Principles of agricultural law – stabilization or evolution?

It has been more than thirty years since, in the pages of “Państwo i Prawo” (State and Law), together with Professor Andrzej Stelmachowski, who is not with us anymore, we formulated the principles of agricultural law for the young, developing discipline of Juridical Science, i.e. for the agricultural law. Dynamic development of the agricultural law in the previous political formation (also continued in the free–market economy) required the formulation of specific guiding principles of this discipline of Juridical Science. The passage of time, the political transformation that took place in Poland after 1989 as well as Poland’s membership in the European Union require verification of the formulated principles of agricultural law. Existing agricultural law as well as the legislation of the European Union and national legislation allow the formulation of new principles of agricultural law and ranking them according to the importance of legal regulation. They include: 1. The principle of intervention impact on agriculture and rural areas by the European Union and nation states in accordance with the objective of the EU Common Agricultural Policy. 2. The principle of productivity including the stimulation of technical and agricultural as well as biological progress by the state. 3. The principle of protection of the productivity of land within the frameworks of the protection of natural resources in conjunction with development of spatial rural areas. 4. The principle of protection of the farm as a farmer’s workshop and of the protection of other forms of land management