Poland’s agricultural sector is vital for European and global markets because it produces a variety of agricultural, horticultural and animal origin products. The surface area of agricultural land in Poland is 15.4 million ha, which constitutes nearly 50% of the total area of the country.
Agriculture in Poland has always been an important part of the country’s economy. Out of the 18.727 million hectares (46.28 million acres) of agricultural land (about 60 percent of Poland’s total area), 14.413 million hectares (35.62 million acres) were used for crop cultivation, 265 thousand hectares (650 thousand acres) for orchards, and about 4,048,500 hectares (10,004,000 acres) for meadows and pastures in 1989. In most areas, soil and climatic conditions favored a mixed type of farming.
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The Polish small farm sector
Source: https://www.fao.org/family-farming/countries/pol/en/
The definition of small farms found in the Polish agricultural sector, measuring their size and character against balanced agricultural goals. The sector comprises, according to the 2010 agricultural census, some 1.4 million farms under 5 ha and with an economic size of 4 standards output (SO) or less. This represents 63% of private agricultural holdings in Poland. Although the number of these holdings is diminishing, their share is still very high.
Analysis of this group has shown, that majority of these small agricultural holdings do not meet the principal criteria for the balanced development of agriculture, which is to contribute to national food needs in accordance with their area and the size of their production base. Clearly visible is a tendency to decrease an already low level of plant production and resign from animal production on such holdings. As a consequence they are providing fewer real work places, and the share of income from agricultural production in their total income is decreasing.
These holdings are characterised also by being low balance with the environment. Primarily they are not sustaining soil productivity. Analysis clearly indicates a cautious approach towards support for small holdings. State help should be linked with clearly defined production and non-production obligations. Such support should not hamper progress of family farms in terms of area structure, production and economic strength.
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The Polish Wine Industry
A journey through the Lubuskie wine region is not only a road in space, but in time. Because no other country in Poland has such traditions. Vineyards have been growing here at least since the 12th century, and there is a rather secondary discussion as to whether the first former Cistercians or Franconian settlers started them. It is important, however, that winemaking has left its mark not only on the economy of the region, but also on its culture and art.
The documentary film “Poland Tuscany” is a guide prepared for people interested in travel, geography and history of Poland, cuisine, wine and active leisure. A trip through the vineyards is a pretext to show the beauty of the region and numerous opportunities for spending time in an interesting way.
Lubuskie is not only wine, the quality of which is slowly appreciated by gourmets and connoisseurs, but also the love that winemakers surround their vineyards, respect for nature that produces fruit and for the drink itself. In addition, we will find here everything that makes wine lovers feel at home. Good cheeses, cabbage rolls in grape leaves (golombki) and the ubiquitous spirit of vineyards, whether in the details of the facades of old tenement houses, museums, open-air museums, and finally people’s memories …
This is the third film whose originator and producer is “Gazeta Lubuska”. After the typically historic “Events in Zielona Góra” and “Kresy”.
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Winnica Golesz
Roman Myśliwiec – called the Dionysus from Jasło, founder of the Golesz Vineyard, grower, president and founder of the Polish Institute of Vine and Wine, vice president for training of the Podkarpacie Winemakers Association, coordinator of local wine programmess, author of a dozen books and numerous publications on wine matters, member of the Wine Chapter Of the Jagiellonian University, member of the international organization Ordo Equestris Vini Europeae (European State of the Knights of Wine) and the originator and co-organizer of the International Wine Days in Jasło. Decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Websites: http://www.winnica.golesz.pl/, http://roman-mysliwiec.pl/winorosl-i-wino/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roman.mysliwiec
The name of the farm refers to the nearby ruins of the Golesz Castle. This castle played a significant role in the mediaeval history of the city of Jasło and its vicinity. It was situated on a steep hill in the village of Krajowice, formerly known as Krajowski Bród. According to history researchers, the castle was a watchtower on the communication route leading through the Wisłoka valley. It was built in the 11th century and, according to historians, it was at that time a defensive fortress of great strength. Golesz survived the invasion of the commander of the Magyars, Matthias Corvinus in 1474. Most of the surrounding towns and villages were then completely destroyed. After the change of communication routes, the defensive importance of the castle decreased, and the first serious destruction of the castle was carried out by the Swedes in 1664. Since then, the castle slowly fell into disrepair. In the towns adjacent to the castle, a weaving industry developed at that time, producing beautiful calico. In 1811, the owner of the weaving factories, Achilles Jeaunot, turned the ruins of Golesz Castle into an English-style holiday garden. The hill was full of alleys, paths, bridges. He also established a zoo with fallow deer, and preserved the ruins of the castle and reinforced it with balustrades. However, this did not save the castle from the final destruction that took place during the invasion of Rakoczi’s Hungarian troops. The castle was completely burnt, and the stone tower and courtyard were demolished by the local people as building material for the foundations of nearby houses.
