Struktura obszarowa rolnictwa polskiego - proba prognozy zmian do roku 2010

The study deals with two variants of future forecast of private farm acreage changes for the years 2005 and 2010. The forecast covers number and total size of the farms as well as their acreage patterns (1-2, 2-5, 5-7, 7-10, 10-15, and over 15 ha agricultural land). It was based on the models of tendency functions, including exponential and segmental model with linear segments and also on the statement that farms acreage polarization will be continued in the future. Elaborated scenarios introduce possible scales and rates of changes of private farms' size structure until 2010. Scenario I (moderate) forecasts the decrease in number of farms down to 1.818.000, and that will result in increasing average size of a farm from 6.92 ha in 1998 to 7.85 ha in 2010. That will be favourable for further polarization of acreage structure, resulting in increased share of agricultural land to the farms over 15 ha from 36% in 1998 to almost 50% in 2010. Scenario II (optimistic) shows double-quick pace of agrarian changes to the year 2010, manifesting in decrease of farm number down to 1.770.000, increasing average farm size to 9.03 ha, and high polarization of size structure, resulting in increased attachment of agricultural land to the farms over 15 ha to 63%.