Changes in Polish agriculture during the period of political transformation and Poland's accession to the EU

Last year marked 30 years since the beginning of the Polish transformation and 15 years since Poland joined the European Union. Both processes, i.e. transformation and European integration, are closely linked, since the condition for Poland's membership in the European Union was the earlier advancement of the systemic transformation. The transformation process significantly affected, among others, agriculture. One of the features of the economies of post-socialist countries was their "over-agrarization", which was manifested in the excessive share of this sector in the engagement of labor resources and the generation of GDP. The transformation in Poland, similarly to other countries, caused radical changes in the structure of the national economy and remained in close cause-and-effect relationships with the processes of allocation of production resources and changes in the economic conditions of management (resulting mainly from price relations shaped by the market and the freedom of economic exchange with foreign countries). In the first years of the transformation, the state sector in agriculture was also privatized and structural changes in individual agriculture began. Poland's accession to the EU accelerated the processes initiated in the first years of the systemic transformation, while support and protection of these changes from public funds (from the EU budget) increased radically. After accession, inefficient labour resources were still released from agriculture, but this process was slow and not in all years. The inclusion of Polish agriculture in the EU CAP created conditions for growth in production and, above all, agricultural income. Transfers of funds from the EU budget significantly influenced supply possibilities. Growing investment outlays, resulting from the inclusion of agriculture in the funds of the second pillar of the CAP, allowed for the decapitalisation processes of fixed assets in agriculture to be halted and enabled the modernisation of developing farms. The demand side was influenced by participation in the Single European Market, and in particular the dynamic growth of agri-food exports. These processes resulted in an increase in the value and volume of agricultural production, and in particular in agricultural income, largely due to subsidies received by Polish agriculture for participation in the CAP.