Bariery rozwoju rodzinnych gospodarstw rolnych w opinii ich właścicieli z województwa opolskiego = Barriers to the development of family farms in the opinion of their owners from the Opolskie Voivodeship

Abstract

The aim of the study is to identify changes in the organizational and production-related behaviours of commercial agricultural holdings’ owners. Overcoming main developmental barriers is vital to building potentials of the agriculture and rural areas in the Opolskie Voivodeship. For the purpose of the study exogenous and endogenous factors have been considered, in particular: agricultural policy, multifaceted institutional environment, farmers’ readiness to invest, changes in technology of production, search for specialization niches. The source of information was a questionnaire-based research conducted among the owners of agricultural holdings that cover the area of more than 10 hectares of arable land, whose produce is designed for the market. Having extended the research timespan (1992, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2014 and 2018), it can be concluded that the development of the commercial agricultural holdings in the region has clearly displayed attributes of stability. In 1992, 19% of the respondents perceived their holdings as developing, while in 2014 the number rose to 84% and 77% in 2018. Securing stability of agricultural holdings’ growth is significant for integrated rural development. The holdings’ owners consider the following to be the main external barriers: instability of prices and the state’s faulty policy. On the other hand, respondents point to the following as the chief internal barriers: low profitability of production, shortage of means available for investment and lack of successors. The major conclusion that can be drawn from conducted research proves the need of advancing broader strategic thinking on the development of agriculture and rural areas, both at national and regional scale.

Change in the Level of Agricultural Development in the Context of Public Institutions’ Activities—A Case Study of the NASC Activities in Poland

“…The methodology used in the research is applied to determine the level of agricultural growth [56][57][58][59] (used the findings from these studies to build the matrix of diagnostic features used-tab 1), although it is also useful to study the level of social and economic development [30,] and the level of sustainable development [30,56,]. The National Agricultural Support Centre may have an impact on the level of agriculture achieved [60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67]. The conducted research justifies the following final conclusions, where the results obtained are summarized:…”

Characteristics of Models of Farms in the European Union

“…Based on surveys, it was found that in 2016 in the EU-28 there were 10,467,000 farms and entities performing social, self-supply, recreational and other functions. From the emergence of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy family farms constituted the main target group [3][4][5][6]. Therefore, the United Nations Organization declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming.…”