The agri-environmental program in the development of agricultural and rural areas of the Pomorze region

Polish accession to the European Union resulted in the emergence of new instruments of supporting the development of sustainable agriculture and rural areas. The aim of this paper is to show the implementation of agri-environmental program in Pomerania region (Pomeranian and West Pomeranian voivodeships) in 2004–2015. This article presents the current state of structure and spatial diversity of agri-environmental program implementation by district and in region. Studies have shown that Pomerania region is one of the largest areas in Poland where agri-environmental program was implemented. Taking into account the financial support of the surveyed rural areas, significant intraregional variation is evident. The smallest number of beneficiaries and the lowest amounts of realized payments are characterized by districts with the highest agro-ecological potential in the region. Similarly, most applications for agri-environment payments filed users farms located in the counties of potentially the least favorable conditions for the development of high-productive agriculture. At the same time, they received the highest financial support. For the purposes of analysis source material was used – The Central Statistical Office (CSO) data, the reports on activities of the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARMA) data as well as the literature on research issues taken. The study method used descriptive statistics and comparative analysis. The results are presented in graphical and tabular form.