Change in the Level of Agricultural Development in the Context of Public Institutions’ Activities—A Case Study of the NASC Activities in Poland

Abstract

Agricultural development is determined by various factors, such as environmental, economic, demographic, or social circumstances. In order to present the level of this development as com-prehensively as possible, a multidimensional analysis should be carried out with an appropriate methodology. In this article, a taxonomic approach known as the Hellwig’s method was used to determine the level of agricultural development. The area of research was the territory of Poland, divided into voivodships, which are the main units of the administrative division of the country. The development of agriculture thus determined was correlated with activities pursued by the National Agricultural Support Centre (NASC), an institution responsible for the management of agricultural real estate owned by the State Treasury in Poland. The results showed that the NASC’s activities are related to the level of agricultural development in every voivodship. The investigated model of rural space management was shown to be a rational one, performing well in today’s market conditions. The proposed methodology could adapt to similar situations and can be used in similar research on rural areas.

Keywords

• rural areas
• agriculture development
• Hellwig’s method
• correlation
• NASC
• sustainability