Determinants of Farmland Abandonment in Selected Metropolitan Areas of Poland: A Spatial Analysis on the Basis of Regression Trees and Interviews with Experts

Wojciech Sroka,Bernd Pölling,Tomasz Wojewodzic,Olga Podlinska,Paulina Stolarczyk,Miroslaw Strus

doi:10.3390/su11113071

Abstract

Dynamic land use changes in metropolitan areas are global phenomena. The influence of urbanisation processes on farmland is twofold: urban encroachments predominantly take place at the expense of farmland, and also result in farmland abandonment processes, especially in Central Eastern and Southern Europe. This paper analyses determinants of farmland abandonment in 280 municipalities situated in six selected Polish metropolitan areas. The analysis, which covers secondary statistical data as well as primary data collected via a survey among experts, applies the regression tree method. Within the six selected metropolitan areas nearly 9% of the farmland is permanently excluded from agricultural production (actual abandonment), plus another 11.5% is currently not being used for production (semi-abandonment). For actual abandonment, physical and economic sizes of farms, part-time farming, and soil quality constitute the most relevant determinants. Socio-economic variables play a more important role in explaining semi-abandonment than actual abandonment. Temporary exclusion of farmland from agricultural production is connected with urbanisation processes. Higher shares of built-up and urbanised areas, higher population densities, and positive migration rates result in higher shares of semi-abandonment. Naturally, areas characterised by agrarian fragmentation, where due to low agricultural incomes farmers more often decided to abandon agricultural production, were, in particular, subject to this process.

Highlights

Dynamic land use changes in metropolitan areas are global phenomena [1,2,3]
The fundamental question posed in this paper concerns the factors that determine the scale of farmlTahnedfaubnadnadmonemnteanl tq. uTehseticoonnpstorusecdtedinrethgirsespsaiopnertrceoenmceordneslsthsheofwacttohrast tthheatmdoestteirmmpinoertathnet vscaarilaebolef feaxrpmlalainnidngatbhaensdhoanremoefnat.ctTuhaleacboannsdtoruncmteedntriesgtrheesssiiozenotfrefaermmso; dineltshisshcoawse tshmaatllthfaermmsobsteloimwp5ohrtaanotf vfaarrmialbalnede(xFpilgauinrein3g).the share of actual abandonment is the size of farms; in this case small farms below 5 ha of farmland (Figure 3)
Actual farmland abandonment of the chosen six Polish metropolitan areas (MA), i.e., the share of farmland that is permanently excluded from agricultural production and is not maintained in a good agricultural condition, covers 8.6% AA

Summary

Introduction

Dynamic land use changes in metropolitan areas are global phenomena [1,2,3]. The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed urban growth and sprawl on a scale never seen before due to people being attracted to peri-urban areas and beyond [4,5]. Due to the increasing predominance of buildings and the new infrastructures associated with them, there has been overspill into areas which traditionally formed part of the rural landscape, making them more and more disparate, resulting in them losing their identity [1,5,10,11]. Is agricultural land progressively diminishing, but we are facing the prospect of large swathes of land that are abandoned or given over to miscellaneous use [4,5,12]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion