Rural Development in Poland: The Role of Policy, Tourism and Human Capital

INTRODUCTION : The problem of tourism function in the multifunctional development of rural areas has not been recognized and is gaining on meaning because European Union is focusing activities on natural environment preservation. However, little attention has been paid to the role of environment in the development of rural areas. Environmental function has an impact on nature preservation and quality of life of society development and requires capital outlays on nature preservation. Agriculture and rural areas are the key elements creating public goods based on natural environment. Not only European agriculture is responsible for providing food and material to be further processed but also occupies around 40% of land. As a consequence it has a huge impact on the condition of the environment in the rural areas as well as capabilities to use the environment. It is a specific feature of public goods related to rural areas that they can be an external effect of “regular” agricultural production, a purposive effect or a common supply that belongs to the society. It must be noted that in the rural areas different interests compete mainly for two factors: the land and labor, because both production of private goods and provision of environmental public goods can be executed through them. However, in order to achieve a proper level of environmental public good supply it is necessary to create economic incentives for farmers to manage their land and other production factors in such a way that it is possible to generate them. In that context an important issue is human capital which is especially important in periods of rapid change. Certainly Poland in the past two decades has experienced rapid change, with rural areas especially impacted. The changes in markets, agricultural policies, and opportunities have been so great in this period that the traditional approaches to economic activity were overwhelmed by changing circumstances. The ability to adapt in this instance is especially dependent on human capital, because everything is different. The papers presented at the conference ,,Development of human capital” on 7th June 2014 at High Economic Social School in Ostrołęka were compiled into a monograph to promote the concept of tourism and human capital in the development of rural areas. The publication has been structured to address the key elements of tourism and human capital. The first part discusses development of tourism functions and influence of selected economic factors on its development. Moreover, it focuses on ambient impact of institutional development on agritourism farms. The second part concerns human capital. It describes its role in innovation opportunities, and theories describing human behavior. This part is also devoted to human capital in Polish agriculture. The monograph is enriched in papers from Pennsylvania State University in the USA and School of Agriculture & Food Science, University College Dublin. Piotr Bórawski, Agnieszka Brelik, and Bazyli Czyżewsk