Organizational Structural Changes in Agriculture in Poland and Bulgaria: a Comparative Analysis
Organizational Structural Changes in Agriculture in Poland and Bulgaria: a Comparative Analysis

Author(s): Julia Doitchinova, Agnieszka Wrzochalska, Bożena Karwat-Woźniak , Albena Miteva
Subject(s): Economy, National Economy, Business Economy / Management, Agriculture, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: Университет за национално и световно стопанство (УНСС)
Keywords: agricultural holdings; structural transformations
Summary/Abstract: The orientation and dynamics of organizational restructuring in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been the subject of analysis over the past decades. Both the reasons for these changes and their speed and consequences for the development of the sector and of rural areas are being assessed. The aim of this report is to analyze, evaluate, and compare the trends in the development of production structures in Poland and Bulgaria under the conditions of their membership in the European Union. The choice of these two countries is based on their differences in: the structure and nature of agricultural holdings at the beginning of the 1990s; the scope of land and organizational structural reforms carried out in the pre-accession period; and their impact on the development of agriculture and rural areas under the Common Agricultural Policy. The study uses Eurostat data for the period 2005–2020, as well as data from the agricultural statistics of the two countries on the number of farms, utilized agricultural area, economic size, and others. The comparative analysis and the conclusions drawn reveal significant differences in the period prior to the accession of the two countries to the European Union, related to the historical development of land use in them and the preservation of private farming in Poland during the period of centrally planned economy. During the membership period (since 2004 for Poland and since 2007 for Bulgaria), the trends in product and organizational restructuring are unidirectional and similar, but proceed at different speeds. Different outcomes are also observed with respect to the formation of production structures, the structure of farms by number, and the distribution of utilized agricultural land among farms of different sizes. The organizational restructuring of Polish agriculture is characterized by a slower pace of reduction in the number of farms and an increase in the average size of utilized agricultural land. At the same time, the resulting structure of farms by economic size shows a relatively more even distribution of farms across sizes. Bulgarian agriculture has been restructured significantly faster, both in terms of the number of farms and in terms of the average size and legal status of agricultural holdings. As a result, a strongly dualistic structure has emerged, in which a significant (though declining) number of farms use a small relative share of the utilized agricultural land, while a relatively small number of very large farms cultivate over 80% of the utilized agricultural land.

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