The Golesz Vineyard, which resembles this historical place, was founded in 1982. The vineyard is located on a south-west slope, several meters above the Wisłoka valley, on the Jasło – Pilzno route. The first bush in the vineyard was the Ontario variety brought from Jarosław. The greater number of bushes in the rows of Bianca and Perła Zali varieties was planted in 1985 by befriended Hungarian winemakers. Currently, around 7,000 grapevines are grown on the area of 2 ha. In the remaining area, there are nurseries of grafting stocks, in the summer season there is also a vine nursery, residential and farm buildings and a wine cellar.
The main activity of the farm is a program of testing new grape varieties for many years, in terms of suitability to Polish climatic conditions. New, promising varieties were imported from various foreign research institutions, mainly from Hungary, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, the Czech Republic, Germany, the USA and Canada. Currently, the so-called hybrids of complex vines. Thanks to their natural resistance features, these varieties best tolerate the conditions of the Polish climate. The vine processing varieties occupy a special place in the experimental work. Every year, the fruit of these varieties is used to make wine. The results of the work in the vineyard and cellar prove that at least several new processing varieties, suitable for the climate of warmer regions of Poland, can be used to obtain good quality table wines and even quality wines. Commodity growing of grapevines for wine in Poland is possible and may be profitable. The results of experimental work in the Golesz vineyard have been repeatedly presented in TVP’s educational programs, published in the gardening press and in many book publications by Roman Myśliwiec.
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VITI CULTURA is the only company in Poland that performs comprehensive specialist work related to the establishment of vineyards and launching wine production: from the general concept, selection of the vineyard location and plot preparation, to assistance in wine distribution and professional wine training.
VITICULTURA ™ vineyard posts
Many years of work on vineyards in Europe and Poland allowed VITI CULTURA to carefully look at various scaffolding systems.
These experiences led to a project that responds to the needs of modern viticulture.
The product created by VITI CULTURA combines innovation, durability and ergonomics, while reducing investment and current work costs.
Viti Cultura offers a system designed from start to finish by people who have many years of professional experience in working on vineyards. We trust that this solution will fully meet your expectations.
✅ The vineyard was founded in 2003 among beautiful hills covered with lush forest. More than 1,300 noble grapevines grow here: red varieties Pinot Noir, Regent, Dornfelder, Saint Laurent, for white wines – Silvaner, Gewurztraminer, Chrupka, Solaris, Kernling and Veltliner, as well as dessert grapes.
✅ We were shown around the vineyard by an enthusiast and master of the art of winemaking – the owner, Mr. Roman Grad.
✅ He told us in detail about viticulture, varieties and care
✅ In the vineyard there is the Museum of Miniature Wine Facilities, which presents the most important objects related to winemaking in the city of Zielona Góra – we admit that they are really interesting and we listened with pleasure to the stories about their creation, purpose and post-war fate, when the Lubuskie lands were incorporated into Polish
✅🍷 At the end of a pleasant sightseeing tour, we were invited to taste wonderful wines from “Julia Vineyard”
✅🍷 No bullshit! – Lubusz wines are of very good quality and have an excellent bouquet of flavours and impressions 💪
✅ A visit to the Lubuskie vineyards should be a must-see in the program of visiting this green patch of Poland!
✅ An interesting statement about wine and its consumption was made by the genius surrealist Salvador Dali: “a true connoisseur does not drink wine, but tastes its secrets, experiences deep impressions that wine creates”. And we agree with it 101%!
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A good overview of the main Polish wine growing regions and some of the vineyards
You will also learn a lot about Polish vineyards, and we will recommend you the best wine from Polish producers.
