RESEARCH PAPER
COMPETITIVENESS OF ORGANIC CROP FARMS AGAINST A BACKGROUND OF FARMS INVOLVED IN THE LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION
 
More details
Hide details
1
Instytut Ekonomiki Rolnictwa i Gospodarki Żywnościowej – PIB
 
 
Acceptance date: 2014-12-08
 
 
Publication date: 2014-12-08
 
 
Zagadnienia Ekonomiki Rolnej / Problems of Agricultural Economics 2014;341(4):131-143
 
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
The major problem of organic farms in Poland is abandonment of animal breeding. This results in a shortage of animal products sought by consumers and it also prevents improvement of soil fertility on many farms, and it often blights the principles of sustainable development. The universality of this phenomenon in Polish organic farming is explained by the example of production and economic results of organic farms of the Polish FADN, which in 2012 were divided into two groups. One run only crop production and the other crop and animal production. The results show that farms without livestock were “easier” to run and production for such farms was even 2 times less labour-intensive and, despite lower land productivity, it was more profitable. This followed mainly from subsidies granted to crop area whose amount grew along with a growth in the area scale of a farm. The amount of the subsidies is in no way dependent on the number of animals, thus, farmers are not bounded to keep animals on organic farms. Subsidies granted, exclusively, for keeping animals for animal farms were minor and could not boost animal production. Economic results of farms keeping animals were, thus, much lower than those obtained on crop farms. Therefore, it is presently difficult to opt for keeping animals on organic farms, especially large-scale organic farms. Therefore, it is necessary to change the organic farm support system with public funds.
Journals System - logo
Scroll to top