Changes in social and economic development of small farms in Poland

The article discusses the progress of changes in the area structure of individual farms and related to this changes in the number of workers in agriculture as well as the issue of unused labour resources in Poland. The research material are public statistics data (Polish Statistical Office – GUS) and the results of own research carried out at IAFE-NRI. A detailed analysis of the decline in the share of people working in agriculture among the total number of employed in our country indicates that in the recent period the scale of decline in the value of this indicator is accelerating. These tendencies were mainly the result of a much larger than before increase in the number of non-agricultural workers, especially among rural residents