agriculture and food economy in poland

AGRICULTURE
In Poland, there is a large share of persons living off non-gainful sources of income,
i.e. mainly old-age and disability pensions and persons maintained, mainly children.
The main cause of the fall in agricultural production profitability and farmers’
incomes were prices of agricultural products unfavourable for agriculture, actually
the disadvantageous relationship between the prices of such products and those of
agricultural inputs and other goods and services.
Figure 17. Dynamics of real gross income at the disposal in the household sector
Source: GUS
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1995=100
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Against other social groups, the pay for work in agriculture is much lower. As
compared to the remuneration of employees in other sectors of the economy,
farmers earned 36% less.
A representative survey of household budgets shows that a share of income
generated from hired labour and self-employment remains at a low level in farmers’
households.
Figure 18. Structure of agricultural families’ income per capita in 1995 and 2002
Source: GUS
Total households Farmers’ households
Total income generated from private farm
Total income generated from hired labour
Total income generated from self-employment
Social benefits
Other income
0,6
1,4
1,4
0,1
27
19,6
19,9
1995
2,2
2002
3
124,7
48,7
76,2
75,6