Here is the aggregated input on topic #4 - How small farms address future challenges
Lack of successors:
Conducting research among farmers in Polish Reference Regions (Reference Regions in Poland are located in mountain and sub mountain areas), we can observe that most of the farmers do not know what will happen with their
farms in the future. There is a huge problem with successors among small farm owners. Some of them want to pass on their farms, but their children do not want it. There is also a group of farmers who indicated that they do not want to engage their children
into agriculture and they will do everything to assure they get a higher education, and job beyond farming.
Problems with land acquisition:
Agriculture land is very expensive in Poland. During the last months, several changes were made in the Polish agriculture law. These cause problems on the agriculture land market, especially for those who as newcomers
want to start an agriculture activity.
Another issue are direct payments, which in small farms are very important source of income. Farmers (or rather land owners) do not want to sell, or rent formal agriculture land, however they are ready to rent informal
land just to keep them in good condition and do not have problems with obtaining direct payments.
Lack of ideas for the future:
Farmers who are still engage in farming, often do not have an idea how to increase their economic efficiency, how to increase value of their production, how to convince people to buy their production. I can observe problem
of stagnation which influences agriculture income of the farmers, their willingness to work and in effect there is often a strategy introduced by farmers: "survive until retire”.
Three major challenges small farms face, are:
- Lack of land — this is practically a common issue.
- Lack of capital — is an issue that hinders progress and makes farmers poor, as they find it difficult to expand their businesses.
- lack of market ---which leads to post harvests loss and decline in profit.