Poland: agricultural news week 51

Dynamic development of Polish wine industry

The Polish wine market is developing dynamically. In the 2019/20 season, 6374l of wine were delivered to the market, which translates into approx. 850,000 wine bottles. The wine production in Poland in the last two years has increased by 100%.

The wine market in Poland began to change dynamically as a result of a number of changes in the national legislation at the beginning around 2010. Although establishing a vineyard requires a considerable financial outlay, currently 330 vineyards are registered in the KOWR records. To compare: in 2017 only a dozen such entities were registered.

The largest number of wine producers is located in the Małopolskie (64) and Lubuskie (38) voivodships. Currently, the largest acreage of grape cultivation is to find in the Lubuskie (19%) and Małopolskie (16%) region. Preliminary estimates for the 2020/21 season show that production may increase by about 2,000 hl (hecto liter =1000l) compared to the previous year.

Regions where winemaking is developing dynamically often coincide with attractive tourist regions with developed agritourism infrastructure, enotourism is popular for these places, i.e. visiting the region combined with winemaking which may be the additional source of income for the Polish wine makers.

Source: KOWR

Tobbaco in Poland

Tobacco production has a long tradition in Poland, its origins date back to the end of the 16th century. Currently, the cultivation of tobacco is covered by regulations aiming to limit the gray trade in tobacco and tobacco products in Poland.

Poland is one of the largest tobacco producers in Europe. There are 10 producers groups operating on the tobacco market, associating about 3100 members, which is about 67% of all registered growers.

Tobacco plantations in Poland are highly regionalized. More than half of the domestic production is located in the Lubelskie region (66%), less in Podkarpacie (about 11%), as well as in Małopolska and Świętokrzyskie.

Several varieties of tobacco are grown in Poland. Light varieties dominate: Virginia (over 70%) and Burley (approx. 25%). Dark tobacco is Skroniowski Mocny, Puławski and Kentucky.

Over the last decade, there has been a clear decline in the production of this raw material in Poland. In 2012, tobacco cultivation was carried out on 9,5 thousands farms on an area of approximately 15,000 ha. In 2019, the number of tobacco production farms was only slightly more than 4,000 companies in an area of less than 10,000 ha. This decrease is caused by gradual reduction of subsidies for tobacco cultivation done by the Common Agricultural Policy and activities carried out by WHO - to minimize the consumption of tobacco products.

Source: KOWR

Export destinations of Polish blueberry

In Poland we can observe an increase in the cultivation area of blueberries. In the years 2004-2019, the cultivation areas of those fruit increased 12 times and the harvest of blueberries increased from 4 thousand tonnes to nearly 35 thousand tonnes. Blueberries are harvested manually. The yield from one bush in full fruition period 6-7 years after planting, depending on a variety, is, on the average 3-6 kg.

The export of blueberries is regularly growing. In 2019 25% of the whole Polish production volume of blueberries were sold to the foreign markets. The major destination countries remains the EU as 93% of the whole export is sold in the European market.

Blueberries have a positive effect on the sight and memory, play a supporting role in preventing hypertension and tumors.

Source: Polish Food