A FORECAST OF CHANGES IN THE TERRITORIAL STRUCTURE OF POLISH FARMS FOR THE PERIOD UNTIL 2015

On the basis of data for 1995-2004 the authoress of the paper prepared with the help of structure prediction method a forecast of the territorial structure of Polish farms for the period until 2015. According to this forecast, there will be some 1,600,000 farms with the area of more than l ha each in Poland in 2015. Since the total area of these farms will reach 13.6 million hectares the average farm will have the area of 8.5 ha. Approximately 60% of all farms will be accounted for by farms with the area of l ha-5 ha each, which will represent 17% of the existing arable land. Farms with the area of 5 ha-10 ha each will account for 14% of all farms and will represent approximately 12% of the exiting arable land. The least numerous will be farms with the area of 10 ha-15 ha (7%), which will represent 9.5% of Poland's arable land. The largest farms, with the area of over 15 ha each, will constitute 14% of the total number of farms and will represent more than 60% of the existing arable land. The prepared forecast presents changes that can be expected to occur in the territorial structure of farms if the directions and pace of transformations recorded in 1995-2004 remain unchanged. Key words: t *) The author is a research worker of the Agricultural Academy in Cracow.