Flagship project partners in Poland

This was the third practical activity in the flagship project. Besides having a day for the project participants we participated in the international conference “Social and economic problems of small agricultural holdings in Europe” held in Kraków Poland. The structure of farming and rural societies in southern Poland is dominated of small and very small farms, the conference and the presentations gave a much better understanding of the context of rural youth.

Youth, job and education

Many young people want to leave their home villages to see new things and try other places. An idea is to try to attract them to other rural areas instead of to a city. One way could be to place some higher education on the countryside, in cooperation with universities. By connecting the education with the local community life the students will get a social network and there is a chance they might stay even after the education.

Young people that have been travelling, working or studying for a while in other villages, cities or countries have lots of ideas – why not try to connect them for exchange of experiences and a common learning?

We also had many thoughts about the role of small farms. There was someone who said “young people do not want to work with small farm units”. Maybe in ten years the small farms will disappear and big farms will absorb them. There is a trend of just relying on subsidies and undefined support. Will that really work out? Some said that all the EU money, direct payments etc are actually killing the small farms.

But at the same time we met with more than one small farmer during our study visits whom were making good living on their land.

You cannot get everything you want in one single moment. There is no “magic trick” to change a declining rural area in an instant. You have to show the advantage of living in a rural area. Small farms are a perspective but they have to be specialized.

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