Dairy production in East Poland - a short journey towards thepolish dairy sector -Small farm structures dominate the agricultural sector

摘要

Agriculture is quite an important sector in Poland. About one quarter of all employees work in agriculture (in the EU five per cent on average]. 14 per cent even live onlyfrom agriculture whereas the others, especially near thecities, are part time farmers.In total 2 million farms use 18 million hectares to produce agricultural products (~ 58 per cent of the total area of Poland). The majority of the land is arable land (76 per cent), in addition three per cent is used to grow fruits, especially apples (Poland is the number one exporter of apples!). The remaining agricultural land is categorized as meadows and grazing land. As only very littleof the agricultural land is classified as "good" (3.3 per cent), animal production is quite important for polish agriculture.