agriculture, Europe, Institutional reforms, ownership structure, Poland, CASE Reports, CASE Network Studies and Analyses

Ownership Transformation in Polish Agriculture in the years 1992-1994

Introduction

At the point of introducing economic reforms in 1990 aimed at the transformation from a centrally planned to a market economy, Polish agriculture was in a different situation than other  branches of the national economy. The dominant form of ownership in agriculture was private ownership. Family farms occupied 14.2 million ha, which represented 76.2% of all agricultural land in the country. The family farms were characterized by dispersed structural farming, the resulting high level of employment, as well as excessive fixed property by many farms. The average area of agricultural land in the farm amounted to 6.3 ha and the total number of individual farms was 2.1 million. The level of employment measured by the number of fully employed persons was 24.9 people per 100 ha of agricultural land.