Small Farms in Poland – What is their Production and Economic Potential?

Benefits provided by small farms can be considering in different dimensions: economic, social and environmental. Small scale farming is still present in rural economy of Europe countries. Polish case show that small farms are more often passive participants of food production system, but they are very active when considering obtaining support within Common Agriculture Policy. We can observe decrease number of farms and increase average area of farm in Poland. The basis for the statistical economic analysis was provided by data from the National Agricultural Census conducted in 2002 and 2010, and data show that small farms are in many dimensions weaker than the bigger one. Small scale farms notice low level of modernization and specialization. They tackle with the same problems like bigger farms, but their possibility to maintain production are much more smaller.