The productive use of agricultural land resources on farms in relation to their organised legal form

Abstract

From 1989 onwards there has been a visible tendency in Poland, for agricultural area used by agricultural holdings to decrease which is much faster than overall decrease of the agricultural area. During years 1990–2010 number of agricultural holdings has decreased from 3,834,000 to 2,277,620 (by over 1,566,000), and agricultural area used by holdings has decreased from 18,54 to 15,5 mln ha (by over 3 mln ha). This is a fast growth in the area of the agricultural area not being used by agricultural holdings. By 1990 this area amounted to 270,000 ha and by 2002 had already grown to 1,56 mln ha. In 2010 2,59 mln ha was recorded and by 2013 this had grown to 3,42 mln ha. As an result, and despite only a small increase in total population, the agricultural area used by agricultural holdings per capita, has decreased successively from 0,49 ha to 0,40 ha and to 0,38 ha.With an increasing demand for food it becomes increasingly important to stop this outflow of agricultural area outside the control of agricultural holdings. There is also a problem in the efficient productive use of the agricultural area still in the possession of agricultural holdings. In this paper, an analysis of the impact of the legal forms of agricultural holdings and the scale of productive usage of agricultural areas, has been be conducted. Changes in utilization of agricultural area in the period of 2002–2010 has been analyzed in the light of past changes over the period. Analysis is based on data from the General Agricultural Censuses from the years 1996, 2002 and 2010 and subject literature. Presented also are the main tendencies in development of usage of utilized agricultural area in the period 2010–2013, on the basis of a sample survey of agricultural holdings from 2013.