Question about farming in Poland.

I'm working on a report for school, and I'm trying to find out whether the farming done in Poland is done mostly by hand or machine. Any help would be much appreciated!

What type of farming?
Many people here have a small plot on which they grow their own food for themselves, they still have other jobs that they earn their money from but it is tradition, custom or they just like growing things themselves, this is not so large that you would buy machinery for.

Then there are bigger farms which of course use machinery but it does not seem so long ago since horses was used and you can still find them in use but less and less.

Please note, I am an Irish man living in Poland and these statements are just my observations.

True.

Okay, thanks! i just need a basic overview of how people farm in poland for my gourmet 2 class, we had to pick a country and write a report on different aspects of the country that have to do with food, and that was one piece of information i was having difficulty finding

This is true to an extent, as many farmers will have some machines on their farms, with almost all of them having tractors and associated equipment.

And if the farm is too small to afford to buy all of the equipment then they will share them between themselves.

My father-in-law is a dairy farmer with 53 cows and by Polish standards that is quite big and next week he has to cut his 25 hectares of maize silage for winter food. However, he does not own a maize harvester, but his neighbour does, so my father-in-law's neighbour will cut his maize and my father-in-law will harvest his friends corn with the combine harvester that he owns next year.

This seems to be a common practise amongst farmers of this area, and I should think this is practised throughout Poland.

Try contacting the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside (ICPPC) - they have a lot of information and statistics about the state of Polish farming.

Just a warning to all expats here in Poland. There seems to be two laws, one for Poles and one for 'Aliens'. Seems anyone with land can pay into the Kruz insurance, having no animals no crops etc. BUT if you are an 'Alen', expect to be burdened with the normal amount of paperwork that is totaly irrelavent and having an inspector to look over the property and count the livestock. My neighbour pays into Kruz, works black market for a nearby company with a company car thrown in,also at the weekend oversees the service in a restraunt at a local hotel and wouldn't know how to mow the lawn never mind grow or breed anything other than children.

Anyway welcome and hello to all Ex-pats here in Poland.
IAn Bielsko.

Ian, on my understanding foreigners have to have special permission from the ministry to own farming land in Poland, at least that was the case for myself. So this may explain some of the crazy bureaucracy that goes with owning farming land in Poland.

From my observations while driving in the countryside: I can see most farmers have tractors and use them a lot. However, there are some kinds of farming activities which you must do by hand, e.g., planting tobacco.

Actually our neighbour plants his tobacco with a machine like this one below.

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  tobacco_planting.jpg
  

Very clever invention. So, it is possible to plant tobacco by machine, not hand. Thanks for enlightening me.

However, picking the leaves MUST be done by hand. :):):) I see it almost every day now while driving on roads out of Krakow.

Here you may find statistical info about agriculture in Poland.