Changes of Agricultural Landscape Pattern – Non-Natural Driving Forces Analyzing Based on the North-Western Region Of Poland

Abstract

In this paper, preceding changes and current situation in agricultural landscape pattern were elaborated as well as future transition was discussed. The North-Western Region of Poland was chosen as a study area, however, the research was conducted at the regional level, in provinces of this region including: Lubuskie, Wielkopolskie and Zachodniomomorskie. For analysis statistical data from Common Agricultural Census, containing the last two decades, between 1990-2010, were extracted. Based on established knowledge and proposed approach driving forces of landscape changes were identified. The research deals with the following aspects: 1) identification of underlying trends of landscape changes that took place over the study period, 2) finding driving forces responsible for cause-effect relationships in landscape alteration, 3) recognition of farmers’ reasons for what they took actions leading to landscape changes, and 4) identification of major current and foreseeable future tendencies of modification of landscape pattern. Political, economic and social driving forces, as the most affecting, were recognized and their influence on agricultural landscape structure was analyzed

Rural area marginalisation: searching for tendencies. Case study: the Western fringes of Poland

“…For this reason, even if some disturbing symptoms of the weakening of intensive agrarian activity are observed, it does not necessary mean permanent abandonment, because in this way farming is adjusting to new conditions (Brouwer, 2006;Markuszewska, 2013). Besides, marginalisation has a multilayered nature, and despite the fact that marginalisation can be observed locally, the general trend may actually be intensification, and the opposite, in a region affected by marginalisation, there can be locally poles of intensification (Pinto-Correia, Breman, 2008).…”

“…Many of unprofitable state farms went bankrupt and uncultivated farmland was converted into follows. This was the initiation of rural decline and only the Polish accession to the EU and the obtaining of financial support improved that situation (Markuszewska, 2013).…”

Land Consolidation as an Instrument of Shaping the Agrarian Structure in Poland: A Case Study of the Wielkopolskie and Dolnośląskie Voivodeships

“…After 1945, on the basis of those farmland ownerships, state farms were established. At last, after socialist system collapsed, as a result of economic changes the farmland was purchased by private owners or tenanted from the Agency of Agricultural Property, still maintaining a considerable acreage (Markuszewska 2013). In contrast the most unfavourable agrarian structure occurs in south-eastern Poland, in voivodeships: Małopolskie, Podkarpackie and Lubelskie, where negligence with regard to modernization of farming techniques, evidently seen during the division period, as well as failures of attempts to land consolidation, undertaken after peasants enfranchisement (Wierzchowski 2007), consequently contributed to the current level of land fragmentation.…”

The Optimization of Rural Landscape in the Light of the Idea of Sustainable Development – The Example of Poland

“…After 1989, as a result of the collapse of communism, a centrally planned economy was replaced with a market economy associated with the radical restructuring process. In 2004 Poland's accession to the European Union made it possible for Polish farmers to make use of financial support connected with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (Markuszewska 2013). This policy is a major driver of land use and changes in farming practices in Europe, and thus also affects landscapes.…”

“…Private property of arable land remained in a large part of Poland. Cooperatives were mainly established in the western and northern territories, where all arable land was taken over by the state as post-German property and where the attachment of peasants to their land was much weaker (Machałek 2013, Markuszewska 2013.…”