State agricultural land lease and sale in Poland in 2020

Poland has a size of 312.696 km2 (31,3 mln ha), out of which, in 2018, over 1.4 million farms used 14.7 million ha of agricultural land. Part of this land is owned by the state and managed by the National Agricultural Support Center (KOWR). From the beginning of the operation of the National Center for Agricultural Support and its legal predecessors: the Agricultural Property Agency of the Treasury and the Agricultural Property Agency, from 1991 until 31 January 2020, 4.478.579 ha of land was included in the State Treasury Agricultural Property Stock (State Stock), of which 3.383.722 ha were permanently allocated. As part of the sale and paid transfer, 2.716.329 ha were allocated. 667.392 ha were distributed free of charge, among other to local governments (59.080 ha), state forests (154.512 ha), church legal persons (90.263 ha) and entities authorized under the Water Law (236.745 ha).
At the end of March 2020, 1.365 thousand ha of state-owned land remained in the State Stock, of which approx. 1.046 thousand ha are leased land, and almost 195.600 ha are to be allocated. Almost half of the land remaining in the State Stock is located within the area of ​​operation of 4 branches: in Dolnoslaskie province, Wielkopolskie province, Zachodniopomorskie province (west of Poland) and Warminsko-Mazurskie province (north-east of Poland).

Lease of state-owned arable land

The basic form of land use for the state-owned arable land is rent. As at the end of March 2020, almost 1.460 thousand ha remained in the lease.  The largest areas of leased land are in the following provinces:

• Zachodniopomorskie - 214 thousand ha;
• Wielkopolskie - 159 thousand ha;
• Dolnoslaskie - 146 thousand ha and
• Warminsko-Mazurskie - 124 thousand ha.

In the first quarter of this year a total of 7.600 ha of land were leased.

The land of the State Stock is leased mainly by tender. The basic type of tender for a lease is a restricted tender in which only individual farmers wishing to enlarge or create a family farm may participate. In the period from the beginning of January to the end of March 2020, almost 1.3 thousand tenders for a lease were held throughout the country.

It is worth noting that in the first quarter of 2020, 370 lease contracts were extended to an area of ​​9.400 ha.

Lands to be allocated

As at the end of March 2020, 195.600 ha of the property of the State Stock remained to be allocated. The largest areas to be allocated are available to local branches: in Wrocław and Szczecin, then in Gorzów, Olsztyn and Poznań - a total of 114.000 ha.

An estimated assessment of the suitability of these lands for various purposes (as of December 2019) indicated that a significant part of the land (approx. 73%) can be sold or leased to KOWR contractors for agricultural production purposes, however most of these lands are characterized by low agricultural usefulness and significant fragmentation. Further land (approx. 17%) was identified as eligible for non-agricultural purposes - especially for afforestation and construction, as well as for recreation and nature protection purposes. For other lands (approx. 10%), possible directions of possible use were not defined. It is estimated that a significant proportion of these lands are characterized by high fragmentation and other unfavorable features (e.g. unregulated water relations, stony, located on slopes, cliffs, etc.).

Source: Agropolska.pl, KOWR