THE EVOLUTION OF THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN CENTRAL AND EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AFTER 12 YEARS OF MEMBERSHIP IN THE EU ON THE EXAMPLE OF POLAND

Accession to the European Union was one of more important factors determining the scale and rate of changes in the agricultural sector in Central and East European countries in the years 2004-2016. Actions of the European Union arising from the functioning of the Common Agricultural Policy and instruments associated therewith (mainly in the form of structural funds) provided the countries entering the Community after 2004 with a wide range of benefits. Those benefits included a reduction in the number of farms, an increase in the average size of farm, improvement of farm technical equipment, an increase in the exports of agricultural commodities, intensification of organic production, restructuring the markets for agricultural products and services, improvement of living conditions of rural population. The changes observed in the last 12 years did not have a uniform character or rate, which is associated with a distinct variety in level of social and economic development and in environmental conditions of the so-called eastern countries of the Old Continent, that is the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and their regions. Therefore, the aim of this research is to attempt to show selected developmental changes in the agricultural sector in Central and East European countries after 12 years of membership in the European Union as well as to identify and assess the level of agricultural development in the regional arrangement on the example of Poland. The level of development of Polish agriculture in the regional arrangement was assessed using PERKAL's method of standardized sums (which belongs to the group of taxonomic methods), where the starting point was to propose a set of diagnostic features which in a possibly complete manner would allow to assess the level of agricultural development in 16 regions of Poland in the years 2015-2016.