Poland joining the European Union and its Common Agricultural Policy. The result of that process can be, at this point, only speculated upon, with the hope that all resources avail- able to Poland can be fully and wisely adapted, thus speeding up the social and economic development of rural areas and as a consequence, the development of the whole Polish economy.

Keywords: agriculture, Southeastern Poland, rural areas, structural change. 1 INTRODUCTION

For Poland, the last decade of the 20th century was a time of intensive social,

political and economic change. Poland was confronted with the necessity of quick but deep changes in the economy, as well as in state administration and the functioning of newly-established self-government structures. As a result of actions taken, the Polish market began to exhibit negative, previously-unknown occurrences, such as firm bankruptcies, a much lower demand on the labour force, which, aggregated with the growing share of the population at working age, resulted in a novel occurrence in Poland; namely, unemployment. From the beginning of the transformation period, agriculture has absorbed the surplus of labour from the rest of the economy. Agriculture, heavily overpopulated in some

∗ _{Agricultural University of Krakow, Department of Agribusiness, Krakow, Poland.}

regions of Poland even before the free market economy, became a sponge ab- sorbing the ever more redundant labour force. Together with the fragmented farmland structure, this has caused an increase in hidden unemployment in rural areas.

In Poland, the agricultural sector is of greater social and economic importance than in Western European countries. There are still regions where Polish agricul- ture has a major influence on the economy, and as such, has a crucial impact on both the development of these regions and the standard of living of their inhabi- tants. In 2002, agriculture (including the hunting and forestry sectors) accounted for 2.7% of the Gross Domestic Product. This is a decrease from 12.9% in 1989, 8.3% in 1990 and 6.0% in 1995.

According to data from the Agricultural Census of 2002, among the total num- ber (1,959,100) of individual holdings above 1 ha of agricultural land there are:

– 17% (2.4% in 1996) – holdings operating on a non-permanent or temporary

basis;

– 10.6% (12.7% in 1996) – subsistence farms;

– 25.5% (37.4% in 1996) – semi-subsistence farms;

– 46.8% (47.4% in 1996) – commercial farms.

The average farm size in Poland exhibits considerable regional variations. The highest degree of fragmentation of individual farms occurs in the southern

voivodships, where the average amount of farmland per farm is 2.10 ha in

Małopolskie and 2.15 in Śląskie. In the Małopolska region, the average size of a

farm above 1 ha of agricultural land is 3.25 ha.

The land plots of the majority of individual farms have a “chess-board” struc- ture, illustrated by the fact that 20% of them consist of 6 or more dispersed plots of land.

High agricultural employment is related to fragmentation. The level of employ- ment in the agricultural sector, measured as the number of employed persons per

100 ha, is highest in the south of Poland. In the Małopolska region there are 46.3

persons employed per 100 ha of farmland, whereas the lowest number of per- sons employed per 100 ha of agricultural land has been recorded in the Zachod-

niopomorskie (7.1) and Warmińsko-mazurskie (8.8) voivodships, respectively.

Primarily, it is the larger farms which are developing and becoming stronger. This is true, in particular, of farms with an area between 30 – 200 ha (farms over 30 ha comprise 2.63% of all private farms in Poland). In this group of farms there continues to be a clearly observable process of restructuring and moderni- sation based on the extended reproduction of fixed assets. This group is also characterised by rapid improvements in the age (lower) and education (higher) of farm managers.

The excessively high proportion of farms that make no investments at all, as well as the low level of investment outlays in general, can be described as a very negative phenomena. The principal factors that continue to hamper positive changes in farm structure are the excessively high and continually-growing po- tential labour resources in agriculture and the extremely low profitability of ag- ricultural production, which together translate into minimal possibilities for ac- cumulation.

From 1995 to 2000, real incomes in farming households fell by around 50%, while there were increases between 20-30% in other household categories. The average disposable monthly income in farmers’ households in 2001 was around 73% of that in other employees’ households. According to the 2002 General Ag- ricultural Census data, only 18.6% of farmers’ family members generated their income exclusively or mainly by working on farm. In comparison with 1996 figures, this number decreased by one third.