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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse tendency of farms to switch from conventional to organic production. Design/methodology/approach The study used data on 6,229 individual farms, which in 2009–2016 continued to participate in the Polish FADN. Estimation of logit models allowed the authors to indicate, separately for each period in the years between 2009 and 2015, a set of characteristics influencing the decision of farms on the use of organic production. Findings The authors demonstrate that, first of all, land factors were of major importance when deciding on conversion to organic farming, with only the own land inputs (owned by the farm) having a positive impact on the transition of farms to organic production. But then the resource of the capital factor, identified with the assets owned by the farm, exercised a significant negative impact. Income derived from the family farm, although had a positive impact, did not significantly determine the farm’s decision on conversion to organic production. While support for agri-environmental purposes had a positive impact on the decision of farm to convert, the payments received under the direct payments affected this decision negatively. The tendency to start organic production is also conditioned regionally. Research limitations/implications The data of this study are limited in size, and limited to the Polish context. Originality/value The research setting for this paper is original; the study takes part in the discussion about factors of conversion to organic farming, on example of Poland and is a voice in the discussion on effective support for the development of organic farming in the context of sustainable development.

We investigated the extent to which the Local Development Strategy (LDS) activities planned at the beginning of the European Union's Leader programme implementation period, and the associated budget allocation in response to the defined local needs, were confirmed at the end of the period. We used as examples the implementation of two LDSs, one by a Local Action Group (LAG) in Poland and one in Italy. We applied some simple indicators to assess how much the budget assumptions at the planning level were reflected in the successful implementation of projects, and conducted interviews with representatives of the two LAGs. We showed that the two LAGs were generally working effectively but that excessive institutionalisation could be the major constraint to the proper design of the LDS and thus the implementation of the Leader programme. For the Polish LAG, it was because of the transfer of the evaluating role outside of the LAG: assessment of applications was undertaken by the regional institution, the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture. In the case of the Italian LAG, the reason was an excessive formalisation of the rules concerning project applications.

SummaryIn the study we

The study is aimed at the analysis of the situation in the agricultural land market in Poland, including the identification and description of factors affecting the turnover and rules governing trade in agricultural land and the influence of the Agricultural Property Agency on the supply and demand relationships in trade in agricultural land. Analysis allows to draw the conclusion that the situation on agricultural market as well as Common Agricultural Policy motivate economically strong farms to strengthen their position on the agricultural market, and to extend the area of their land. So far the main effect of this situation is progressing polarization of area structure of individual farms, what is represented by a greater share of units of relatively small and big land acreage