CONDITIONING OF LEASING OF STATE TREASURY’S AGRICULTURAL LAND IN THE WARMIA-MAZURY REGION

Abstract

The aim of this research was to identify factors conditioning usage of leasing as a form of management of agricultural lands in the region of Warmia and Mazury. It was based on survey research conducted among 134 agricultural land leaseholders and buyers from the Warmia-Mazury region. By the end of 2020, 824.7 thousand ha of agricultural land was repossessed by the Treasury Agricultural Property Stock in the Warmia-Mazury Voivodship, out of which 83.6% was leased. The main source of financing of the farms expansion was own resources, bank credit, and subsidies and dotation from the EU. At the same time, the development and functioning of farms were mostly influenced by resource factors (area, quality of the farm land, machinery park), production profitability which depends on prices of means of production, subsidies from EU funds, farm land prices, agricultural production cost, demand for agricultural produce and their unstable purchase prices. Different perception of factors conditioning the development and functioning of farms was due to the size of a farm. As the results of the analysis indicate, the development and functioning of farms with area above 100 ha were more dependent of owned machinery park, qualifications of labour on the local market, costs of credit taken to purchase agricultural land, as well as procedures to obtain subsidies from EU funds.