DETERMINANTS OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND FOOD SECURITY IN POLAND

Annotation: Food security is a key challenge to the agriculture of the European Union, including Poland. Each state is obliged to ensure food security to all its citizens. Poland's accession into the European Union gave rise to an increase in the food security of the country. Poland is a major manufacturer of agricultural commodities in the European Union. The country has great potential in terms of the area of agricultural land. However, there is a number of obstacles to the growth of production and yield. One of them involves an unfavourable agricultural structure and the dominance of small individual farms. Granted, there have been many favourable changes in Polish villages since the country's accession to the EU, but some options have not been employed yet. The main purpose of this paper is to present food security in Poland. It was found that Poland has generated surplus as regards food production. However, it was highly diversified, depending on the types of products. As a result of increase in food production and household income, in Poland, the percentage of food expenses in general expenditure is on a decline. Food self-sufficiency has been analysed in terms of agricultural production, followed by the presentation of the balance of foreign trade in agri-food products. Attention has also been devoted to the factors behind food security, including, inter alia, the economic availability of foods in the context of people's income and the percentage of food expenses.