VILLAGE- SOCIETY - STATE: NEW BASES FOR THE SOCIAL DISCOURSE ON QUESTIONS OF RURAL AREAS AND AGRICULTURE IN POLAND

Agricultural policy and the rural development policy belong to the most expensive and most controversial elements of functioning of the EU member states. A large portion of controversies and misunderstandings results from imperfections of the public discourse on matters of villages and agriculture. The role of agriculture and rural areas in the functioning of modern societies is changing and the group of stakeholders of these areas' development is now in principle covering the entire society. In post-socialist countries no institutions were formed and no forms of social discourse evolved to discuss the desirable lines of rural and agriculture development and the forms of public support for such development. The most important attempt at institutionalization of such discourse was made in l999 in Poland by elaboration of a document entitled 'The Pact for Agriculture and Rural Areas'. The idea of the pact, the process of work on it and the causes of failure are described in this paper. After Poland's joining the European Union a major part of problems tackled by the discourse on rural development in Poland will be linked with analogous discourse, but this time at the level of the entire Union.