Author(s)

A. Czarnecki & A. Lewandowska-Czarnecka

Abstract

Farm sustainability depends on policy that is able to protect natural resources while being open to the market. Traditional crop pressing on natural processes creates an open input-output unstable system. Farming situated in a postglacial landscape cannot counteract erosion and does not engage in all natural resources. The poplar stand has an ability to renew the soil system and assimilate the surplus of mobile substances. This paper presents a proposal to combine poplar with a traditional crop to make the biosystem able to engage in all resources to develop efficient production while making the system more stable. The concept is related to the results of the investigation carried out on farms dealing with typical problems and poplar stands in a similar soil condition. Keywords: farming, poplar, crop, sustainability and policy. 1 Introduction Until the 1980’s Polish agricultural production was controlled by the state, whose aim was to produce maximum crops, the results of which strongly impact on the environment, compromised natural resources and the functions of the ecosystem on arable land. Poland’s past agriculture intensity reduced soil structure [1] reaped the landscape of vital nutritional elements. Natural habitats, hedgerows, the majority of wetlands and small surface water basins have all but vanished [2], those which remain are (predominantly) highly polluted due to neighboring agro-ecosystems. The 1990s saw the external conditions for farming totally change. Production met the limited market, resulting in decreased prices for primary agricultural products; forcing farms to begin careful management of natural resources, and an initially expensive investment into farming methods, to

Keywords

farming, poplar, crop, sustainability and policy.