The overall productivity of agricultural land in Poland amounts to about 3 tonnes of cereal grain per ha or about 650 kg grain per inhabitant. This, relatively low productivity can be explained by the poor, prevalently sandy soils showing high acidity and low content of available nutrients. This productivity, after correction for the soil and climatic conditions, corresponds to the productivity of 4 820 to 5 420 kg grain units in continental western Europe.
To ensure food self-sufficiency for the country, crop production should be increased by at least 10 percent. The easiest way to achieve this goal would be to increase mineral fertilizer consumption. The fertilizer market collapsed after the introduction of the economic reforms in 1990 and has been recovering slowly in recent years at a yearly rate of a few percent. Taking into consideration that the efficiency of mineral fertilizers is in the range of 7 to 9 kg of grain units per 1 kg NPK, for ensuring the country's food self-sufficiency the consumption of fertilizers should grow by about 45 kg NPK per ha of land under cultivation i.e. to the level of at least 130 kg NPK per ha.
A higher share than at present should be accounted for by phosphorus and potassium, at the expense of nitrogen. This can be justified by the fact that the soil surface balance of nitrogen shows a surplus, while phosphorus is practically balanced and the balance of potassium is negative.
The agricultural policy in Poland should vary between the regions. In the central and western regions of the country, agriculture is generally well developed, matches the western Europe standards and can more or less cope with the financial problems. In the northern part of the country, agriculture is going through a very difficult time due to transformation processes connected with the former land structure (the prevalence of state farms). In eastern Poland, with some exceptions, agriculture will face a permanent crisis due to the land fragmentation among the huge number of very small farms, unless some firm political and economic measures are taken.
