Abstract
The paper discusses the position of agriculture in the economy at various levels of economic development and in various schools of economic theory. The complexity of the analyzed area is a consequence of the fact that agriculture is one of the first forms of conscious and organized human activity. Its importance for society and economy results from the main goal of this activity, which is to satisfy the basic human need, the need to satisfy hunger. The study depicts three basic perspectives from which agriculture is presented in economic theory: (i) relations between agriculture and other sectors of the economy, (ii) the main forces shaping the mechanism of changes and the development of agriculture, and (iii) basic directions (paths) taking place in a time of changes in agriculture. In the second part of the paper, one of the three main perspectives illustrating the position of agriculture in the economy and in the theory of economics, i.e., the relations between agriculture and other sectors of the economy, was subject to empirical verification. The assessment was carried out on the example of Polish agriculture and its evolution over time. The analysis covers the changes that occurred after 1950 in areas such as the potential of agriculture in the economy (land, labor, and capital resources), the contribution of agriculture to creating added value (GNI/GDP), agricultural production, participation in foreign trade and changes in food consumption.
Highlights
Apart from producing tools for everyday use, agriculture1 is one of the first forms of conscious, organized human activity
Its emergence brought about significant changes in the organization of tribal groups, leading to the evolution of primitive social and economic forms towards what we presently call civilization
Agriculture was elevated to the rank of the basic sector of the economy by physiocrats
Summary
Apart from producing tools for everyday use, agriculture is one of the first forms of conscious, organized human activity. Just like in the case of the economy, the importance of agriculture sustainability has been emphasized increasingly often than that of forces driving growth in agriculture or specific changes Such forces include: demographic changes (stimulating the demand for food), natural factors, such as farm size, farmers’ education level, global warming, social and economic conditions (income/per capita, consumption model, land ownership security, price stability, deforestation, technology availability, access to non-agricultural labor markets), political and institutional factors (the efficiency of state authorities, the institutional organization of farmers) (Pham and Smith, 2014). It was not until 1992 that the rate of food price growth decreased significantly (Gulbicka, 1997)
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