The socio-demographic structure of the population in semi-subsistence farms

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of the socio-demographic structures of the population on semi-subsistence farms, characterized by poor production potential (up to 8 ESU), compared with the population of other commercial farms (over 8 ESU). The characteristics of the population and the location of economic activity determine the processes of economic activity diversification and pro-effective transformations in the structure of Polish agriculture. It has been documented that the socio-demographic characteristics of the semi-subsistence-farms population are not much different from the characteristics of the commercial-entities population. At the same time, the level of scholarisation among the individuals from semisubsistence-farm families was lower, especially regarding agricultural education, which concerns particularly the managers of farms. The population of semi-subsistence farms was active mainly on the non-agricultural labour market. An analysis of the main sources of maintenance of semi-subsistence-farm families indicated above all a general division of this population into two groups - one whose maintenance depends on performing non-agricultural work (48%) and one which receives its maintenance sources from pension and retirement benefits (30%). Despite relatively small production and, consequently, low income from agricultural activity, the farms were the main source of maintenance for 22% of families from semi-subsistence farms, being the only source for only 9%. The characteristics of the socio-demographic structure allow us to predict that a large number of families from semi-subsistence farms will change their status into small farms. The situation concerning the labour market may accelerate or hamper the process of disappearing of semi-subsistence farms.