Fiscal impulses vs. structural changes in the Polish agriculture

Barbara Wieliczko

Abstract: The Polish EU accession fundamentally changed the conditions in which farmers operate. This applies particularly to agricultural policy – types of policy instruments and the scale of support. Significant fiscal impulses aimed at agriculture led to acceleration of structural changes in the Polish agriculture.
The aim of the paper is to analyse the scale and character of annual fiscal impulses directed at agriculture and to verify their impact on structural changes in Polish agriculture, their specific features and spatial distribution. The analysis is based on publically available statistical data concerning agricultural policy and agricultural sector in Poland. The analysis applies the concept of fiscal impulses to assess how agriculture reacts to budgetary policy towards this sector observed in Poland in the period 2012–2016.
The results show that the scale of fiscal impulses varied significantly in the analysed period. Also their structure evolved. This influenced the range and character of the observed structural changes in the agricultural sector as well as their spatial distribution. Generally, it can be concluded that the changes in Polish agriculture lead to an increasing diversity of this sector and thus create a need for a more and more targeted agricultural policy.

Keywords: fiscal impulses; Polish agriculture; structural change

Date published: 2018-02-02