FIFTEEN YEARS OF POLISH AGRICULTURE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The aim of the study was to characterize: a) financial aid paid to farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy and sources of funds from 2004-2018; b) changes in agriculture in terms of: factors of production, cultivation area and production of the main crops in total and per capita, livestock farming and production of the main animal products in total and per capita, productivity (land, labor, and fixed assets), marketability and profitability (land, labor, and fixed assets), self-sufficiency in the production and consumption of: cereals, potatoes, cow's milk, hen eggs, as well as meat and offal. The period of 2001-2003 was adopted as the base period for comparisons, i.e., three years before Poland's accession to the European Union, while the last period was 2016-2018, due to the availability of verified statistical information; c) position of Polish agriculture in the EU from 2004-2005 (EU-25), as well as 2010 and 2019 (EU-28). The analysis showed positive changes in all the discussed issues, except for land management, whose exclusion from agricultural production requires urgent state interference to reduce the pace of this process. The position of Polish agriculture in the EU generally ranks proportionally to land resources or higher. However, it is weaker in the case of animal production compared with crop production. Trade turnover in agri-food products and a positive trade balance are systematically growing.